Audio Setup for my living room- What speakers?

superczar

superczar

Juggernaut
In quite a dilemma

Am planning to setup a secondary audio setup for my living room and might need to do a mixing and matching of components from my Media room

The media room setup is geared towards watching movies and occasional music (I am not a serious audiophile who would plonk himself down in the media room couch for a "Serious" listening session)

My media room rig details are here: http://www.techenclave.com/rig-gallery/viewgallery-35.html

I am hoping to gear the living room setup for regular stereo music playback with the music being in the background while I do other stuff ..term it easy listening if you will...(which means I need a wide soundstage and off center imaging capabilities since I don't expect to sit in the sweet spot when the living room speakers do their job)

Now here are the questions:

Speakers:

Need to get a new pair... Possible choices:

a) KEF iQ5: A gentleman in chennai is planning to sell his 6 month iQ5s

The price he has offered isn't great, but still fairly decent.

I have heard the iQ5s older bros, the iQ9s at Pro FX and was very very impressed esp. by their midrange and the superb clarity of vocals on the speakers. However, the low endgrunt was a bit conspicuous by its absence but I don't mind it much since I'd anyway not want much of bass ifor background music

b) Elack FS57 or Elac FS58: The chennai TE gang incl. I had a go at these speakers on Saturday. Great imaging, but off center listening wasn't as goood as I was hoping

c) B&W DM309: Entry level speakers from B&W unfortunately available only via Futurebazaar in Chennai. Would love to hear the feedback from anyone who

has heard these speakers

d) B&W DM 603: Lower mid range speakers from B&W. Same problem as above (i.e. no place I can audition them)

Amp:

 Currently, my Marantz Integrated Amp (PM-17) drives my media room fronts while the center/surrounds/sub are driven by the AVR. Since I really dont need too much of power to drive the fronts (as I don't push up the volume over 12 'o clock), I might as well let the receiver drive the fronts too while using the Integrated Amp for the living room

The source for the living room will be the direct analog out from my Mac Mini while the HTPC will continue to drive the media room setup

Any suggestions/feedback for the speakers, and any feedback on my Amp switching plans?

Or should I just skip all of this faff and simply get a MX5021 or similar?
 
superczar said:
Or should I just skip all of this faff and simply get a MX5021 or similar?
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something like this coming from you? sacrilege :no:

your current setup seems wise enough, only thing i'd like to knwo is how have you connected the marantz? Is it connected to regular frontLR outs of ur AVR or direct from the suorce?

Ditching the marantz sounds like a crazy decision to me unless you are in a financial crunch and have already sold off ur earpinnae to someone. :rofl: .

Had i been you i'd keep the ma-71.
 
Czar how much are you planning to spend on speakers? Mac Mini as a Source? Not sure how good that is. The iQ5 is a good speaker though a tad bass shy. The others which you mentioned, I'm not too fond of.

If you don't wanna spend too much, at 18k or so you'll get the dimunitive Usher S520 which will blow the tops off most elacs, polks and the like. The lower end B&W screech like parrots. They aren't very refined. B&W is good only from the 8 series onwards but is still not my idea of a good speaker. First fix a budget. Then decide what you want :P.
 
Ditching the marantz sounds like a crazy decision to me unless you are in a financial crunch and have already sold off ur earpinnae to someone. .
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No re, not ditching the Marantz, Thinking of using the Integrated as the amp for the living room setup while letting the AVR in the media room take care of driving all the speakers

(the Marantz PM-17 is (rather was) so far connected to the pre out for the fronts on the AVR

Mac Mini as a Source? Not sure how good that is. The iQ5 is a good speaker though a tad bass shy. The others which you mentioned, I'm not too fond of.
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The Mac Mini is bit perfect to start with and used to do a good job driving my main setup before I got the M-Audio

Anyway, since the AVR in the media room is TOSlink connected, I may take off the USB M-audio from the media room setup and use the M-Audio for the living room while get some el-cheapo sound card with Digital out for the media room

So am not too concerned about the sound card bit right now because even in the worst case scenario, I don't have to spend more than a couple of Ks on setting up the source system (i.e get an el-cheapo sound card with digital out, either TOSLINK or coaxial)

As for the budget, am trying to keep it south of 25-30 but if a little more dosh gets me something substantially better, that might not be a bad idea either
 
At 30k or less, that KEF is probably the best you'll get. At around 40k, you'll get the Dynaudio Audience 52 in the less expensive vinyl finish which is a far far better speaker.
 
have heard the kef iq5s and they sure do a fair job unless you want some below 30-40 hz action.

Are you maried? If yes the looks of the kefs will help ease up the WAF as well.
 
Agree with the low-end B&W series comments.

