[barfman]

Hi all, I'm extremely new to hifi systems, until the start of the year all I owned was a set of cambridge microworks pc speakers... no hifi to speak of so bear with me please


I just spotted in a local private forum someone selling a set of A-20's and a C-20 Center along with their respective amplifiers. He's asking $1400 Aussie dolllars, which is about $900usd, but keep in mind we pay double usually when buying speakers or receivers from what I've seen


I was wondering some opinions on the value for money and quality of these speakers, and I guess too their reliability, since I'll be pretty screwed if the amp ever carks it. I'll be using them with a Luxman LR2500RS receiver, which has pre-outs (I think these are what I need ?).


Will using active speakers mean volume control becomes even more of a pain? Or should I be able to set them to a certain level and then control everything from the receivers volume control without any issues?


The final thing is these are going to be used in a very small room, and probably placed only 30-40cm or less away from both a tv and a 21" computer monitor, would they be adequately shielded?


The specs on these speakers sound amazing, but I'm just wondering if the cost + extra space and effort involved with them being active with their own amps justifies things... please any opinions would be greatly appreciated


Thanks,

Jonathan

 

[barfman]

Has nobody ever used these?


I went to demo them today, I did hear some things in the music I was listening to that I hadn't noticed/heard before, but by the same token the speakers didn't blow me away, and some tracks sounded worse than my car stereo, it seemed like sometimes the vocals were a bit too weak and drowned out by all the other stuff going on...


Thanks for any thoughts,

Jonathan

 

[tonygeno]

It seems you answered your own question. I have listened extensively to these and they are excellent. For the price you're paying, you cannot go wrong. But... your reaction to the sound would indicate that either there's something wrong with this pair, or you do not like accurate sound, as these are very, very accurate.

 

[barfman]

Don't get me wrong, some tracks on the cd's sounded *great* , some sounded a bit I dunno.. I guess maybe I'm just not used to these speakers... does going from car stereos / cheap bookshelf home hifis to studio monitors sometimes take a bit of getting used to the differences in sound?


Part of the problem is I've had different people tell me different things... some people say monitors are great, others say for what I'll be using that things will sound better using 'normal' hifi speakers.


I'll be using them for probably 40% music, 30% tv and 30% video games+dvd's ...


I've heard people say monitors will sound great on good recordings, and on poor ones expose clearly all the faults, is that true?


I couldn't see anything blatantly wrong with the speakers, though I'm not 100% sure whether the 5 or 6 knobs on the amp were set to the right settings by the guy who was demo-ing them to me.