# Anyone use Pioneer speakers with a half heigh 50W Marantz receiver?



## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

I'm wondering if anyone out there has paired up the very well reviewed Pioneer speakers (SP-BS21-LR, SP-BS22-LR, SP-FS51, or SP-FS52) with a half height Marantz 50W receiver (NR1403, NR1404, NR1504, NR1603, NR1604, etc.). If you have this combination, do you find that your receiver is able to drive the speakers enough to reach acceptable loudness? What is your usual listening volume/setting (on the receiver)?

I'm hoping to setup this combination, but I'm still a little concerned about the low power on the receiver and the low efficiency on the speakers ... unfortunately I can't actually listen to this combination before I make the purchase.

Thanks,
Harry


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

The Marantz slimline series are very low powered with very little headroom. If you were going to use them with the AJ speakers, it would need to be at lower volumes. Those are seriously inefficient speakers. You would likely clip the amp pretty quickly at higher volumes.


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## pddufrene (Mar 14, 2013)

Harry Muscle said:


> I'm wondering if anyone out there has paired up the very well reviewed Pioneer speakers (SP-BS21-LR, SP-BS22-LR, SP-FS51, or SP-FS52) with a half height Marantz 50W receiver (NR1403, NR1404, NR1504, NR1603, NR1604, etc.). If you have this combination, do you find that your receiver is able to drive the speakers enough to reach acceptable loudness? What is your usual listening volume/setting (on the receiver)?
> 
> I'm hoping to setup this combination, but I'm still a little concerned about the low power on the receiver and the low efficiency on the speakers ... unfortunately I can't actually listen to this combination before I make the purchase.
> 
> ...


Do you already own the marantz receiver? Are your looking into purchasing both?


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

pddufrene said:


> Do you already own the marantz receiver? Are your looking into purchasing both?


I'm looking to purchase both on Black Friday. The receiver I'm pretty set on because I need a half heigh receiver and Marantz seems to make the best (within my $500 or so price range). The speakers I don't mind changing as long as they sound real good and cost around the same as the Pioneers ($500 or so on sale for 4 towers and a center).

Thanks,
Harry


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

Sonnie said:


> The Marantz slimline series are very low powered with very little headroom. If you were going to use them with the AJ speakers, it would need to be at lower volumes. Those are seriously inefficient speakers. You would likely clip the amp pretty quickly at higher volumes.


That's what I'm worried about, however, I've had people tell me there should be no problems, and I've had people mention what you mention. Hence why I'm hoping to actually find someone with this setup and see what they think of it.

Thanks,
Harry


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## pddufrene (Mar 14, 2013)

Harry Muscle said:


> I'm looking to purchase both on Black Friday. The receiver I'm pretty set on because I need a half heigh receiver and Marantz seems to make the best (within my $500 or so price range). The speakers I don't mind changing as long as they sound real good and cost around the same as the Pioneers ($500 or so on sale for 4 towers and a center).
> 
> Thanks,
> Harry


If you go with the Pioneer speakers, make sure to buy the ones with the 2 at the end of the model. Those are the newest ones and are much improved over the 1's. I own these speakers and they play outstanding for the price. I don't own a marantz receiver though so I'm not sure of the efficiency of the slim models, I have a Yamaha 573 that pushes up to 115 watts per channel so I don't have to worry about not having enough juice. Lol
I don't know about the efficiency of the speakers but as I stated they sound very good.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Have you heard the Pioneer speakers or are you going by reviews ?


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

What is the reasoning for going with a half height receiver in the first place? If your stuffing it in to a confined space that has no room for anything larger I would rethink that idea as heat will kill a receiver faster than anything if you don't give it room to breath. Driving those speakers at any decent listening levels will cause it to get very warm.


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

chashint said:


> Have you heard the Pioneer speakers or are you going by reviews ?


I'm going on reviews only. No store around here has them in stock.

Thanks,
Harry


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

tonyvdb said:


> What is the reasoning for going with a half height receiver in the first place? If your stuffing it in to a confined space that has no room for anything larger I would rethink that idea as heat will kill a receiver faster than anything if you don't give it room to breath. Driving those speakers at any decent listening levels will cause it to get very warm.


It will be a confined space, but it does have good ventilation ... basically it comes down to aesthetics and wife acceptance 

Thanks,
Harry


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Harry Muscle said:


> It will be a confined space, but it does have good ventilation.


Confined space and good ventilation do not go hand in hand, I do understand the WAF but it won't help your cause if you will have to replace it a year later because it has died due to heat. You need a minimum of 4" of clearance above the receiver or it will overheat and even then that's pushing it. I would highly recommend looking into buying speakers like the Klipsch line as they require very little power to drive and are very good quality.


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## dvermilyea (Nov 7, 2013)

I listen to JBL HLS610 (88dB sensitivity) for my fronts and surrounds, and JBL HLS Center. They are crossed over at 80Hz to the sub and playing through a Marantz NR1501. The JBL's are 1dB more efficient than the Pioneers, but the Marantz has no trouble driving them to very loud levels.

