hmmmm.....I have an average home theatre setup. 2 tower fronts speakers, 2 bookcase rear surround speakers and a center speaker. I'm thinking of replacing the center channel. The center speakers I've been looking at are rated at a higher sensitivity (92 dB) than my fronts and rears (89 dB). how important is it to match speaker sensitivity with your other speakers? In theory the center would be twice as loud (3dB) as the other 4 channels?????47 responses total.
Most home theater receivers have a way to balance the speakers, so it shouldn't matter. Just dig out your manual and see what the procedure is. Even my cheapo Aiwa receiver has a way to do it...it even has a test mode that generates white noise in each channel in turn, to help you figure out which ones need to be louder or softer.
The SW: Phantom Menance DVD also has a home theater check-out clip/program on it.
I think all DVD releases where THX did the sound have that.
*ponder* Works, I guess. I think I heard about speaker sensitivity being related to efficiency of how the speaker handles sound, i.e., it's a better indicator of output that wattage alone. Home audio can get really involved if you want and Radio Shack is one place to start for questions and answers if you want to go further. Otherwise, yeah, it's just figuring out how to balance the speaker output. Equalizers may help if you run into distortion problems.
Well... if you want to get really involved with home audio, I'd personally stay away from Radio Shack. The staff won't necessarily have a clue, and depending on your price range you'll be able to get better equipment elsewhere. (If your price range is the kind of price range Radio Shack carries, you're better off getting used higher-quality gear; if you have serious money to spend, you want to go to a specialty store.)
Actually, I don't doubt that, although Radio Shack has improved some of their lineup somewhat in partnering with RCA. My understanding is that some tools and a few obscure components can be gotten there. Used higher-end? Where would a person find that, say, for someone that lives out in Hicksville, Eastern WA?
Radio Shack does sometimes have rather high-end components, although probably by accident. Some years ago they had a small speaker (the "Minimus-7", I think) which some audiophiles were quite fond of. There was even a kit you could buy to improve the tweeter or something.
I won't buy anything made by RCA, after they churned out all those defective TVs in the 90's.
I don't know your area at all, but if there's some community out there where rich Seattleites spend their weekends, I'd start with its yellow pages. Or do a Google search on "NAD, "Arcam", or "Paradigm" and whatever words you think might find you an audio store in your region. Those brands can sometimes be found very cheap used, and there usually isn't anything wrong with used high-end audio gear except scratches on the case. Hmmm... well, if Kennesick is near you, there's a place called Quicksilver Audio (www.quicksilver-audio.com).
Oops, that was meant to be "Kennewick." ;-)
I am happy with the stuff we find at rummage sales and the curb, that often only needs the switches cleaned. Receiver, tape deck, speakers at the curb. $5 receiver at a church sale. Big speakers are now cheap because there are good small ones. Put your own ad in the paper for old stereo equipment.
I saw some 12 inch speakers at the Re-use center that have
lost there speaker surronds.
My recently repaired speakers sound great. No more bass
farts, and good to hear good tweeters again.
resp:9 How the hell did you hear of Kennewick or Quicksilver? It's a fairly long-time staple of my hometown (yeah, I used to live there). Kennesick. Hehehehe
I did a web search. ;-)
Well, I also know there are other places, but yes, that's a biggie.
Try there, then. The key with this stuff is to actually listen to the equipment, and ignore the hype. Don't rely on original price as an indicator of quality, either; there's a lot of bullshit, especially toward the higher end of the audio market. If you can, try to listen to multiple items of the same type with the same music.
Also, a buck spent on better speakers is worth ten spent on anything else. Don't let anyone sucker you into paying for really expensive speaker wire or interconnects. In the case of interconnects, as long as they're well shielded and have good connectors, you're fine. In the case of speaker wire, the only thing that really matters is that the wire gauge is correct. (i.e., large enough that you don't loose excessive amounts of power.) There have been double-blind tests that showed audiophiles couldn't hear the difference between super-expensive exotic speaker cable and ordinary zipcord from the hardware store, and there's no physics that says they should be able to.
I agree with gull on wire and interconnects, but if your speakers are much better than the rest of your equipment they'll just make its flaws more obvious.
