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I'm assembling the shopping list for my home theater and find myself spinning my wheels looking for speakers. I've settled on getting five identical bookshelf speakers along with a pair of subs to fill the sound in my fairly small and fully enclosed media room (about 1900 cubic feet, 12.5' wide by 17' deep by 8' tall).
I had posted some questions earlier and got useful feedback that point me in this direction. Now I'm trying to narrow down to specific speakers and it becomes an ever more frustrating path. My situation is less than ideal as my speaker placement is going to be low relative to the seating position and I'll have to plan to tilt the speaker upward toward the listening position, which will be about 10-11' back from the speaker faces.
I'm certainly willing to spend enough to get good sound, but don't want to waste money on something that won't make a sonic difference in my small space.
Which brings me to my latest Chinese hell - I see the HSU and Arx speakers running in the $150 - $200/speaker range. Great reviews, awesome testing! Results better than speakers costing 3 to 5 times more!
Then, there are the bookshelves from folks like SVS (Ultras) and Ascend (Sierra 1) in the $500/speaker range. Great reviews, awesome testing! Results better than speakers costing 3 to 5 times more! (yes, that was a copy/paste)
I'm probably going to order three speakers to test out the front sound stage from two, maybe three vendors. The winner sell me the two back channels and the losers go home.
But, even with generous return policies, That's still some pretty good cash going out the door at one time.
So, as I decide who to bring in for the audition, I have to wonder - what do the $500 speakers bring to the table over the $180 ones? Does it make sense to put three HSU HB-1 MK2 against three SVS Ultras? I'm tempted to do so to see if the Ultras offer enough improvement to send the HSU's back or if the HSU's are solid enough to send the Ultras packing.
These are all Internet Direct products, so I have some expectation that more of the prices charged for these speakers goes into the products compared to what I'll find at the stores. Which naturally makes me want to think that a $500 speaker should blow away a $180 speaker.
Which takes me back to the hell of ridiculous comparisons. Every review I read about all of these, whether here in forum posts or from "professional" reviews talks about how great they all are and how they sound like much more expensive speakers - though nobody ever calls out these more expensive speakers that get bested by whatever is being reviewed at the time.
So, while I'll gladly take any specific recommendations, I suppose I'm as much looking for a philosophy discussions as anything at this point.
I had posted some questions earlier and got useful feedback that point me in this direction. Now I'm trying to narrow down to specific speakers and it becomes an ever more frustrating path. My situation is less than ideal as my speaker placement is going to be low relative to the seating position and I'll have to plan to tilt the speaker upward toward the listening position, which will be about 10-11' back from the speaker faces.
I'm certainly willing to spend enough to get good sound, but don't want to waste money on something that won't make a sonic difference in my small space.
Which brings me to my latest Chinese hell - I see the HSU and Arx speakers running in the $150 - $200/speaker range. Great reviews, awesome testing! Results better than speakers costing 3 to 5 times more!
Then, there are the bookshelves from folks like SVS (Ultras) and Ascend (Sierra 1) in the $500/speaker range. Great reviews, awesome testing! Results better than speakers costing 3 to 5 times more! (yes, that was a copy/paste)
I'm probably going to order three speakers to test out the front sound stage from two, maybe three vendors. The winner sell me the two back channels and the losers go home.
But, even with generous return policies, That's still some pretty good cash going out the door at one time.
So, as I decide who to bring in for the audition, I have to wonder - what do the $500 speakers bring to the table over the $180 ones? Does it make sense to put three HSU HB-1 MK2 against three SVS Ultras? I'm tempted to do so to see if the Ultras offer enough improvement to send the HSU's back or if the HSU's are solid enough to send the Ultras packing.
These are all Internet Direct products, so I have some expectation that more of the prices charged for these speakers goes into the products compared to what I'll find at the stores. Which naturally makes me want to think that a $500 speaker should blow away a $180 speaker.
Which takes me back to the hell of ridiculous comparisons. Every review I read about all of these, whether here in forum posts or from "professional" reviews talks about how great they all are and how they sound like much more expensive speakers - though nobody ever calls out these more expensive speakers that get bested by whatever is being reviewed at the time.
So, while I'll gladly take any specific recommendations, I suppose I'm as much looking for a philosophy discussions as anything at this point.