The volume is usually set at -40 to -45 for music (CDs on Oppo BDP83, or Pandora), and -50 to -55 for movies (can get pretty loud sometimes...).

This is in a great room that's about 18-1/2 ft by 28 ft with 8-1/2 ceilings.

David


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

The pioneers are 84db efficient and at 6ohm so will be harder to drive.
This Klipsch speaker system would be a much better fit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1J70ZN9743


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## dvermilyea (Nov 7, 2013)

Tonyvdb,

I wasn't pointing him towards any particular speaker, only answering the initial post since my setup is similar. My reference to the 1dB difference is for the larger speaker (per the Pioneer website).

David


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

tonyvdb said:


> Confined space and good ventilation do not go hand in hand, I do understand the WAF but it won't help your cause if you will have to replace it a year later because it has died due to heat. You need a minimum of 4" of clearance above the receiver or it will overheat and even then that's pushing it. I would highly recommend looking into buying speakers like the Klipsch line as they require very little power to drive and are very good quality.


I probably should have given more details ... the space is confined, but will have mechanical (ie: fans) ventilation to compensate for the tight space.

Btw, any specific Klipsch speakers that I should consider? I'll obviously do my own research, but I'm just curious 

Harry


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

dvermilyea said:


> I listen to JBL HLS610 (88dB sensitivity) for my fronts and surrounds, and JBL HLS Center. They are crossed over at 80Hz to the sub and playing through a Marantz NR1501. The JBL's are 1dB more efficient than the Pioneers, but the Marantz has no trouble driving them to very loud levels.
> 
> The volume is usually set at -40 to -45 for music (CDs on Oppo BDP83, or Pandora), and -50 to -55 for movies (can get pretty loud sometimes...).
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for the information. Much appreciated.

Thanks,
Harry


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Harry Muscle said:


> Btw, any specific Klipsch speakers that I should consider? I'll obviously do my own research, but I'm just curious
> 
> Harry


Yes, these would be a very good 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m3631X618074X3df78bf1da6a9636b9bfe38e77288bc0


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## theJman (Mar 3, 2012)

Harry Muscle said:


> I'm looking to purchase both on Black Friday. The receiver I'm pretty set on because I need a half heigh receiver and Marantz seems to make the best (within my $500 or so price range). The speakers I don't mind changing as long as they sound real good and cost around the same as the Pioneers ($500 or so on sale for 4 towers and a center).


Without knowing how large the room is you may end up with suggestions that aren't fit for purpose, so having that bit of information will be helpful (HWD). One thought does spring immediately to mind though...

You may wish to consider starting with a 3.1 system and then purchasing surrounds at a later date. Having 3 good speakers for a short while is better than having 5 average ones for years. If you do want to explore that possibility a few options that might be worth considering are:

HTD Level TWO Center and Tower
BIC FH6-LCR and FH-6T
Premier Acoustic PA-6C and PA-6F
The sensitivity on all of these is pretty good as well, so they shouldn't put too much of a strain on the receiver.


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

tonyvdb said:


> Yes, these would be a very good
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m3631X618074X3df78bf1da6a9636b9bfe38e77288bc0


Unfortunately those are way out of my price range, even more so once you add speaker stands and a subwoofer. The Pioneers you can get everything for around $500-$600. After adding stands and a subwoofer I'm looking well over $1000 for these.

Harry


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## Destructobrat (Jul 4, 2013)

Harry Muscle said:


> I'm wondering if anyone out there has paired up the very well reviewed Pioneer speakers (SP-BS21-LR, SP-BS22-LR, SP-FS51, or SP-FS52) with a half height Marantz 50W receiver (NR1403, NR1404, NR1504, NR1603, NR1604, etc.). If you have this combination, do you find that your receiver is able to drive the speakers enough to reach acceptable loudness? What is your usual listening volume/setting (on the receiver)?
> 
> I'm hoping to setup this combination, but I'm still a little concerned about the low power on the receiver and the low efficiency on the speakers ... unfortunately I can't actually listen to this combination before I make the purchase.


I was asking the same questions you were, but in my case I was going 4 bookshelves / 1 center. Although I ultimately moved on to a Pioneer Elite, here's what Marantz told me:

"The NR1604 can handle 6 ohm speakers so this shouldn't be a problem. The speakers don't have the best efficiency rating so just be aware that if you want it to be loud you may find yourself turning the volume up above 80 or 0dB (depending on volume display option) which is about as far as it should go. If you find that you need to go that high to get the volume you want then you may need a more powerful unit like the SR5008."

You may want to revisit the "Is my receiver (Marantz NR1603) powerful enought for floor speakers?" thread. Solid advice from Osage there.

Another competing model is the Yamaha RX-S600, but it appears to suffer the same power limitations as the Marantz models. 

