Bang for the buck speakers

[ckelly]

Which speakers offer the most bang for the buck in your opinion?

I liked the Paradigm Titans - for under $200 they are pretty hard to beat.

[Kamakiri]

I used Titans as my main speakers for about a year, and I've got to agree! They have a fantastic sound from such a small box. I had two sets, but sold one to help finance my Pioneer SX-1250.....still figuring out if I shoulda sold them. I now use my remaining pair with my TV setup in conjunction with the Sansui G-901.

[THOR]

I concur with your assesments gentlemen.

[ProAc_Fan]

Yep the Titans are nice and also Canadian. They are getting a bit long in the tooth though. For something a bit newer I'd suggest Axioms M3ti's. They are reasonably priced and a little more neutral than the Paradigms.Axioms homepage (http://www.axiomaudio.com/)



Mike

P.S. If you live in Canada just ignore the prices on the website. You can buy them way cheaper at any Canadian dealer.

[THOR]

Who cares how old they are Pro Ac its the sound that matters, how old are those DQ 10's?? Those are perhaps a little long in the tooth also eh?

[ProAc_Fan]

Thor the 10's are classics.I look at it sort of like cars. A 1995 Chrysler is "old" while a 1955 vette is a "classic". The titans are a great bargain and are not to be taken lightly all I was saying is the Axioms are very similarly priced and sound less harsh than the Titans. BTW Thor which forum are you moderating? I didn;t see the beer drinking message board yet!!:dunno:



Mike

[THOR]

THOR = drinking beer and BBQing right now :D

[ckelly]

I had a pair of titans for some time, they cost $150 here in chile brand new.

I bought them to make a bare bones cheap system to tide me over my unemployment.

I think they have been in the market for a long time simply because they offer an amazing price to performance ratio.

Now I have a pair of Paradigm Monitor 3's and like them even more.

Chris

[Rob]

Originally posted by ProAc_Fan
..... BTW Thor which forum are you moderating? I didn;t see the beer drinking message board yet!!:dunno:



Mike

Mike,

Why not drop this as a suggestion for a new forum into the suggestion box! :)

Rob

[SixCats!]

Hi guys,

Some good suggestions here. I have heard excellent comments on both the Titans and the Axioms. I however could live "happily ever after" with a pair of Maggie MMG's ($550.00 U.S. delivered). It would be MY choice for THE best sounding (read HIGH END) speakers for the least money.
Of course...the MMG's could never reach the SPL,Bass,etc. (i.e. NOT a THOR speaker) that my Vintage Pioneer HPM 100's could but...in terms of overall AUDIOPHILE sound quality...if there is a better speaker deal than the Maggie MMG's...I sure would like to know what it is. SixCats!

[Sidewinder]

I am still using my AR 3a's that I got in 1967 when I worked for the company. They still have great bass - but you need a good amp to power them at their fullest capability.

[bully]

Second thoots & sidewinder's comments.
Also to consider would be the Celestion Ditton series, and the Pioneer CS-77/77A, 88/88A, & 99/99A. I have had bot the 88A & the 99A, they were efficient and accurate reproducers, & beautiful to boot.
Then there would be the Advent [Larger] Loudspeaker and the Infinity's from their earlier series, especially the Qb (I can vouch for these) and the Quantum Jr. (I just missed on a pair thru eBay).
The Celestion Ditton 44 is something you must hear, they are a fine speaker system!
Also, the second series of HPM systems are not to be overlooked.

happy hunting, bang for the buck is the point of vintage AFTER the sound!
pete

[Don]

bang for the buck would have to be any TOTL used speaker ...I want to say cornwalls at around $600 used (if you can find them local) but that would be lame just because I own them.


Ok, cheesy as I may sound I have to recommend any used klipsch speakers from their heritage line. Save a hundred or more over ebay prices by scouring your local classfieds. They'll turn up in there eventually.

[WildWest]

Hey, I have even yet another school of thought to throw in the mix here. Isn't this hobby fun!!?? Check this angle out...

