Need Help with Sound Quality

Buy all three on a credit card, listen to them in your own environment for a few days, and use your ears to tell you which you like the best. Then return the speakers you didn't like as much. Easy Peasy...

Well, there is NO answer to your question....you can put a pair of speakers in front of 100 people, and some will like them, some will not! look at any speaker thread on this site...someone recommends a speaker or speaker system, then someone else trahses that recommedation!
None of the systems you have listed are good speaker companies, fwiw!

hiya Dan, and welcome to AVS forums.

Dmark gave great advice. It may be a bit of work on your part returning 2 pair of speakers, but you'll KNOW which one YOU like the BEST ! It's too subjective for anyone else to answer, and it's not $$ out of pocket that way, to have all 3 delivered to your door, then you do the work listening and decide. I think that's a great idea. esp. dealing with Amazon and their (relatively) painless return process.

Specs alone wont tell which sounds better. sorry.

Joseph

Sorry if my reply sounded rude in any way.I have a set of cheap altec lansing computer speakers on my work computer VS2320- they suck for anything other than an occassional CNN video! I haven't heard the other two systems you link and all i can say is that they will likely sound better than the Bose Companion II speakers (I have those and I cannot even listen to CNN on them!)
if you want decent audio quality, you won't get it for 50 bucks...

I guess the only way to answer that is by hearing all three, and I doubt anyone here has. IMO, I'd get the first one, because the other 2 are too ugly anyway.

and it weighs the most. I don't see any other specs that matter listed for any of them, and they may or may not be accurate.

Yes, your question was simple, unfortunately, the answer isn't. It isn't really answerable, at all, as asked.
Joseph

FWIW I would go with the genius setup of those, but be too ashamed to tell anyone or turn them up.....

There is much more to choose from at sites like newegg.com or tigerdirect.com it you are going for online shopping.

For 50$ I would go with a used 2.1 HTIB box setup and make it work.

Good luck.

Powered desktop monitors would be worlds better for you and not throw away in 2-3 years, as any of these will be.

Check out the audioengine line of pc speakers. Much better than the boom and tizz offerings most elsewhere.

The Audioengine A5's are an excellent little speaker, but they are in the $300 range.

If you can go a little higher, I've heard the Swan M10 (trio set) for $129 and to me they sound very good for the price.

Do you have the plots for frequency response from -90 to +90 degrees off-axis as well as the waterfall plot, THD measurements, cabinet resonance measurements, and resistance chart?

If so: It's likely I could give a probable answer to your question. If not, there's a lack of data. You would do best in that case to go by the most positively reviewed.

Personally: I suspect I would consider them varying levels of "horrible".

Low resonance / lack of ringing. Flat frequency response including off-axis. Sufficient volume (dynamic range).

Nobody is trolling. They are trying to help you. You need to understand specs don't indicate sound quality. Besides, most of the time sound quality is greatly affected by the room and the listeners ears/taste. I agreed 100% with the idea to buy all three and keep the best. That is the best method, even better than shopping brick and mortar.

I'm not saying you need to interpret the data; I'd be happy to help with that.

The problem is that the data I requested is simply not available for these speakers. It's rare for publishers to present the waterfall plots and off-axis performance; and while some review sites to get this information (one of the uses of Stereophile); I am not aware of a single one which would have drawn this data for these speakers.

Yes. I could likely tell you which will sound best with sufficient measurements but no, I don't think the needed measurements exist for the speakers in question.

If I had to guess (and this is just a guess without measurements) I would go with the Altec Lansing (despite it having the lowest review rating... crowds are pretty smart). It's the only 3-way design. I worry about the top frequencies on the 3" driver used by the other brand.

These are $50 speakers. It should not be a critical decision. As someone else said, go with the set that has the most positive reviews and be done with it. EDIT After briefly viewing them all these are my thoughts. The Edifier is an unknown brand and doesnt have many reviews-Pass. Altec Lansing is a good brand bt reviews are all over the place and some complain about quality. Also the most expensive. You are paying for the name-Pass. Genius has the most reviews and are nearly all 4 or 5 stars. If I were making the purchase I would get the Genius. Hope this is helpful.
Edited by Bond 007 - 12/13/12 at 11:40am

Don't be so sure. Price does not indicate quality, and very few manufacturers provide specs that are either accurate or meaningful, Wilson included.
If you want to buy a cheap speaker go to Best Buy or the like and listen to them.

You can't use the same logic comparing Wilson to these speakers. Wilson has provided tons of specs and they've been reviewed/measured by some quality pro reviews/magazines/websites. The speakers you have listed provide NOTHING to base anything off of, how can anyone tell you which sounds better if NO ONE has listened to all three? Theres no info to base any kind of judgement on them, there for its just a guess as to which one sounds better. Your just going to have to buy one that you think looks the best based on posted reviews or drive to Best Buy, Microcenter, or another local computer store and see what they have and listen to them. Then find them on Amazon or another website and see if they are cheaper.

There really are two bits of information that can be shared about speaker X...

1. if it has been professionally reviewed, there will be spects, measurements, etc about that speaker, not to mention OPINIONS that come from people who make audio their livelihood. My guess is these systems have not been professionally reviewed
2. Owners can step in and say "I have heard that system in my room and I think..."

The second set of speakers you listed are much more widely known and my guess is that several of them have been professionally reviewed...

Since there is likely NO one person who has heard the three systems you listed in your OP, and combine with that that those systems are NOT really considered "quality audio"...there really isn't much to share. I shared my experience with a similar Altec Lansing system (looking at it right now) and was pretty frank about the lack of good sound coming from it. You are asking people to tell you which pile of crap smell the least bad...

Its not just opinions its the fact that many quality speakers like Wilson, Focal, Klipsch, Paradigm, Monitor Audio, PSB, Kef, RBH all have been tested and measured. They have graphs available that can get you picture of how it will sound. Freq response (flat, peaky, ect.) off axis response, ect.

Heres a good example http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/SRT/srtmeas.html

Good manufacturers provide that kind of data to give people an idea on how the speaker might sound and whether it was competantly designed. Thats how guys on here can make some kind of determination on whether its a good speaker, a bad speaker or a great speaker.

Also price doesn't equal better. Theres many speakers out there some much cheaper that measure better or more ideally than Wilson does. While Wilson is nice speakers just because they are uber expensive and fancy doesn't equal better.

Your looking at $50 speakers, the manufacturer isn't going to put much effort into sound quality and craftsman ship they way higher end speakers will.

You'll also see terms like bright, warm, bloated, ect... Bright is that the listener thinks the highs are louder than the rest of the speaker, making it seem uncomfortable to listen to for any lenght of time. Warm means that the listener has to turn the volume up to get the desired high freq response (like the highs are somewhat muted compared to the woofers output) Bloated usually means bass is way too much and doesn't sound right.

What people was trying to get across earlier is that some users will perfer the bright speaker or the warm speaker or vice versa.

IMO those 3 your listed wil probably all sound about the same and I would base my discision on long term reviews about how the speaker has held up to normal use and if it still works after a year or what ever time lenght.

" i still doubt anyone could give me an answer."
Bingo...THERE ISN'T A RIGHT (OR WRONG) ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION....only opinion.