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Budget speakers for 7.2

3K views 43 replies 10 participants last post by  David Daivdson 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello

I am completely lost in speakers world(and I am in Europe). I have Denon X1300W AVR and want to watch movies and do some gaming, I am not a big fan of loud sounds, yet if it helps me to immerse into game or movie it can be a plus. My room size is 18lenghtx13.1widthx11height (in ft). I am on very tight budget - I am willing to pay up to $500 (will pay more, I just cant imagine I can get real thing below $500 in us, so its probably 500-600euros in EU) for speakers (maybe I should buy 5.1 speakers and later upgrade my set? is it possible to go that route when you have 7.2 receiver?)
My room has 2 windows, but the light and the space of the window sills will be isolated with something that will block the daylight, so it shouldnt be a problem for sound. However my room is fully painted in white and I am not planning to carpet it as it is also my bedroom. I can do any kind of construction works (however if I could hang or attach by any other means the front speakers to sides of my screen that would be great, as well as attaching the back speakers as well, i can drill holes in the walls to put the speakers inside walls if that is economical since I am renovating my room).
Also I am interested whether it is optimal to put rear speakers in the back of the room while I am seating at distance of 2/3 or 3/4 of the room.

Regards
 
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#3 · (Edited)
Thank you. Yes, it does. Should I just buy 3.1 and 4 cheap speakers for surround or it will just worsen situation? What are my options going 3.1 (considering $500 or less)? I am very new and I don't even know which 3 I should buy? center and front speakers? what should be my allocation of money per speaker? $200 for subwoofer? 150$? what about others? Also I can not get Pioneer speakers as they are unavailable in Europe.
 
#4 ·
Your two most important speakers are your center channel and subwoofer for home theater. Then left and right come next. The rest aren't nearly that important and yes, you can use just about anything in those other locations until more money appears. Are you in the US? If so, the cheapest half way decent subwoofer I suggest would be the BIC PL-200.
https://www.amazon.com/Bic-Acoustech-PL-200-Subwoofer-Black/dp/B00OFXV5IO

That leaves you $250 for Left, right, center. Those can be identical if you can fit the same speaker in the center space as your left and right. One thing you could do is go three pair of these for a 6.1 system that would still put you at $550 so just slightly over budget
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...62&cm_re=klipsch_rb-10-_-86-200-062-_-Product

For a three speaker line-up, you could pair Sony Core left and right with an Bic FH-6 as center:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/bic-america-6-1-2-center-channel-speaker-black/2750296.p?skuId=2750296
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-co...f-speakers-pair-black/5721014.p?skuId=5721014

Or go JBL arena across the front
https://www.amazon.com/JBL-Arena-C25-Black-Channel/dp/B072MYY7KC
https://www.amazon.com/JBL-Arena-120-Black-Wall-mountable/dp/B00W5YE820

Edit: Sorry I just saw you added that you are in Europe. Scratch that as I am not sure what the best deals may be over there. If you do have Sony core and JBL arena, that may be a place to start. I'd devote at least $200 to subwoofer.
 
#5 · (Edited)
With that budget, I'd wait for Sony Cores to go on sale for about $100ish/pair. If you can fit one as a center, try that. If gaming is a big part of your usage, having the same speaker all around would be of benefit.

For subs, I'd say something like a BasX10 at $300 would be decent, but then your budget is sort of tight there. If you only do occasional gaming, you can go super cheap w/ the surrounds, basically whatever is $50 or less/pair. I'd focus on the front three though + sub.

If okay with used, list you CL area and folks here can take a look for you.

Edit too: Didn't notice the Europe comment either. Not sure what is cheap in your area.
 
#8 · (Edited)
so I've gone with JBL 120 and JBL125C but I still need a subwoofer and the american ones doesn't ship (or ships with $250 import tax).
P.S. I doubt its very economical (the pricetag for these 3 speakers is 429$) maybe there are any alternatives (I guess I have to pay more anyways, so maybe there are deals of other brands)
 
#9 · (Edited)
For now and on a tight budget, look at the Wharfedale sub
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wharfedale...qid=1501125333&sr=8-1&keywords=wharfedale+sub

https://www.whathifi.com/wharfedale/powercube-spc-10/review

You can also look at the Wharfedale 9.1 -- buy 2 pair and use one as a center, worth it to have a spare
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wharfedale...1501124995&sr=8-4&keywords=bookshelf+speakers

If you can save a little room for the rear port -- the Voll B44 looks like they will work nicely as surrounds -- 64.99 pair
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voll-Books...501126232&sr=8-19&keywords=bookshelf+speakers

Info on the build here
https://voll.com.au/product/b44/
 
#12 · (Edited)
I have found online retailer which sells Wharfedale. It looks like Diamond 9.1 has reasonable reviews and it wouldnt cost me a fortune (100pounds(around 140dollars) for pair) since it is manufactured in UK. Is there any products that you would recommend of Wharfedale as center speaker and subwoofer?
main question if I am going this route: can these speakers of Wharfdale (cheap ones) reproduce Dolby Atmos?
P.S. I have access to plenty of MISSION brand products as well.
 