While it is true that years ago some super fine speakers were made. I myself love 60's JBL & Altec Lansing speakers. Amazing drivers! Some of the best ever. But also in todays market there are quality drivers available with often better raw materials (cones surrounds) in them than those precious "old days". I have seen the specs and drivers from, lets say Focal, Scan Spek etc. I have held these quality drivers in my hands. You can tell just by that they are good.

Now it was my understanding that around the early to mid 70's the speaker designers/engineers realized that like sound pressures could be reached with speakers using two smaller drivers equaling the size of the one big main driver. An added bonus that was realize here was the detail became enhanced. Hence we started to see more and more of this type of design.

I try to break this whole thought pattern down to it's simplist form so that my feeble mind can understand it. Gosh, could I be so terribly off base? Here's my thought... Speakers produce sound waves in the air, in the walls, in the speaker cabinet, you name it. The larger the speaker the more hard pounding this wav is, the more damaging it can be. Now, I always grew up with the knowledge that vibrations where one doesn't want them is a bad thing. Your turntable, your CD player, you name it. We used to always talk about "dead cabinets" when we were building custom cabinets in the 60's, (Well I was still a very young boy but I was around my brother and the fellas that did this and talked it) Know what I mean?

Soooooo my thought was this. Keep vibrations no matter how small away from where they shouldn't be. A large floor standing speaker, while it may be braced to beat the band, still introduces vibrations into drivers expecting to create mid and high range frequencies So when the mid range or tweet is producing it's sound they also are being shaken by bass vibrations. (end result, muddy sound no matter how slight) So to me, I don't want deep bass vibrations in my mid and high range driver cabinet if I am looking for the most clear detail from those drivers. I like detail myself.

My current speakers are a clasic example that fits my logic. The cabinets are 1.5 inch MDF. I would venture to say that even our beloved vintage cabinets rarely see that. Overkill one might say? Ummm again, I am a believer in a dead cabinet. Noooo unwanted vibrations near my precious mid range drivers. With two smaller Focal drivers in this cabinet they produce amazing detail and high SPL to boot. That is everything above about 55 hz. Since they are not working to create lower frequncies they really drive loud. Below that I like a quality active subwoofer. The sub woofers of today with their related designs and calculations are simply amazing. Deticated amps to push drivers in exacting enclosures to meet a very specific range of frequency and SPL. That cabinet is ONLY made for deep bass period and they clearly do their job very well as sub woofers these days are widely used and are getting more popular all the time.

Yes, I love my vintage gear and LOVE my vintage speakers but I do know also that I am able to get a modern product that will out perform most of the old school of design and materials. Yeah ya have to step up to the plate for it but... Look at capacitors for instance. Most of todays capacitors far exceed the standards and quality of capacitors of old.

While not all speakers these days are of the better quality and most won't hold a candle to the vintage counterpart, don't discount them all. Ask the manufacturer what the drivers are. Ask about the cabinet, crossover etc. Some are pure quality, many are well...ugghhh

"Best bang for the buck"? I would have to agree with others here that many of our vintage speakers take the prize. No question beyond a doubt! You can drop 200.00 on some fine
Paradigm Titans but you won't get near the sound for the same or less dollars with various vintage speakers. Shoot, my JBL Lancer 66s cost all of 30 bucks. Hmmmm refoam another 80 and I PROMISE these bad boys will eat the Titans etc. for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So there you go. Something else to ponder as you sleep tonight eh? I'm out like a trout... :zoom:

[THOR]

Well your theory may be right for some speakers but my large CV 4 way speakers have a seperate chamber for each driver. The 12" woofer on top has its own chamber seperated from the rest by MDF then the mids have their own little chamber of MDF and the tweet has its own MDF chamber, then 3/4 of the cabinet belongs to the 15" woofer.

[bully]

I'll agree that materials and processes have improved for the construction of drivers.
But then, what was common as dirt is now pay-through-the-nose.