I don't agree with the "speakers are too good for the other components" argument. I suppose shitty speakers would sound better somehow? ;) Buy good speakers, and if you then don't like your whatever else you can buy a better one next year. (Caveat: It's possible that the really good speakers are less efficient than the OK ones, and therefore need more power which the amp may not have. I'd buy that argument.) Yeah, don't spend any real money on interconnects. Buy the basic cables at Radio Shack (cheaper than Meijer, last I looked), and use lamp cord or whatever for the speakers. I used to read rec.audio.high-end years ago, and some people were claiming that *thinner* speaker cables sounded better! Some people also swore by Romex, that AC stuff in the walls of your house.
Probably well shielded cables are better than non, unless you're sending a balanced signal to the speakers. Of course, if you're sending a balanced signal, then interference is irrelevant, so any cable will be fine so long as it isn't small enough for its own resistance to become a problem, but you'd still need a speaker with the capability to receive and interpret a balanced signal.
You can get speakers cheaper if you are not trying to play things very large or very bassy. Or get good headphones. I find the antenna is the most important thing when listening to radio.
Re #19: I've experienced the "speakers too good for the other stuff"
thing myself, when I hooked a pair of Linn Nexus up to a
mid-range Denon receiver (the source was an NAD CD player, which
was fine). The Denon was designed to work with lower-quality
speakers that emphasized the low end more, and everything
sounded... ethereal through the Linns. A better amp fixed the
problem -- but I hadn't noticed the problem with my Polks.
There are basically two strategies for buying audio over time:
improve speakers first, and improve source first. I guess it
depends on what you want, but I'm for the second one provided
the other stuff in the chain is at least competent.
Re #20: Usually interference isn't an issue with speaker wires because the signal levels are so high. The exception is when the speaker wire acts like an antenna, and picks up a nearby amateur radio operator or AM station. If you do decide to use shielded speaker wire, follow good grounding practices -- ground the shield at one end, and only one end. Ideally you want your system grounded in a "star" pattern -- all the ground connections should come back to a single point. That can be hard to achieve, though. I have a problem with mine because the computer is grounded through its plug, and the VCR is grounded through its cable line, and both are connected to the same amp. #22 sounds like an equalization problem -- the Denon amp must have had excessive low-end roll-off. I don't have any equipment a serious audiophile wouldn't turn up their nose at, though, so the amount of advice I can give is fairly limited. I will say that NAD will forever have a special place in my heart for running a campaign with the slogan "Go NAD!" ;)
My feeling is that the advent of CD players largely demonstrated the correctness of the Linn approach of improving the source of the music before anything else in the chain. ( 1/2 :) ) (Joe Saul knows this, but for everyone else: Linn makes very high-end turntables, I've heard them sound very nice in the store but I was never willing to spend that sort of money on components.) Low-priced CD boom boxes now sound better than most home component systems based on turntables did, in the LP era. Of course right now most of my listening takes place in either two forms: (1) 44K Real Audio streams, or (2) in a car with crummy door seals moving at 70 MPH... and sometimes both...
Funny we should be having this conversation now. Today I was trying to fix a noise problem with a some powered computer speakers and concluded that the office they were in was just flooded with RF noise. The little stereo mini cord by means of which the computer audio was fed to the speakers was acting like an antenna and doing it waaay too well. I unplugged the cord from the computer and held it up and you could clearly hear at least a couple of radio stations playing through the speakers. I told the person whose office it was to try wrapping the cord in aluminum foil. Or wallpapering in it...
Re #23: It's possible. I'm a knowledgeable consumer of audio, but I'm not
a technical expert. However... if you believe that the job of the
pre-amp, amp, and speakers is to accurately reproduce your source,
it makes sense to upgrade the source first.
Re #24: Linn also makes very high-end CD players. Yes, you can hear the
difference (no, I don't know why, but I've a/b'd them, and you
can).
It's relatively easy and cheap to make a good amplifier instead of a cheesy one. Transducers are much tougher, so speakers are usually the weakest link. Back before CDs it was speakers and turntables. Now it's pretty much just speakers, although there's plenty of arguments going around about CD players.
resp:26 how much money we talking about for these Linn CD players? resp:27 well, how do you do that? Most A/V receivers aren't modular.
whoops-- btw, scott or krj-- could you link this to the music conf, please?
