Christmas Advice for my Dad

I just bought a 5.0 setup of Polk speakers for my father-in-law for his birthday. Grand total was $300 for two pairs of bookshelf speakers and a center channel. You should be able to get them for even less with your employee discount. Unless he is an audiophile that is used to the high end stuff, he should be really happy with the Polks.

My advice is that you are not going to buy anything that an audiophile will want to listen to for $200, even with a big discount.

For $299, you can get a pair of KEF iQ10 speakers from KEF Direct (they were $499 not long ago, and that is a very good deal). IMO they sound better than the B & W 685, and a LOT better than the DefTech speakers.

Don't waste your money on something he won't like.
Edited by commsysman - 12/7/12 at 11:24am

if he likes Definitive Technology sometimes newegg.com has specials on them. they had good discounts for black friday. christmas is coming soon. maybe newegg will run more specials on Definitive Technology

Your advice is lop sided I've heard the iQ10's and there sound is thin and not much else...they are concidered sattilites not bookshelves and better than the deftech's? Please! The 55's stomp the kef's in every aspect...I've got Q-tips if you so wish...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

Since when are the iq10's considered satellite speakers? The dimensions are (11.8 x 6.9 x 10.3 in.). Since when is that the size of a satellite speaker?
http://www.kef.com/html/en/showroom/hi-fi_series/classicq_series/fact_sheet/bookshelf/iq10/index.html

I guess the Def Tech SM45 is a satellite speaker too? Dimensions 11.7" x 6.8" x 11.7"
Edited by afrogt - 12/7/12 at 8:50pm

brad our ears all hear things differently. some expensive speakers sound horrible to me and I sometimes like the cheaper brand better. it is good to hear a lot of brands. has your dad heard polk audio before in the past? if so did he like it? b&w is good, but a little overpriced I feel like. it helps with your discount though if you get b&w. what kind of music will he be listening to? are you on the east or west coast brad

is he wanting the speakers for mostly music or movies also? does he like his speakers neutral or a little bright sounding with the tweeters being real high pitched?

brad sometimes newegg.com has big discounts on polk speakers if you decide to go polk.

when I was at a best buy magnolia store Brad, I heard Mirage, Martin Logan, and b@w. the mirage speakers sounded great, but not much bass at all. I like a lot of bass in my speakers. The expensive martin logan bookshelf speakers and electrostat martin logans sounded good, but I couldn't afford them and not enough bass. I only heard more expensive kef speakers before. they sound good, but your dad might like the polk audio speakers just as well. my neighbors parents used to have two older polk audio floorstanding speakers with 10 or 12 inch woofers in them i think. They used a marantz receiver with it. they played genesis sledgehammer and it sounded very detailed and amazing on the polk audio speakers. Some new polk audio speakers that I heard lately don't sound as good to me as the 80s and 90s stuff. I think that for the money you can find great sounding speakers cheaper then b@w. don't get me wrong b@w sounds good, but some of the models are overpriced.

whatever brand that you decide to get for him I am sure that he will appreciate it.

brad watch out for the vintage speaker sellers on craigslist ebay audiogon etc. some want way to much. some of those old speakers are so old that the foam surrounds could fall of any minute. one of the most overpriced vintage speakers that I see on craigslist and ebay are cerwin vega d9. I could buy new cerwin vegas for close to the price that most these people want for them used. any older vintage speaker brands that he likes a lot? if the sellers tell you these 30 year old vintage speakers go for 500 dollars on ebay so i want that much etc tell them that ebay is a different market and you are not paying that much for 30 year old speakers and try to negotiate. sometimes the sellers will go half of what they origionally wanted when negotiating. sometimes you just have to walk away if they refuse to negotiate from a very high price.

oh okay the bright sound is more for klipsch. the polks won't be as bright i think. i heard tannoy once and thought it was to tinty. 6 and half inch woofer i think sounds good fopr bass better then 5 inch woofer. i agree with him.

some bose stuff sounds good but a lot of it is overpriced for what you get. there are cheaper brands that sounds just as good. people think that bose should use better speaker cones insteaD of paper.

if he likes the def techs and b&ws and they fit in your budget, get one of them, they are both good speakers if you can get them for $300ish. I would ask your pops which he liked best tho.

That would also be my answer, and the SM55 does a good job with music.

The def tech sm450s sound very good for music! Got them for 200 dollars/pr from new egg this summer...