How much space do you have for your receiver? Maybe a picture would help.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=82-780-031  

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0813-Index-_-HomeAudioSpeakers-_-82780027-L0B 

Switch to these speakers and you don't have to worry about it, plus in my opinion they sound better.


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## Harry Muscle (Jul 3, 2007)

*Using math to figure out how loud my speakers would be?*

Over the last few days I've been trying to determine whether my proposed 50W receiver (Marantz NR1603 or similar) would be powerful enough to drive the Pioneer SP-FS52 tower speakers I'm hoping to get. The majority of the answers seemed to have been yes, maybe, and no ... so I'm still trying to figure things out and I decided to turn to my good friend math to solve the problem.

However, since I'm not an acoustic expert I wanted to get feedback on this to make sure I'm not making some stupid assumptions or mistakes.

So here goes the math:

The speakers have a 87db sensitivity at 2.83V and are 6ohms. That means that they produce 87db at 1m when being driven with 1.33W (2.83V @ 6ohms = 0.47amps | 2.83V * 0.47amps = 1.33W). Doing some wonderful logarithmic math we see that going from 1.33W to 50W increases our sound output by 15.75db to 102.75db. However, that's at 1 meter away. I will be sitting 8 feet away or 2.43 meters. Again doing some math we figure out that this increase in distance will drop our db by 7.7db to 95db. Now assuming the exact same sound is being played by both left and right speakers we add 3db to the total volume bringing us to 98db.

So in the end I know that if I put 50W of power into these speakers I will get 98db from them at my sitting distance. Does all this make sense?

Now to figure out if 98db is loud enough without a db meter 

Thanks,
Harry


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

I can tell you that during our $1,000 speaker evaluation event, we had two speakers that did not do well with the 100 watt per channel amp we had... and those two speakers had 86dB and 88dB sensitivity. We did not have enough power for them when we cranked them up to slightly above moderate listening levels. 

95dB is pretty loud... and as I stated early on... you should be fine if you don't plan to play music very loud, but if you do plan to play music at louder volumes... if you like to crank it up a bit, then you are probably going to be clipping the amp in the Marantz, and/or underpowering the speakers. It is a risk not worth taking IMO, BUT ONLY if you are planning to play loud music, don't expect to be able to turn it up very loud.

There are quite a few other options out there that you shouldn't have to even consider this questionable pairing. Have you heard the AJ speakers and do you know you will like them? Is there a particular reason you need a half height receiver?


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
I honestly do not think that would be enough power personally. Granted, if the preferred listening levels are far enough below reference it should not be an issue. Also, when factoring everything in, are you planning and or accounting for the use of a subwoofer? Having a subwoofer handle frequencies below 80hz takes quite a strain of the AVR.

While I am quite fond of the Pioneers, I do recommend them most to those where music takes close to an equal footing to HT. I am decidedly on that end of things using speakers that can certainly be argued are music centric.
Cheers,
Jack


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

The math is correct.
Good job not to start at 1w, sometimes I wonder if speaker companies are trying to be accurate or sneaky when they use 2.83v on the spec sheet.
Here's one more thing to consider, Pioneer specs the speaker at 130 Watts max. Even if you had the additional power that's only a little more than 3dB additional SPL.
Speakers suffer from compression so chances are you will already be near or at the speaker's maximum useful SPL with the 50w AVR.
Maybe someone else knows the actually max SPL the speaker is capable of.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

chashint said:


> Maybe someone else knows the actually max SPL the speaker is capable of.


That question can't really be answered, you put that speaker in a bathroom and 50 watts will be plenty to fill it with ear bleeding levels. Put that same speaker in a large living room and good luck with that same amount of power. I can also be certain that that receiver won't come close to pushing 50 watts. Much more like 30 at best.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> I can also be certain that that receiver won't come close to pushing 50 watts. Much more like 30 at best.


Its spec is 50w 2 channels driven.
Without measured data to the contrary I don't see how you can arbitrarily knock it down 40%.


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## zieglj01 (Jun 20, 2011)

The Marantz receivers tend to be more efficient than a lot of receivers

The Pioneer towers were measured to be 86 db sensitive - they are not 84 db
Also, they stay above 6 ohms across the frequency range - if not playing at
reference levels - then they should sound pretty good for you.

Also, looking at HTD Level Two towers is a good option.


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## vann_d (Apr 7, 2009)

I have a Marantz slimline (1603 I think) and, for a casual living room system, it is fine and it has better aesthetics than most full size receivers. I've used it with Klipsch RB-15 bookshelf speakers and Infinity Primus P52 bookshelf speakers. It will pump out more than enough SPL to fill the living room during normal TV viewing and background music levels. I've not tried to use it to reproduce a true cinematic experience in the living room but it is not intended to be used in a serious home theater. If you are going to use it in a casual setup, I would not hesitate to recommend it.


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