Re #25: The best trick is to wrap the cord around a ferrite rod or through a ferrite toroid, near the end the amplifier is on. Sometimes an iron nail or a big steel washer works, too. The idea is to create a choke coil that will have a high impedance to RF, but will let audio pass unaffected. Re #26: I'm a little suspicious of informal A/B tests, because they're so susceptible to the placebo effect unless they're done "blind". (People tend to expect the more expensive equipment to sound better, and they hear what they want to hear.) There are also a lot of subtle tricks...like if one player's output level is slightly higher, it will sound 'clearer' in an A/B test. Re #28: My understanding is that audiophiles turn up their nose at A/V receivers in general. They aren't big fans of any of the Dolby surround sound systems.
OK, I'll link this to the Music conf. Good idea!
Re #27: That's true, and it makes sense to upgrade the weakest link in
your chain. I was assuming all elements were of equal quality,
but if not then upgrade the worst one first.
Re #28: (Price of Linn CD players) I think they have models that retail
for ~$1300, ~$2200, and ~$10000 (not a typo).
(Separating amp and pre-amp) He wasn't suggesting that you build
your own amp stage for an existing receiver, he was just saying
that at a given price point / level of quality the amp is likely
to be empirically better than the speakers, because it's cheaper
to do amps right.
Re #30: (Informal a/b tests) I'm suspicious of them for the same
reasons. I had a friend switch the equipment out, I couldn't see
which one was running, and I know he didn't mess with the volume,
but it's always possible that other factors (e.g. output level)
confused the issue. On the other hand, how else do you decide
which you like better? There really isn't an objective measure.
What parts of your body do you use to listen to your stereo? (got a tin ear? then buy shitty speakers) Thus the speakers are the most important. The problem is good speakers will make a shitty system sound even more shitty than shitty speakers will. (is simple physics) Second is the 'input'. A shitty media player will obviously render the best speakers mute point. GIGO, and the best speakers will obviously only more accurately reflect the G. Thirdly is the 'middle ware'. This is the last place that you should concentrate on. (Unless you are listening to (c)rap in what case obviously it is the first place U should spend yer $ - GIGO again).
Without a good antenna I cannot even receive the three radio stations that I listen to, no matter how good the speakers. Toroid - magnet from a hard drive or a speaker?
A toroid is an object circular in shape, with a circular cross section at any point along its circumference.
(A washer is like a flattened toroid.)
Re #34: That counts as part of the source.
Toroid = bagel with a carefully-centered hole. CD player technology moves fairly fast. There are probably loads of not- the-current-model Linn CD player available much cheaper on the used market. I've got "fancy" twisted-pair speaker cables. I got 'em when living in a ham radio operator's house. Good speakers: there are two different ways for a speaker to be good - it can have good bass response, or it can do a good job with whatever (limited) part of the audio spectrum that it does reproduce. Both kinds of good tend to cost money and the bass kind generally means physically larger speakers, but there are plenty of crappy speakers out there, so don't assume that big and/or expensive guarantee you anything. Think about what kind of good you really want *before* spending money. I've got poor bass (dinky & ported) but pretty-good sound speakers. This is good for life in a quiet apartment building. A/B testing: even if your awesome hearing notices that the $10,000 stereo system sounds better than the $8,000 stereo system, aren't there loads of other things you spend money on (car, house, vacation, eating out, computer, etc.) where A/B testing would reveal that an extra $2,000 would get you something better?
You can spend a lot more on speakers if you want them to sound louder, or get smaller cheaper ones and sit near them in a small room. Some speakers are designed to overemphasize the bass, which seems to be important to people who want to feel the music through their feet.
Re #38: (Used Linn CD players): There sure are. I've gotten all but one
piece of my Linn gear (a CD player, ironically) used. Linn's
stuff is very reliable and durable, so buying it used isn't much
of a risk. (If you're going to, though, email me first. I know
where to look and can check serial numbers too.)
(Good speakers): Personally, I'd prefer to have smaller speakers
with excellent sound reproduction and minimal bass, rather than
big speakers with tons of bass but lousy sound reproduction. You
can obviously get speakers with great reproduction and lots of
bass, but that costs more. I finally did it, because we have a
big living room. You can get something very good for $1500 or
less.
(A/B testing): Yeah, you have to do a cost-benefit analysis on
that kind of thing. ;-) Probably the most cost-effective thing
I've ever done to improve sound quality in our house was to buy
curtains for the huge window behind the couch...
