So, I’ve had the same setup for a while and been out of the loop as to what are good speakers. I have 2 Bose 301’s, Bose center and 201’s in the rear.
Can someone school me on decent speakers/subs for home audio/music?
I don’t want answers like - go to bestbuy or cc either…
music or home theater or compromise?
mostly ht. some music. 70/30. so compromise.
I’m on avsforum right now but there are a million posts… trying to assimilate as fast as I can.
you just need to get out and listen to stuff and try to form a budget.
honestly in your shoes I would keep what you have for home theater and build a second system for music if you’re going to really use it for that.
otherwise I like B&Ws for a value compromise. I’m sure others will have their own ideas.
get rid of the bose.
get some nice b&w’s like stated above and you will wonder how you ever lived without them.
They will sound 10101010101010101010101x better than anything bose makes, and believe it or not, bose is so overpriced, the b&w speakers probably wont be much more lol
Anything in the CM or 600 series is good.
If your baller get nautilus
keep the speakers and get a new harmon kardon or onkyo reciever, will make all the difference in the world. what series of 301’s 201’s do you have?
i have a sony receiver now that was top a top of the line special edition like 8 years ago… Plans are to build a HT room then do speakers…
what am in looking at for a receiver upgrade? what should i be looking for… do they make hdmi into receivers now?
yea they’ve moved up from 5.1 surround to 7.1 with HDMI, http://www.harmankardon.com/category.aspx
i’ve had a few sony’s before and loved them everything from bottom of the line to pretty pricey, i wound up getting my hands on a harmon kardon HK AVR 330 a little while ago and won’t go back to sony, im also running 4 bose 201’s off it and can say they sound great together.
what about subwoofers… my JBL PB12 crapped the bed 
I run a marantz with my B&Ws, but I also have a standalone amp bipowering the front channels.
all the different brands have different characteristics, so make sure you listen too a bunch of combos.
as for subs… velodyne direct drive is the ballin stuff. servo controlled subs are the shit, but you’ll pay for it… the other direction is to go cheap and loud, some people could care less about having a sub fade gracefully into the rest of the system. I’m thinking of custom building something for my basement… there are tons of “how to” guide for building crazy subs on a budget.
the only subs i’ve ever heard that i’ve liked were cerwin vega’s, idk what it is but all others just seem to fade as they get louder, thats just my opinion though im a bass junkie lol i have 2, 400 watt subs in my setup…
find a local shop, that sells higher brands and just listen… and remember that your tastes do change after a while, like I use to love my B&W’s, but not they are meh at best for me.
Honestly if you want a quisi all in one package, ie a receiver, look at Integra’s, I think their overall package and control is the best bang for the buck.
EDIT: and don’t listen to jimbo13kaz, just seeing what he types he likes seeing big numbers on paper, not actual quality.
Assuming youre local, go to speaker shop. They know what theyre doing, and the guys there are fantastic.
I’m not local.
My friend just bought a definitive sub for $1900
and some Focals for $4000.
I think he’s insane, but I hope to grab his old paradigm setup for a deal.
He loved paradigm for the band/buck budget system and still calls his setup a budget system.
old paradigm sucks… stuff from the last couple years (2005+) is a lot better.
How much do you have to spend? You can get a set of B&W 685’s for about $600, but they dont sell them online. Theyre very good for the price. As far as receivers go, i have no idea whats good as i dont use them. But thats going to be the easy and cheap way out vs a preamp and amp.
drvnkd, $4k speakers are quite inexpensive, going into hi-fi, you expect to spend at least 10k on speakers, and it quickly rises from there.
Find a local dealer similar to the speaker shop or the stereo shop in rochester.
They will have all the higher end brands and be able to get you what you need, not what they want you to buy.
My cousin has a set of the diamond B&W’s, its pretty amazing how they sound.
Each speaker has its own krell amp, its wild.
The whole setup is north of 30 grand…