Is it my receiver or speakers that's under powered?

^^^

assuming you have run ypao, those volume levels sound perfecrly normal and in no way indicate that the avr is underpowered...

iow, you are fine...

1) speakers/sub...

2) the room they are in...

repeat 1 and 2 until satisfied...

Your receiver is fairly modest. And your bookshelf speakers are inefficient.

Your easiest path to "sound that blows you away" is some efficient (90db+) 8 ohm speakers.

Frys has been selling some nice JBL floor standing towers for <$300 about 50% off..
The JBLs are very efficient and a real 50W/CH amplifier powers them nicely..

Just my $0.02..

Fry's also has the Infinity P363 towers for $109 each.

Check Vann's.com for some Klipsch speakers. Very efficient and great for TV and movies.

I saw a black Friday ad for best buy that had half price Klipsch floor standers listed. Don't remember the model number.

There are 3 relevant truths:

(1) Just about every AVR has 100 wpc +/- 3 dB.

(2) Very few people are troubled by clipping in the power amps of their AVR.

(3) It takes 10 dB more power to create the impression of doubled loudness. That's 10 times! IOW you next power amp needs to be rated at no less then 1 KW/channel 8 ohms, low distortion.

Read and reconsider:

http://www.kef.com/html/us/showroom/hi-fi_series/c_series/fact_sheet/bookshelf/c3/index.html

If 88 dB/W speakers are "inefficient" home audio speakers then there is a blizzard in San Diego today. ;-)

His speakers have average efficiency.

88 db is only 2 dB less than 90 dB. While I see home speakers rated at 95 dB efficiency, I suspect that at least some of that is specsmanship. That all said 95 dB is only 7 dB more than 88 dB and thats still less than 10 dB.

As I pointed out in the discussion of amplifier power, 3 dB more loudness isn't a good justication for even just a chicken to cross the road. ;-)

The weakest parts of his system are the cheap subwoofer, room acoustics and system setup.

Running YPAO is just the beginning when it comes to system tuning.

Just because his sub has a 12" driver doesn't mean it has enough Xmax to blow your nose. The anemic 150 watt (rms? peak? PMPO?) power amp driving it is probably a tacit admission of the fact.

I'm frequently dismayed when I see efficiency "specs" given for speakers taken as gospel truth when in reality they are more marketing than anything else. There are 86/db/watt/meter that have 90db given as their efficiency.

Something wrong someplace. If this is a 2-way ported floorstander with a waveguide tweeter, what's that second 6 1/2" whatsis on the front of the speaker?

No way can a single 6 1/2 speaker be the cure for a 12 inch long-stroke subwoofer that ain't there!

At least the picture matches the speaker's specs.

However the same basic truth applies.

No way can two 6 1/2 speakesr be the cure for a 12 inch long-stroke subwoofer that ain't there!

Yup, and you just ignored a big chunk of it.

Not my favorite answer. The sound of speakers is profoundly affected by the room they are in and the setup. If you are going to audition speakers meaningfully, do it right (in your listening room, with an optimized setup for that speaker) or don't do it at all!


Your biggest mistake so far involved things like not learning how to spell Hsu, and/or not spending $500 or more on a decent subwoofer. ;-)

Sure there are, the polk monitors, the andrew jones pioneers, and the infinity P363's are among the most commonly referenced budget speakers talked about on this site. Start with one of them.

You shoulda got the polk monitor 70's when you had the chance instead of second guessing yourself.

Newegg is having a black friday special on the Polk Monitor 60's. $99 each with free shipping.

If that is your goal then going to Polk monitor series is taking a backward step from that goal. Louder? Likely. So if your equating loud with better than get the Polks. If you want something better than you might need to spend a little more.

I have the Polk M60, and while they sound great for a budget floorstander I wish I would have spent a little more money. I would suggest looking at premier acoustic and bic acoustech floorstanders. The prices on these are around the price of polk monitor series but the driver and build quality is that of the RTI series and upper end Klipsh. I recently just picked up the premier acoustic pa-6s for my side surrounds and they sound so much better than any speaker in my system right now (lol?). A neighbor has the Premier Acoustic PA-8F which he bought for his game room (I convinced him after having purchased the pa-150 sub). They sounded so awesome, we both agreed they sounded better than his Polk RTI A7 (who would have thought), so now the Premier acoustics sit in his main theater and the Polks in his game room. The premiers can be had for close to $400 for a pair and the PA-6F for probably less than the Monitors you were looking at that will absolutely destroy them. They are still doing their Black Friday deals too (as far as it looks from the website), I'd look into it.

I haven't heard the Bic Acoustech's in person, so I have no real world experience with them, I've only read and researched and everything I've seen has been positive. To me they are the ID Klipsch speakers and the Premiers are the ID Polk speakers (They have no relation this is all just perception).