#11 ·
I just recently put together a budget 7.1 atmos setup for my media room: Everything brand new, not including tax (in canada, prices converted to USD)

Towers: Def Tech BP10's= $600 USD for the pair
Center: Def Tech cs8040hd= $240
In ceiling for surrounds and atmos= Yamaha NS-IW360C-W 2-Way In-Ceiling Speakers (Total 4 speakers)= $240
Sub: Klipsch rs12w= $400
Receiver: Pioneer vsx1131 $440

to go with my 106 inch screen and epson 5040ub
 
#30 · (Edited)
I was able to outfit my room with a decent 5.1 setup for the cost of £420 (stands included); I did however buy all used speakers using Gumtree and spent a great deal of time waiting for the right speakers to appear for sale. It's a complete mix of different equipment and if I had been lucky to have had some of the people selling complete 5.1 sets for £400-£500 (roughly) of the same pieces of kit when I started I may have gone for that instead. I'd have saved about £100, possibly more.
I ended up getting Dali Zensor 3s for my L-R speakers, a Tannoy MXc centre speaker, a Tannoy SFX 5.1 subwoofer (down firing 8" cone and a front firing reflex port) and a pair of B&W DM601 S1 speakers for my Rear/surround speakers. The experience provided from them is great

The first question is do you need 7.2? The second subwoofer will simply balance out the bass and reduce standing waves, it won't contribute to directionality (or so I've read), though you can do all of this with careful placement of a single subwoofer and one good subwoofer is better than two cheap subwoofers. Secondly, do you have the space behind you for larger (small bookshelf size) speakers or are you planning on getting the smaller speakers (the type which usually come with HTIB setups) that can perform well but are outperformed by larger bookshelf speakers? You might have 7.2 channels however starting with a 5.1 setup and building on that may be the better answer for your budget.

You don't always have to buy new and someone may have recently gotten a new set of speakers and are looking to offload a 5.1/7.1 setup at a much better price than you would get for new speakers, obviously they would need to be local as speakers are often a little more expensive (especially when taking into account shipping) so if you, or a friend/family member has a car and you've tracked down something local then you might get an absolute bargain and there's nothing wrong with used speakers provided they've been treated well; which you'll find out when you go to buy them.
All the good sellers I've seen have given me the history of their equipment, either had it set up for demo when I arrived or took it out of storage and set it up for demo when I arrived. Never with a good vendor have I had a "here it is, take it; goodbye" usually they've set things up so I can even sit down and listen if I wanted and usually chatted about speakers, audio equipment and such. The guy who sold me the DM601s (and the subwoofer; he showed me the 601s when I got the sub, one of the tweeters needed fixing at that point however) had some 'spare' speaker cable (really thick, about 14awg) that he said he'd give to me. I forgot to grab it on the way out and he went as far to contact me so he could post the cable out to me. If you're buying used and are using a site like gumtree/craigslist to buy it from, all the decent people (That I've met; totalling three) will make you feel welcome yet not try to push the product onto you or oversell it. None of the people I've met when buying my 5.1 setup have had a 'used car salesman' attitude.

I would honestly say that patience is a virtue and waiting a while for a bargain to come along may be better than buying everything as soon as you can, though I don't want to preach to you at the same time. I have heard that the Wharfadale 9.1s are excellent speakers, they do have an impedance of 6 ohms IIRC so if you get them and your AVR is rated 8-16 ohms, check for heat and don't turn it up all the way, you might end up blowing the power transistors in the AVR. It's not a huge issue and probably something you shouldn't need to worry about but I'll make sure you're informed all the same.

PS: If a speaker has banana plug inputs rather than the 'push spring' inputs it is usually (although not always, my KEF eggs have a rounded variation of this and they perform rather well for their extremely small size) a sign that they are of higher quality. You don't need banana plugs to use that type of fitting, though it makes life a whole lot easier if you need to move or remove a speaker for some reason and need to take the cable out. The reason it is (usually) a sign of higher quality is because it allows you to use lower gauge (and thus thicker) wire whereas thick wire would need to be trimmed so it fits neatly into the first type of push spring binding posts.
 
#31 ·
It may work in US, UK, China, Germany and possibly France because of scale and variety of products that the scale allows (UK having its own worldclass manufacturers for example) allows, in my country anything like black fridays, good used stuff deals(people trying to rip you off even by selling used product for 80-110% of its price) and the opportunity to choose from variety of products is simply weak due to size and buying power of economy it is simply not worth the time (especially buying high-end stuff, it only gets discounts when there is atleast one mainstream upgrade)
 
#34 · (Edited)
:( left Subwooferless since bkelec is on holidays till 27th of August, any suggestion of similar priced and performing sub to XLS200 from bkelec?
Well that is not cool --

Look at JBL and Wharfedale subwoofers -- not bad for the money and will not be the end of the world.

JBL 250 sub
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JBL-250P-S...qid=1501506747&sr=1-2&keywords=home+subwoofer

The SUB 250P’s close-miked response, normalized to the level at 80 Hz, indicates that the lower –3dB point is at 31 Hz and the –6dB point is at 27 Hz. The upper –3dB point is at 161 Hz with the Crossover control set to maximum.

Wharfedale SPC-10 sub
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wharfedale...01505508&sr=8-2&keywords=wharfedale+subwoofer

https://www.whathifi.com/wharfedale/powercube-spc-10/review
 
#36 ·
I would recommend going 5.1 for the time being, then add the rear surrounds (or atmos speakers) and second sub later.

If you can find the Sony Core SSCS5 bookshelf speakers on sale thats great. 2 pair (4 speakers) will run you about $300. The Sony Core center can be found for around $100. So thats $400. If you are lucky, you might be able to get a used PSW505 for around $100.

So 2 CS5 for fronts. 2 for surrounds. The Sony Center and the polk PSW505 sub. Will probably cost somewhere between $500 and $600 all totalled.

Then later if you want you can pick up the Sony towers (SSCS3) to place in the front and move those bookshelves to rear surround duty.
 
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