I really like PSBs at the budget end of the market. The Image B25 is within your budget, and sounds very, very good. Off axis is smooth, but it does taper off noticeably.

Are you looking at standmounts or floorstanders, or haven't decided?

Most real 'stereo' speakers will have a defined sweet spot, so listening outside it won't ever be very fulfilling. This is intentional and desirable, as it minimises secondary reflections in the upper octaves. On the other hand, many designers let beaming manifest itself naturally. There's not much to do except discover the speakers you want. But don't buy sight unseen or unauditioned. You'll suffer.

For background use I normally recommend 'multimedia' speakers, so the same qualities that we abhor in focused listening become tolerable and sometimes desirable in background duty.

Just kidding.

But, I'll throw the AE5 into the mix here. I do know that they are slightly off the beaten path, but I'm hearing good things about them as midfield monitors, which mean a wide-ish sweet spot and good tonal balance for off-axis use. Bear in mind that this will also increase reflections and sometimes the imaging may be 'off'.

The Audience 52 absolutely sucks off-axis, but that is IMO. For active listening they do fine, but all Dynes need listeners to be in the sweet spot. They deteriorate rapidly once you move off axis, as all Dynes, specially at the low end, use first order crossovers. This is usually disastrous for response outside the drivers' natural curve. Their drivers are reasonably engineered, but it still doesn't help too much against physics.

It sounds like a sensible plan to run the AVR off the Mini or other digital source, and move the analog setup into the living room.
 
sangram said:
The Audience 52 absolutely sucks off-axis, but that is IMO. For active listening they do fine, but all Dynes need listeners to be in the sweet spot. They deteriorate rapidly once you move off axis, as all Dynes, specially at the low end, use first order crossovers. This is usually disastrous for response outside the drivers' natural curve. Their drivers are reasonably engineered, but it still doesn't help too much against physics.
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Isn't that a problem with all mid to high end mini monitors? I guess thats how they are designed. If you are not in the "sweet spot", you essentially hear very little. Its the same with dyns/ushers/proacs/focals and any other speaker tending towards accuracy. Most of them are not built with casual listening in mind.
 
Mostly. Actually it's a problem with all well-designed speakers. There's only one speaker brand that is designed for all-room listening. You know what brand that is, so let me not utter the name. Every other speaker that has pretensions to be musical needs to control off-axis response.

At a very technical level, the speaker needs to direct all its energy down one single sound path. Since it is not possible at all frequencies, designers usually use the crossover to control the response. Speakers with first order crossovers have the toughest time, as the off-axis is very uneven with the midwoofer usually radiating a lot of junk into the horizontal plane, totally messing up the response. Higher order crossovers generally ensure the mid cuts off well before the beaming becomes a problem.

Dynaudio mates the woofer response curve to the crossover response curve to tailor the rolloff. This is one big reason that their very crappy crossovers can't be replaced with better quality XOs as the response is matched reasonably well. You still can't fight physics, so the little +2KHz info that leaks out of the mid generally creates loss of imaging off axis. This kind of crossover also increases the demands on the tweeter, which has to handle a lot of out-of-band energy, and is the reason why the tweeters fail so often in pro environments (which push a lot more power than a home equipment).

In any case, this can only be solved by listening to a lot of speakers. The best solutions are usually architectural but there may be regular boxes that do it well, I've just not heard many (if any).
 
One reason I am leaning towards the KEFs is their off-axis response seem better than most other makes

Considering these are needed for passive listening, non punchy bass would actually be a good thing, and clear mids would certainly be a preferable trait

To that extent, the KEF pair fits the bill rather nicely

As for the A2, I really wouldnt want to take a chance on them w/o even hearing them (which unfortunately I cannot, no dealer stocks em in Chennai and none of the folks I know have a A2)
 
same thing for me:

As for the A5, I really wouldnt want to take a chance on them w/o even hearing them (which unfortunately I cannot, no dealer stocks em in Chennai and none of the folks I know have a A5)
 
sangram said:
Mostly. Actually it's a problem with all well-designed speakers. There's only one speaker brand that is designed for all-room listening. You know what brand that is, so let me not utter the name.
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Dare I say it :P

Radialstrahler?:ashamed:
 
Umm, I would have actually considered the 901s

They do actually fit my current requirement perfectly

for 15K tops 20, I'd pick em up without batting an eyelid...@75K..errrr
 
got the iq5

All I can say is that I was looking for mellow speakers, and these just fit the bill perfectly

The mid range/highs and Imaging are ridiculously good

I needed decent off center/axis imaging to and they seem to manage 'em to a fair degree

The low end grunt is a bit amiss but I have my media room beasts to get my bass kick when I need it

For the intended usage (easy listening in my living room), these will do perfectly fine
 
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