# another blow to my audiophile cred!



## dat56 (Dec 11, 2010)

As if owning and loving the Bose 901's in my main 2-channel rig wasn't bad enough, now I've got another strike against my audiophile credibility: 

I just finished re-configuring our family room a/v set-up to be more family friendly and especially more kid-proof. Basically, what I did was take out the better, more expensive and complicated stuff and re-arm with some real simple, bargain-basement type gear, so that if the kids destroy it, it won't cause me to lose any sleep. Specifically, I put in a $90 Sherwood stereo receiver and a pair of $60 MTX Monitor 5i speakers. I put a Dayton Titanic III 10" sub that I had sitting around, in the mix too; which, btw, is a pretty darned good little sub. The whole shebang is rounded out with a Panasonic DVD/VCR combo and a DirecTV sat. receiver/ DVR. The vid is supplied by a dinosaur of 47" CRT-rear projector from Samsung.

Anyway, the point of this post is the sound quality I'm hearing from those little $30 speakers. With the sub handling bass up to around 120Hz and the hot top end of the little MTX's rolled off a bit with the Sherwoods tone controls, the sound is way, way better than it has any right to be. I'm pretty amazed. For thirty bucks each, I would have been impressed if they worked at all, let alone make pleasing, musical sounds.

I'm starting to think Billy joel had it right long ago when he sang, "don't waste your money on a new set of speakers / you get more mileage from a cheap pair of speakers"...

OK, I know I will be labelled a tin-eared Philistine now. Que sera. But when I think of all the dough I've blown on ever more expensive speakers over the years, it's just kind of sobering. I think when it's all said and done, more expensive and bigger mainly just gets you bassier and louder. Of course, those are important and good things!

Oh well, I had fun all along the way. Could use some of the money for better things today, though! ...that's life, I guess. Live and learn! What I've learned? There are good, cheap speakers out there! "Good" and "cheap" don't have to be mutually exclusive!

Like they say, "it's all good".


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## vann_d (Apr 7, 2009)

The more in-room response curves I see the more convinced I am that what comes out of the speaker is exceedingly less important than the installation and room acoustics.


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## dat56 (Dec 11, 2010)

Very true! I couldn't agree more.

Our family room has good dimensions for audio while the media room's are much more difficult to work with. (15x22x9 with an open corner for the family room; 16x18.5x9 and closed off for the media room.) I find that open rooms seem to "breathe" much better than closed ones. Kind of like the difference I hear between closed back and open back headphones. Plus, our media room has a niche in the middle of one long wall that when that dimension is factored in gives you a room that measures 17.5x18.5x9. Run those numbers and see how closely spaced the dimensional modes are!

In a nutshell, virtually any decent speaker I've tried sounds good in the family room, while in the media room (man-cave!) at least in two-channel, everything I've tried sounded lame except the 901's. And they sound fantastic. Weird. They might be pretty weak anywhere else in the house, for all I know.

I guess I should do a room swap, but the man-cave has advantages all it's own; mainly the fact I can do whatever I want in there! NO WAF considerations! Plus, being closed off from the rest of the house, and because of the room's insulation and location, it's always quiet in there and I can make a pretty good racket without bothering anyone else .


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## TypeA (Aug 14, 2010)

I feel the same about my Infinity 162s. The 2.0 pair in the bedroom I use for my zone 2 display still amazes on a regular basis and they were only $80 each, brand new. Granted I installed a dampening layer within the cabinet that made them much tighter (additional $5 invested), and the pair would benefit from a sub, but imaging, detail, and clarity is unbelievable for what little I spent...

Its not some much about what you spent but rather in what you bought, informed purchases make all the differnce


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## JerryLove (Dec 5, 2009)

dat56 said:


> Anyway, the point of this post is the sound quality I'm hearing from those little $30 speakers. With the sub handling bass up to around 120Hz and the hot top end of the little MTX's rolled off a bit with the Sherwoods tone controls, the sound is way, way better than it has any right to be. I'm pretty amazed. For thirty bucks each, I would have been impressed if they worked at all, let alone make pleasing, musical sounds.


 I don't see why that would be surprising. I used to run a setup with $30ea speakers (I'd say a more reasonable number today would be $50ea). The choice and placement of a good sub, as well as properly selecting crossover will do more then minor increases in speaker cost. 

The speakers I've chosen to run are, in many cases, not the most expensive options I have. My computer still runs off old PSB's I got on Craigslist despite the presence of fare more high-end speakers available.


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## JerryLove (Dec 5, 2009)

TypeA said:


> I feel the same about my Infinity 162s. The 2.0 pair in the bedroom I use for my zone 2 display still amazes on a regular basis and they were only $80 each, brand new. Granted I installed a dampening layer within the cabinet that made them much tighter (additional $5 invested), and the pair would benefit from a sub, but imaging, detail, and clarity is unbelievable for what little I spent...