"Entry-level" Pioneer CS-33's were put into fine furniture-grade cabinets. Midrange drivers were enclosed in there own little 'cup' thing (I have some Pioneer CS midrange drivers).
I have picked up several pairs of speakers intending to simply use the cabinets, but then they end up sounding fine. Mebbe with replacing the woofers, like with the Marantz 900's.
SixCats has a pair of CS-88's IIRC, those are solid wood cabinets, at least one-inch thick. I bought a pair of L100 cabinets to use in a project, but the dang things are practically mint, so I bought a pair of great whites that've been lost in the mail between Denmark and Nebraska. bummer.
new can be good, no probs with that.
but why pay retail or new gear used prices? when something very good is available.
For bass output you cannot beat physics. Either very big, or if small (ala the True Subwoofer, but that's Bob, again) a WHOLE LOTTA watts must be available (the True Sub comes with a 2,700-watt amp built in).
pete

[WildWest]

Thor, I understand what you mean by seperate chambers for drivers. Oh and by the way, I LOVE those speakers of yours! You are a lucky man... But regardless of seperate chambers your cabinet sees a lot of hard vibrations from those pounding woofers. The vibration transfers throught the MDF because it is directly coupled. While the actual air may be kept away, your cabinet still will see a higher degree of vibration compared to a cabinet that has no bass drivers in them. That was all I was trying to say. Is that vibration enough to make a differance? Heck, I can't say for absolute certain. It only seemed logical to me is all.

[THOR]

I must dispute you on this too because I have two large sets of speakers, the CV's and the Altec Lansing Model 15's. The Cv's are 100+ lbs a piece and the Altecs are around 70lbs I think. They are so massive and heavy that the cabinets do not vibrate. You can set a full drink on them at the highest volume and the glass won't go anywhere. The only vibrations on the ones that come from the floor from the pounding 15"ers. Actually the tops of all 4 speakers have picture frames sitting on them and they have never moved or fallen off.

[WildWest]

That's what makes this hobby so fun and this forum such a good one. There are many good points of view and excellent examples as you just now mentioned Thor. In the type of speaker in which you describe, I'm sure that any vibrations are so minimal that it makes no differance what so ever! That's a great idea too! The ole water in the glass test eh? I'll keep that one in mind.

[THOR]

;)

[WildWest]

Well that sure has given me a lot to think about. Thanks thoots, knew you would come through! :) I still would stand on the other side of the fence though. Probably one of the reasons I do is for I have a dual system. My main listening system not only provides me with two channel music but via a Niles switch, I can bring in a 5.1 AVR for DVD viewing. For that I must have a LFE channel and a subwoofer. So the extra effort to get a sub woofer right was (as difficult as you perceive it to be) worth the effort. How funny... I had forgetten all about the real differances people will have with respect to full range speakers and sub woofers. You guys really opened it up. This was a FUN thread for me! :)

[THOR]

I knew thoots would jump in on this :D

[WildWest]

:lmao:

(he he he) I knew you both would! ;)

[MikE]

I like the Adhire HE 10.1's . TIC stopped by a couple of weeks ago with these and I was very impressed with them IMS. This was in direct comparision to my $3500 Sonatinas. The $300 Adhires were very listenable! Highly recommended! MikE

[WildWest]

Hey thoots...

Ahhh yes, good ole stereo Dolby Pro Logic. Had me a Technics receiver and ran my front mains through a passive sub. Boy did I think that was hot stuff. LOL I guess by always being in the sub woofer mode it is something that I have stuck with. And now with 5.1 DVD it has risen to a whole other level that makes home theater even more fun! If you are statisfied with stereo Dolby Pro Logic I would be the LAST one to say a thing But, I always knew there was the "other side of the coin" when talking about music reproduction and how difficult it can be integrating an active sub woofer. Figgured there would be no better place than here to mention it.

