Joined
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52 Posts
This will be my first decent writeup.
This is used for about 70% music 30% movies. I wanted to get better equipment for as cheap as possible, so I have found great deals. The only things i will be doing in the near future are acoustic panels(oc), power conditioner, Dac, and oppo.
The room is about 400 sqft and i have neighbors all around me so being extremely loud was not a concern. But hunting around I have found some good equipment at way below retail and it turned out that this system will completely over power the amount of room i have. I am glad because i wont have to upgrade as soon as i move to a house.
The flagship of my system is a Denon 4802r. Let me tell you this thing is a BEAST. Sound quality is better than any new recievers i looked at....by faarrr.
It has way more than enough power. I did lose the hdmi switching and aud. setups. After hooking this up I could care less about that. My main concern about was calming down the sound from my old pioneer unit. Also the soundstage was lacking big time. With the denon the color and depth were really brought to life. I am overly happy and think this unit will travel with me down the upgrade path. Best part is i paid 300 for it.
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Not a scratch on it as it was a demo unit at a local store.
Next were the Energy Cf-30 towers. I looked and auditioned the cf 50 and cf 70s. I came to the conclusion all of them sounded the same on the higher end. Of course the 50s and 70s had more bass because of the added/larger woofers. But, on all models the mid and tweeter are the same. In my small area the sub does fine with adding the proper bass once everthing was set up properly. So in the end i got the cf 30s for 430 by talking down the people at electronics expo(i found out from energy they were a reseller). I would compare the cf30s to the b&w 684s. While the cf's are far less i think they matched up well for a comparison performance wise. Of course the b&w had more bass but the detail and sound were about the same maybe the b&w somewhat ahead. I also listened to towers like the monitor audio br6s and the cfs, in my ears sounder way better.
The first thing i ever purchased which made me go energy were the cb20 rears. Well same tweeter so they sound just as good as the towers with good bass from the 6.5 woofer rather than the 5's on the towers. Honestly they are overkill for surrounds but i already had them. 350 new and i picked them up for 250 from the same place as i bought the denon.
Center channel right now is a c-c50 from the older c series. Honestly it sounds like complete crap next to the cf series. I am still waiting for my cc-c10 center to come in.
Last was the sub. As I didnt need a monster for my small space and volume limitations, i picked up a velodyne vx 11. I picked this up new for 140. It does more than fine. I actually have the volume almost at the lowest setting on the sub.
So for being WAY under my budget in the end I am happier than i thought i was going to be.
Here are some pics and feel free to ask questions, as I know the cf series has not been reviewed much.
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This is used for about 70% music 30% movies. I wanted to get better equipment for as cheap as possible, so I have found great deals. The only things i will be doing in the near future are acoustic panels(oc), power conditioner, Dac, and oppo.
The room is about 400 sqft and i have neighbors all around me so being extremely loud was not a concern. But hunting around I have found some good equipment at way below retail and it turned out that this system will completely over power the amount of room i have. I am glad because i wont have to upgrade as soon as i move to a house.
The flagship of my system is a Denon 4802r. Let me tell you this thing is a BEAST. Sound quality is better than any new recievers i looked at....by faarrr.
It has way more than enough power. I did lose the hdmi switching and aud. setups. After hooking this up I could care less about that. My main concern about was calming down the sound from my old pioneer unit. Also the soundstage was lacking big time. With the denon the color and depth were really brought to life. I am overly happy and think this unit will travel with me down the upgrade path. Best part is i paid 300 for it.
Next were the Energy Cf-30 towers. I looked and auditioned the cf 50 and cf 70s. I came to the conclusion all of them sounded the same on the higher end. Of course the 50s and 70s had more bass because of the added/larger woofers. But, on all models the mid and tweeter are the same. In my small area the sub does fine with adding the proper bass once everthing was set up properly. So in the end i got the cf 30s for 430 by talking down the people at electronics expo(i found out from energy they were a reseller). I would compare the cf30s to the b&w 684s. While the cf's are far less i think they matched up well for a comparison performance wise. Of course the b&w had more bass but the detail and sound were about the same maybe the b&w somewhat ahead. I also listened to towers like the monitor audio br6s and the cfs, in my ears sounder way better.
The first thing i ever purchased which made me go energy were the cb20 rears. Well same tweeter so they sound just as good as the towers with good bass from the 6.5 woofer rather than the 5's on the towers. Honestly they are overkill for surrounds but i already had them. 350 new and i picked them up for 250 from the same place as i bought the denon.
Center channel right now is a c-c50 from the older c series. Honestly it sounds like complete crap next to the cf series. I am still waiting for my cc-c10 center to come in.
Last was the sub. As I didnt need a monster for my small space and volume limitations, i picked up a velodyne vx 11. I picked this up new for 140. It does more than fine. I actually have the volume almost at the lowest setting on the sub.
So for being WAY under my budget in the end I am happier than i thought i was going to be.
Here are some pics and feel free to ask questions, as I know the cf series has not been reviewed much.