Re #39: Many speakers, including the majority of floor-standing speakers
you'll see in appliance stores, etc., are designed to overemphasize
the bass. It's cheaper to do that, and since the people who buy
them have crappy sources, it also helps hide that. Smaller speakers
aren't necessarily cheaper, though; there are some excellent small
speakers out there that simply reproduce the upper and mid range
very, very well. Price doesn't necessarily corrrelate with either
quality or loudness.
Good speakers have a level response curve (they don't have peaks or valleys at certain frequencies). It is probably more expensive to get the curve level at higher volumes so you can get cheaper speakers that sound just as good if they don't have to play as loudly. Consumer Reports published one review showing all the curves, and they suggested adjusting the speakers to give less bass for many models, if you wanted the music to sound more realistic instead of more bassy. You can also adjust the receiver for more or less bass.
I'm thinking about testing the whole system out. Tell me if this sounds right. 1) Connect a sine-sweep generator to one of the audio inputs. 2) Set the (audio input) freq of the sine generator to 1KHz (reference tone) at 1 Vpp (audio input) and adjust the speaker volume (output) to say 60dB. 3) Take a SPL reading of the room without audio (noise floor). 4) Set the sine generator to sweep from 20 Hz to 30 KHz and take readings on the SPL meter at various freqs? The only thing i'm not sure of is the SPL meter, which seems a tad subjective (such as where it's placed in the room). I have access to a oscilloscope but how would I go about getting a way to measure the audio from the speakers?
Ironic? Since CD technology moves the fastest, it would be the reasonable thing to get new in a all-but-one-piece-is-used system. As keesan & jmsaul start to say, there are loads of things beyond generic "bass response" and "sound quality" to picking speakers. (The same is true of other stereo piece-parts to a somewhat lesser degree.) There is no substitute for having someone who's familiar with both the products and your *real* wants help you select parts for your system. Very-high- efficiency speakers plus a huge amp are a money-wasting combination (well, unless your goal is blowing out the windows); ditto low-efficiency speakers and a nice low-power amp. A CD player & speakers which are both a bit heavy on the tweeter end of the spectrum sound great in a room that eats high frequencies, but crappy in another room. And so on....
Re 42: The problem with getting the signal into your oscilloscope is finding an accurate-enough microphone. You might call around to audio places (and car audio places) and see if they will rent you a spectrum analysis rig.
oh, amen, brother.. acoustics of a room are a *big* deal, and it's generally a good idea to consider them when you're really serious about sound quality. My understanding of bass is the speakers generally need a lot of air for the frequencies to move, or something like that. More often than not, that means relatively large speakers, and a fairly large enclosure. I remember reading a Sound & Vision article where the author strove for massive dB levels using 18" speakers with a downstairs basement as an enclosure. To move all that air, you also need some oomph behind it, which makes me doubt crappy sources. Subwoofer speakers alone take up about 75% of your total power in a system, and this is generally why powered (active) subs vs. passive ones are popular. My experience has been that vented ports are sometimes a good solution for midbass, but I haven't seen many subs that soar down to 13-20 Hz with one. They just can't produce enough sound pressure. But ports can be wonderfully designed to allow for smaller bass speakers; hence your "bass reflex" design, and the coiled tube design that is a part of the Bose Wave radios. Passive radiators also tend to help with bass sound. I'm not completely sure how they work, but I know that they are generally tuned to a particular frequency.. whatever low frequency you want emphasized, which is usually 40, 33, or 20 Hz. As far as bass and acoustics, well, they are important, too. Simply putting a sub in a corner will generally emphasize lower frequencies, as drywall needs to absorb frequencies above 40 Hz or so. Many people have carpets in the room, but some have hard wood floors, so bass reverb can be a problem in the latter case. There are some subspeakers available that can be mounted in the floor joists, or even inside furniture, but I think most people go with the separate floor speaker type that was designed by Infinity in the 1960s.
Re #41: It depends too on what kind of music you're listening to. If you listen to rock and you're trying to duplicate a concert sound, well, most concert sounds systems are fairly bass heavy. Likewise, pipe organ music often contains a lot of deep bass. Of course, these days a lot of people go for obviously unrealistic levels of bass just because they like to make stuff rattle, and that's obviously rubbing off on the manufacturers of stereo equipment.
Middleware can make some very noticeable differences if, for instance,
you switch to middleware that more easily supports Dolby Digital Surround
Sound. Some features really are worth investing in.
You have several choices: