Taco

Been thinking of getting a digital receiver & more speakers to get the surround effect. I've already got a pair of decent speakers which I want to use for the fronts. Do you really need to "match" all the speakers, or can you adjust individual levels through the receiver?

I've got a fairly small room and was thinking of maybe the Bose type cubes for the satellites. Can you buy these as separates, or only in sets? Also do they perform without their associated floor mounted mid/sub? Or should I go with a smallish 2-way speaker?

No idea what to get for the center. The sub will probably have to wait, but I get pretty good lows with my 12" Eminence woofers w/ passive radiators on my existing set!

matchpenalty

Whatever you do, for your own investment sake, AVOID BOSE. Way too expensive and inferior quality in my opinion. If you really like your fronts, and are going to get a DECENT receiver, there are a few options.

Klipsch quintets/sub
Energy
NHT

After auditioning stuff (and I am going to get a pretty decent upper mid range receiver - just under the THX range- in the Marantz SR-8000 or 7000), I am hooked on NHT.

If you are keeping the cost down, make sure your fronts/centersub are your best stuff as well as the sub if you choose to get one.

One thing I was not impressed with is the Klipsch center channel. I happened to prefer the Klipsch setup overall to the energy's. I really liked the NHT supercenter and loved it in combo with the NHT satellites.

A full Klipsch, Energy or NHT system should be LESS than BOSE and much better made.

For listener advice go to www.audioreview.com and check out speaker reviews. Just remember that some could be from sellers of them or competing products, so make sure you discount the short extreme reviews that are more rants than reviews. THEN, go listen to stuff and let your own ears make the choice.

From the work I did on the net, the whole. Klipsch setup 4 quints/center/KSW12 sub can be had for around 700 with some looking around.

I am going to buy my NHT setup from my local dealer in conjunction with the Marantz receiver and the Velodyne (ct-120) sub. My whole setup (NHT/Velodyne) is going to cost about the same as the bose am-15 and is going to crush it in performance, reliability and durability.

Furious

If your looking for decent budget stuff, cerwin vega has a decent center channel E75C or something..the model # escapes me atm, polk R1 bookshelf speakers make decent rears. I'm using this package to compliment 2 wharfedale Diamond VI's and I couldnt be happier. It's no high end setup but you'd be hard pressed to do better in the price range. The two rears and center channel were about 180 USD for the package. Not bad and can allways upgrade later.

dtf

Furious, where did you pick up your cerwin vega center from?

audrey

With good electronics, any of the NHT family of small speakers (Super Zero, Super One, or VT1.1) sound great. But a word or caution, they are somewhat hard to drive and are very revealing of what's up stream.

Also worth considering are Gallo (smaller than Bose), Polk, & B&W.

matchpenalty

Audrey,

You are so right. NHT will show the good/bad/ugly of a receiver. Hence why I love it with the Marantz SR-8000 I am getting. Great speaker, but it requires a top notch amp

dchaug

To answer your first question. When someone says for example to get a "matching center channel". They mean it matches the other speakers as far the sound of the speaker, not the level. Yes you can adjust individual levels with your reciever, but if your center has different sonic characteristics than your mains it could sound a little off.

Short answer no they don't need to "match", but you'll probably be happier if they do.

I agree with xcheckers about Bose, they market their stuff well, so a lot of people assume that it is like the best stuff you can buy. But I haven't been very impressed by them from what I've heard.

Furious

DTF I picked it up on clearance at Future Shop, a chain store.