Pioneer's Speaker Genius Hits Low Price Point - Page 72

And here's a pic of my predicament.

Would moving the TV down and placing the center above it just clutter this all up horribly? I'm thinking maybe I should stick to stereo / phantom-center here just for looks as this is really my music area and casual TV/movie room, not my home theater (which is a dedicated area on another floor).

Also trying to decide whether to use the 41's on the mantel there (or maybe mount them on the wall either floating above the mantel at TV level, or farther out to the sides, clearing the mantel of their clutter)...

...or go with the floorstanders (which need to be raised up on some kind of stands to sound right).

Trying not to make this room look just totally crapped on by electronics, you know? The left-rights are essential (for music at the least), and look fine. Just wondering what else I can get away with without spoiling the space. Maybe not much else.

I show here the FS51's on the floor, the BS41 on the right, and the C21 center on the left hand side, just to show scale for everything.

Attachment 237874

Jack--

Have you also found the 51s to sound harsh in the upper mids and treble-shy when they are sitting on the floor and your listening height is a foot or more above tweeter level? What stands are you considering?

I sold my brother-in-law on the 5-piece set from BB ($285) a few months ago (based on reviews from here) and I was shocked at how good it sounded for the $$$! (run with a sub that I built for him a few years back with dual 12" TC Sounds epic's)

Because of that experience I just purchased a pair of the SP-BS21's and the SW-8 sub for my bedroom set-up. I bought an HK 3390 to run it all with. Should be a pretty good set up for $385 total!

Really...IMHO its great stuff for the $$$!

Brian

That's a tough situation for a center...
I would do the FS51s with the wood technology stands for sure - and maybe just do stereo/phantom center. Moving the TV up or down to place the center speaker would definitely take away from the style of the room.

Jack,

Is it possible to mount the TV on your wall to the left or right of the fireplace?

I've always found TVs to be much more immersive when they are near eye level. The fireplace forces the TV to be too high, and removes the ability to have a center speaker.

If you mount to one of the side walls and lower, you can solve both those problems.

I actually used a 6 inch and 4 inch piece of 1/8 in steel, welded them together at the desired angle, and drilled two 1/4 in holes to mount through, I found a stud in the wall to mount them to. All the materials only cost 7 dollars for 2 brackets, my buddy has a welding machine and I like to play, LOL, but they turned out pretty good.

Jack,

- Move the firewood to the left wall or left of mantle to get it away from the wiring side.
- Put the TV, on its stand, and the FS51s, on a 12" tall 24" wide black wheeled table that's about as long as the width of your hearth. Put the C21 on the table in front of the TV; it will be nice to have for movies.
- Watch TV, listen to music: roll table in front of fireplace.
- Burn wood in fireplace: roll table to right wall.
- Do both: roll table to diagonal position in right corner beside fireplace.

Option, for fun: get a good blu-ray disc or other HD video+audio source of a fire burning in a fireplace, for the ambience without the fire. I know it's hokey, but it does provide the effect - I was surprised. Standard DVD is not as convincing to my subconscious - evidently fire is a high-resolution thing to the hindbrain. In the summer you can play a fishtank blu-ray .

I'm not sure how many are aware of this. But the SW-8 is essentially the Energy ESW-8, TSC (The Speaker Company ) ASW-8, it is also the sub that's contained with the Energy Take Classic 5.1 package.

It's a solid sub with impressive performance for the money. The only differences between the models are cosmetic, the drivers are different but performance is the same between models. As noted with the measurements performed by Home Theater and Audioholics.

http://www.energy-speakers.com/na-en...sw-8-overview/
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/s...sat-1000-ht8-b

I don't think so. Energy, Mirage, Jamo, and Klipsch area all owned by Audiovox. So there are some overlaps in their lines on subs that are just rebranded.

But the SW-8 has a different amp specification wattage rating, different looking driver, different weight, different dimensions, and different rated frequency response specs from the ESW-8. It's a fairly standard enclosure design, but they don't appear to be the same sub. Might be the same as the TSC, though.

Tear them apart and they are essentially the same. Specs are often changed to make the product look different. But it's essentially the same. Look closely at the amp's and that's the biggest give away. The wattage ratings are all essentially the same just stated differently. Pull the drivers and they are the same stamped stamped out basket with the same magnet just a different cone.

All I really want to point out is that if someone is on the fence about the Pioneer SW-8. Go do some research on the Energy ESW-8 and TSC ASW-8 models as they will give you good idea of how the Pioneer will perform.

Back to post #158 - Andrew Jones did the sub.

He isn't saying that Jones didn't design the sub, he is simply saying the design is very similar to a few other subs on the market.

Its hard to explain, but basically it sounds like bass that should be directed to the woofer is going to the midrange causing distortion from trying to play too low a frequency.

For an 8" sub - this is not bad.

HT Labs
The SW-8’s close-miked response, normalized to the level at 80 Hz, indicates that the lower –3-dB point is at 31 Hz and the –6-dB point is at 29 Hz. The upper –3-dB point is at 154 Hz with the FREQ control set to maximum.

It's interesting how there is little to no talk of the sub. It's sorta treated like an afterthought post #158. Hmmm!!! I would be willing to bet he put little to no effort into the sub and just grabbed an off the shelf model and changed a few things to make it look different.