Yes I listen to music with my sub woofer driving frequencies under about 55 hertz or so. My source for this is a quality pre amp and a push pull tube amp. As mentioned before. I have a Niles switch that allows me to toggle between tubes and AVR. Between my analog SPL meter and some DAT tapes my brother brought from the studio, I think music reprduction out of my system is proper. Must admit though, I would love some bass traps, that would really ROCK. Alas, one of these days when we remodle. You are so right that most people don't have a clue where to begin with respect to sub woofer set up and they toss it somewhere, fire it up and hear BOOM BOOM thinking it works. Shoot half the time it barely passes for 5.1 reproduction let alone music.

But as with my education with respect to vinyl over the past 1.5 years. I must consider what the "other camp" says in order to reach higher levels of sound reproduction. You can bet that I am going to always have an eye out for a steal on some nice vintage floorstanders. I would be very curious to do my own auditioning. Dang.. If I could only get motivated on the weekends early and hit the estate sales I betcha I would eventually come accross gold. ;)

[Walt]

Well the audio debate of the new millenium surfaces ... sub/sat vs full range ... hmmm

For me it's pretty straight forward ... for music - full range for 2 ch, no sub ... for HT - full range augmented by sub (so set full range speakers to "small" to activate LFE).

Tom - I am more inclined with your opinion on this subject, however I would question a couple of the points you made above ...

First, I was under the impression (well my ears agree anyway) that the LFE typically carried by an active sub were non-directional.

And although some people swear by the dual-subwoofer approach I doubt that it really makes much of a difference other than to add some more "boom" - in fact dual subs unless exactly in phase could possibly be creating more problems than they're worth if not correctly configured.

What I do agree with is the whole process of correctly calibrating sub levels with the rest of the setup (and this includes positioning of the sub) is just a horrible nightmare, and unless you have the time and patience to "get dirty" with SPL meter and calibration DVD/CD then you're just taking a shot in the dark.

WW has obviously set his system up correctly, Joe Average with his mini-cubes and "bass-module" OTOT has no idea, and is getting a severely compromised solution as a result - he would be better off with full range speakers for HT, but that's not the IMAGE of HT is it (according to the marketers anyway)?

My 2 c anyway ... :)

[bully]

Even for my HT system I have full-range speakers all around, and I also have a pair of Dahlquist PDQ-1500 active woofers running from the LFE. I use a pair of Yamaha NS-A838 four the mains, and another pair for the center, driven by an Onkyo M-5160 amp. For the surrounds I have a pair of Yammie NS-A638. I even have a spare 10-in active sub and a passive 12-inch sub I should use one or both for something, mebbe the surround.
Except for the INfinity Qb, the Marantz 900, and the smaller Advent, & and the smaller Yamaha, if it doesn't have at least a 12-inch woofer, can it really be called a LOUDspeaker. ;)
Of course, I am not in the camp that thinks interior design and decoration has any merit at all. Whazzat? Also, kinda from another thread, furniture? Who has room for furniture? Y'gotta bed, and a chair for sittin' at the PC, what else d'ya need.

heck, mebbe I have become a crotchety old bachelor. sheee-it
dang it all, but I do have good tunes.

pete

[WildWest]

Ok guys, here some big ole heavy vintage floorstanders just up the street from me. Whatcha think!? :D

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1361612134

[jay]

Walt, WW:

I've been down the road that the Thootster is describing--Over a year ago I dumped my housebrand JBL L-100 "clones" and jumped into the sub/sat setup.

I started with Ratshack Lx-5's but disliking everything but the tweeters I replaced them with NHT Zero's. The sound was still bad but now without the good tweeter to somewhat offset it.

I've now sold all that rubbish and am happily using 30 year old large Advents while looking for something higher up the food chain.

The idea that bass is non-directional is true--but only for very low bass. True, low bass under 20hz which is felt rather than heard is non-directional but most subwoofers are not true subwoofers but just woofers

Example: My sub crossed over at a ridiculous 200hz. At that level the song is understandable. Since my sats pulled all the way down to 80hz, that left at least 120hz where the sub and sats were talking over each other and muddying up the sound. I tend to think this mismatch is more common than not.