 The 162s are awesome speakers. Their weaknesses are a poor crossover and cabinet damping. You've already addressed one of those.

I'm surprised 2.0 vs 2.1, but other than that: I use more than one set or Primus speakers and am very happy with them.


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## TypeA (Aug 14, 2010)

JerryLove said:


> I'm surprised 2.0 vs 2.1


A pair of HSUs in my zone 1 is probably to blame :hsd:


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## dat56 (Dec 11, 2010)

TypeA said:


> I feel the same about my Infinity 162s. The 2.0 pair in the bedroom I use for my zone 2 display still amazes on a regular basis and they were only $80 each, brand new. Granted I installed a dampening layer within the cabinet that made them much tighter (additional $5 invested), and the pair would benefit from a sub, but imaging, detail, and clarity is unbelievable for what little I spent...
> 
> Its not some much about what you spent but rather in what you bought, informed purchases make all the differnce



Agreed. I've read lots of good things about the Infinity Preludes. They do appear to be a great value.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

I'm not ashamed of my cheap speakers. The Behringers are decent by any standards. Not the best horse in the world, but they're a running son of a gun.

Congrats on the low rent bliss!

Dan


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## dat56 (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm kind of intrigued with the challenge of putting together sleeper audio rigs...giant killers that compete with much more high-dollar, boutique brands. The performance of these little pups is inspiring! Plus, it's a lot more fun to play when the cost of the toys isn't sapping your bank account too much. And besides, any putz with a fat wallet can buy a great sounding system. It takes a little more finesse to achieve great sound on a shoestring budget!

I'm gonna be looking closely at Cerwin-Vega, AAL, BIC-America and MTX, etc. for future needs! Parts Express, I love you!!


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## gsmollin (Apr 25, 2006)

"You get what you pay for, maybe less..."

A lot of expensive speakers are just expensive. The price /performance ratio gets pretty bad as you spend more for speakers. I have had $50, $300, and $3000 speakers in the same spot in my sound system, and the differences between them are actually subtle, and can be quickly overwhelmed by room acoustics.

If you want to get more bang out of your system, correct the room acoustics before you spend any more money on equipment.

I will level one criticism about the speakers: The crossover for the sub is too high. Anything above 60 Hz becomes directional. Many people endorse 80 Hz. I don't, because I can hear it. 120 hz is too high, not that your kids care.


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## Cory Phoenix (Nov 7, 2010)

dat56 said:


> I'm starting to think Billy joel had it right long ago when he sang, "don't waste your money on a new set of speakers / you get more mileage from a cheap pair of speakers"...


"It ain't woolly, it's weary....and nobody's stressed, they're wearing a dress." You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sNeakers.... Sorry, I'm just had to say something.  

Anyways, congrats on making more out of less! First receiver I ever owned back in high school was a Sherwood. Nice little AVR.


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## JerryLove (Dec 5, 2009)

gsmollin said:


> I will level one criticism about the speakers: The crossover for the sub is too high. Anything above 60 Hz becomes directional. Many people endorse 80 Hz. I don't, because I can hear it. 120 hz is too high, not that your kids care.


 Localization is a function of distance. The frequency at whic you can crossover to a non colocated source is therefore variable based on room size and listening position.


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## dat56 (Dec 11, 2010)

gsmollin said:


> "You get what you pay for, maybe less..."
> 
> I will level one criticism about the speakers: The crossover for the sub is too high. Anything above 60 Hz becomes directional. Many people endorse 80 Hz. I don't, because I can hear it. 120 hz is too high, not that your kids care.



I basically agree with you that all else being equal, lower crossovers are better than higher, but I'm using the sub's speaker-level input and output, which has a fixed crossover of 120Hz with 8 Ohm speakers. Oddly enough, though, even though the manual says the x/o is fixed, when I turn the crossover control, something is going on because I can hear the change in sound! Whatever, after tweaking to the best I could, I was not "hearing" the sub, even with fairly bass-heavy material. It's in the front corner of the room, to the right of the mains. I am pretty sensitive to sub placement, too, but I really haven't listened to that much material through the system to say definitely there is no sub localization issue.


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## FlashJim (May 6, 2006)

I've been running the same set of cheap speakers for about 4 years ... JBL NSP-1. I love those little plastic speakers. I paid $135 shipped for them on Ebay. Yes, these are powered by my Emotiva XPA-5. They are backed up by an infinite baffle sub with 4 18" drivers powered by a Behringer EP2500. Long live cheap speakers!


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

Sat/sub set ups can be very capable as you have proven, JBL is still a very good make of loud speakers and seeing that you are crossing over fairly high up 80hz> no wonder your happy partnered with an IB subs :bigsmile:


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