When I owned the ESW-10 and ASW-10 they where the same when pulled apart aside from the cosmetics to the driver and cabinet.

That's essentially the same extension/response Audioholics came up with as well.

Thanks, Jim. I wasn't disputing that, but I didn't know

NADz: If Andrew Jones did the SW-8, then seems unlikely that Energy could have copied a sub that hadn't been invented yet. Wasn't the Pioneer BS/CS/FS and SW-8 series unveiled in 2010? And yet the ESW-10 was around much earlier:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/s...classic-review
http://www.hometheater.com/content/e...speaker-system

Well, unless Andrew Jones copied Energy. Don't know why he would do that if he said he designed the SW-8.

They are close

TSC sub
The ASW-8 exhibited impressive bass extension for such a small, lower powered / low cost design. The -3dB point was around the manufacturers claimed 33Hz. It has usable output to around 120Hz or so and then falls off rapidly. This response curve indicates a good match for the TSAT-1000s.

HT Labs - Pioneer
The SW-8’s close-miked response, normalized to the level at 80 Hz, indicates that the lower –3-dB point is at 31 Hz and the –6-dB point is at 29 Hz. The upper –3-dB point is at 154 Hz with the FREQ control set to maximum.

I understand

I hope my eyes are still good - If I remember, I saw his name on it.

So maybe Andrew Jones didn't actually design the sub: Check out these frequency response plots for the Energy Take setup and the Pioneers. Same reviewer, 2 1/2 years apart. The sub frequency plots are very similar:

http://www.hometheater.com/content/e...-labs-measures
http://www.hometheater.com/content/p...-labs-measures

I wonder if the max SPL is the same???

We'll have to put JimWilson of the budget subwoofer thread onto this

The Energy was the first to come out. While it was being discontinued the TSC ASW-8 came out. Now the Pioneer SW-8 comes out. It's not uncommon for companies to copy or use off the shelf designs that have been around for awhile. When you read about this line of speakers it's easy to see they had to cut and save some time and resources as most of that was put into all the other models. Which are all fantastic speakers that punch well above their weight.

Maybe Energy sold the design? Or the factory China owned it? LOL

I wonder if the amp is the same, though?

Both of these two previous discussions, nothing was confirmed:

A few posts in a row here in the Pioneer thread.
A full thread in the subwoofer forum.

http://www.blu-ray.com/Energy-ESW-8/14004/
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/s...iew_fullscreen

The amps are the biggest giveaway. Post #4 in the subwoofer thread has better images than the ones I linked.

Just because they look the same doesn't mean they are the same construction. Tell me which is the real Epiphone Les Paul without looking at the URLs

One
Two

****

Course the trick is that the one that is the knock off is actually made at the same factory in Korea where Epiphone used to make that guitar before moving to China. Same basic design, but some different materials.

If Energy discontinued selling that sub, doesn't mean it meets the same specs now just because it has the same back plate/different stamp. Could be same factory makes them but with better or worse parts. SPL numbers would tell the truth

Agreed.

Let's say, for argument, that they are exactly the same (except for the driver) and they have very similar abilities (which they do.) What's the big deal?

And the woofers - then comparing them together, in actual performace.

Treble shy on the floor...yes, that's my experience.

I don't much get the upper-mid harshness, but I'm comparing to the 41s, which while not "treble shy" do ring a bit more "harshly."

Overall the 41s emphasize the upper vocals, but clip things a bit, and the 51s are fuller, but kind of don't "sparkle" if you get me. Putting them up higher does improve them pretty dramatically though.

I'm actually considering twin sw-8's as stands, but the sensible part of me knows that's kind of silly.

Good question, but again this isn't my HT. The TV up where it is allows viewing from the family room, the dinette behind it, and the kitchen behind that (one long rectangle basically) so it's really practical and is at eye level when walking around (kitchen), easy to view from the dinette (far enough away that you don't have to crane your neck any) and in the family room, the seating is such that everything is laid back and again easy to look up (especially lying on the sofa, you're looking right up at it then). So it's actually a really convenient compromise. If this was a main viewing space, I'd put the tv and seating width-wise instead of length-wise and solve everything, but only for that one room (family room) since you then couldn't see it anywhere else. So I'm stuck where it is, works wel.

I think I'm with the poster above who says use the FS51's, phantom center, and keep the look of the room intact...since I mostly care about music here and any movies I do here are just casual viewing. I still may set up a sub and surrounds, but just forgo the center. Or I may forget the surrounds, too, so as not to clutter it up. The center will be the main thing I miss as 3.1 would be pretty great given my layout (long three room thing with no real "back" to it), but it would probably look bad, so...oh well.

I doubt I'll do this, but a table in the corner, maybe one that's mobile' is actually a pretty creative idea. Way to try thinking out of the box, I enjoyed that suggestion. It'd actually be great for an evening of casual XBox playing to drag the TV right in front of the sofa at eye level. Fun ideas, but I'm probably ok with it in it's jack-of-all-trades position. And I really do use the fireplace regularly (I'm in the midwest) and would give up the TV in this room before it.