I haven't even touched on the subject of phase mismatch but instead of going into that, perhaps you'd like to read what retired Mcintosh engineer Roger Russell has posted on the subject. His comments are interesting in that some of the things we are debating here (such as 1 vs. 2 subs) were a hot topic of conversation in 1966.
Here's the Russell link: http://www.sundial.net/~rogerr/truth.htm#twosubwoofers

I wish I'd seen articles and forums like these a year ago before causing myself so much frustration.

Jay



:) P.S. Wildwest: To paraphrase Josey, "You gonna get those old floorstanders or whistle Dixie?"

[WildWest]

Well Jay, I tell ya there padner. I be settin my sights on em. I mean. I could cram them in my music room where my guitars are. I understand these to be extreamly efficient speakers so I won't need my own lil power plant to run an amp for them. Nothing would please this audiophile more than to experiment with this vintage format. Would I make it my main listening system? I highly doubt it, but my mind is open as I am about to drop the coin to prove it. The detail of my Aria 5Rs is unreal with their Raven Ribbon tweets. My SVS sub has true sub woofer output that makes you catch your breath. Detail is very critical to me and I have yet to hear speakers that give me what I have now. My theories as mentioned on cabinets and components stands from my experiances.

Whew Jay, your old sub/sat system truely wasn't a good example of how it can be done. I think you would be impressed by my sub woofer system. It really is done very well and has made believers out of some. My older brother for one. Die hard analog man from the old days. Big speakers, turntables etc. The man spent years in professional music studio recording and sound engineering. While he brought me over from the dark side of living only a redbook CD world, I made him understand the power of a sub woofer done right. (doing best Darth Vader impression) :D

http://66.221.25.117/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4&pagenumber=3

[bully]

Variable gain and adjustable crossover is so important for properly setting up a subwoofer with the rest of the system.
My second Dahlquist PDQ-1500 arrived not too much before I went in for back surgery a few years ago. Far to big and heavy for me to take downstairs to its' intended HT duties, I fooled around with it connected into the big stereo.
At that time I had the two PCR800's each driving one pair of speakers, the JBL CF-150's and the Advent's (IIRC, those are fuzzy times 'cause of the pain meds). I ran a patchcord through an adapter from the headphone plug.
200 watts going into 3 15-inch woofers AND a pair of Advents, my-my, I think Thor would have approved!
But, it did require some fiddlin' with the controls to get things matched, and that the sub wasn't tryin' to reach to high and muddy things.
Two of those PDQ-1500's down with the HT, whew, let the Matrix rumble! :D
BTW, I have a pair of the RS Pro LX-8's and they're a very nice pair of speakers. Love that Linaeum tweet!! The 8-incher probably provides what the 5-incher could not.

pete, just babbling, don't mind me ... :dunno:

[jay]

Aria's?
Ribbon tweets?

WW, you don't need new speaks, just a couple of pleasant hours of daily listening!

Where those real Aria's or built from kits?


Jay (the envious);)

P.S. If you get the oldies, we're all gonna want the works: riveting story, pics, etc......:D

[WildWest]

Real Aria's or built from kits? My Aria is the best of the D'Appolito design for the Aria 5 also known in many circles as the MTM. They are 1.5 inch MDF cabinets. Focal drivers with the Raven Ribbon tweeter in them. The Aria 5R You know about Ribbon tweets don't cha? It don't get much better me friend... ohhhh yeahhh Anyway, yes it is a kit supplied by Elliott at Zayltron in New York. I modified his crossover though by using a better cap in it. Silver solder and jewelers silver wire on all connections. He is the ONLY guy out there providing the kinds of cabinets that he does. 1.5 inch MDF?! It is very heavy and very dead...

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums//showthread.php?s=&threadid=4&pagenumber=3

Many people use this speaker design as it is an excellent performer. I don't understand you when you say "real Arias".

Jay I don't need new speakers no. But I do need to test and audition big, large, heavy floorstanders from the vintage years. I want to better understands Toms and many others here points of view.

But you are sooooo right Jay. I need more...MORE...MORE!!! pleasent hours of listening....hmmmmm let me go tell the wife. :D