I’m after getting started on a setup for music and most likely films too, I’ve been looking at denon AVRX2200W to connect it all but will leave that part til last. I’ve got about £200-400 to spend on speakers and I want to buy second hand to get more bang for buck.

Am I mistaken going down the route to use the speakers for tv and music duties?
What speakers can you recommend?
If my choice of av device is overkill or poor please let me know!

Thanks

Depends! Lol!

Not exactly the answer you want.

For music then stereo or 2.1 direct from source is what you want. I find a good 2.1 system is better than a crap 7.1 system, and less cables and all the other crap.

Yeah I’m happy going 2.1 over 5.1 or anything fancier! I really fancy a valve amp but the quads are a bit out of budget! It will be for a normal sized living room (2 sofas with backs against the wall) and probably 8m x 6m at a guess..

Any brands / suggestions for the price point, I can probably stretch to £700/800 for the amp and speakers

Tannoy bookshelf speakers partnered with an active 10″sub and a decent amp should be able to blast your average living room quite easily just under that budget.

+1 for stereo. Massively better sound for the £ than any kind of dolby system, and a lot neater setup. I have some low end mission speakers via a TEAC mini system and the sound is spot on for a typical size living room. Just make sure that you set your TV or Sky box to stereo output. Sky default is 5.1.

Thanks guys – what do you recommend amp wise?

As long as the amp is well within its power envelope its irrelevant. Spend the money on good speakers.

ok good advice so aim around £200 for an amp?

Directional cables.

Yamaha Yamaha Yam Yam Yamaha…

Bit misleading there tekp2.
Different amps produce different style of sounds. Depends on how the op prefers to hear music, sharp, crisp, punchy, or a slightly rounder, curved sound.
A marrantz will produce a totally different style to a Quad vena

Look for an Exposure Super XX (20) or power amp combo, old amps but amazing sound

What sort of music do you listen to?

What part of the sound quality do you prioritise (ie don’t mind light bass as long as its really tuneful)?

Describe the room.

Have a read of the Olde Worlde section of the HiFi World website for classic kit to watch out for.

Also, Rotel.

8m by 6m is a normal living room?

There’s some lovely AVI Neutons on EBay at the moment. Splendid speakers,

Amp wise, I had a Rega Brio years ago, sold it for some Audiolab pre and power amps. Whilst the Audiolabs are better, the Brio wasn’t far behind really. Didn’t know that until I did the swap though. Considering it cost £325 new compared to the £1000 worth of Audiolabs

Was going to mention Rotel. I’ve recently purchased a new Rotel RA10 rrp £350. Might be over budget but it sounds fantastic. Punches way above its weight for the price. Quick look on the auction site and you can easily get an older model Rotel ie an RA01 for within a £200 budget. Also theres always the older NAD amps. 3020 was a bit of a classic back in the day.

Look for an Exposure Super XX (20) or power amp combo, old amps but amazing sound

or don’t – I thought they were sh1t driving my rogers speakers – worked well with Ruarks though.

I’m not really up to speed with current manufacturers (my old stuff is still going strong) but I would tend to agree with the likes of Yamaha or Rotel – good quality “sensible” stuff.

Also agree with coolhandluke re. AVI Neutrons, though they are quite tiny bookshelf speakers they sound wonderful. But if you want to rattle the walls with bass and drums they are probably not ideal.

As for TV via the hi-fi, yes definitely. My telly goes through the amp’s aux input. Far, far better than any soundbar would be and why double up on stuff you don’t need? Of course you need to arrange the TV between the speakers or the soundfield might feel very odd.

I found that using 2.0 or 2.1 with films meant the vocals got a bit lost.

I’ve ended up with hifi speakers on the front left and right channels, and a sub, centre and rear left/right from a (relatively) cheap Pioneer surround set for the rest.

The sub, centre and surrounds are only used for films, when playing music the amp is set to only use the front left and front right. Works pretty nicely.

Good speakers will show up the failings in a poor amp however a good amp will never make poor speakers sing.

My money will always go on the best speakers I can buy. Especially if you eventually want to move to valve amps.

As mentioned above all depends on what type of sound you want / like.

Personally I really dislike the 2 + sub sound. Having a separate low end source always sounds really fake to me. That said I am a big exponent of large volume speakers where there is enough space inside for air to move for a good low response.

WRT Amps I would personally go for a good modern ish stereo amp over a dedicated AV amp as long as it has digital in, or a as I do a an older amp to match the age of the speakers with an Arcam irDAC as the digital interface. Ideally however you want the least conections from the source to the speaker as possible.

WRT to speakers it all depends on the size of your room, or more specifically how big of a speaker cabinet you can live with. Ive got a couple of pairs of 1970’s MS in my front room which dominate it somewhat but that its the compromise I make for the sound and to be honest I like how they look.

I think the problem with most 2.1 systems is people dont take the time to blend the sub into the speakers properly.

Either the volume on the sub’s amp is set to high resulting in too much boom, or the crossover is not adjusted to the main speakers natural bass cut off point, too high a frequency resulting in a muddy mid range, or too low a frequency resulting in a ‘frequency hole’.

Set up properly you shouldnt be able to tell there is a seperate sub.

Spend the money on good speakers

This.

I’d look for some decent floor standing speakers and forego a sub. I paid £400 for a second hand REL sub some years ago and it blends perfectly with my book shelf speakers. Cheaper subs will not do this so start with speakers that have a reasonable bass response already: Sonos Faber Toy floorstanders and any decent mainstream amp.

I have a 5.2 system with a middle of the range Onkyo receiver. It was the amp I could find that would fit in a cupboard I have! The speaker system cost 10x the price of the amp, but the sound is excellent. I looked at much nicer processors, but there was no room for them. I’ve not regretted my choice.

Good speakers will show up the failings in a poor amp however a good amp will never make poor speakers sing.

not always true – especially as you mention tube amps later.

A good powerful amp might be able to ‘control’ a speaker a lot better than something less powerful, and a speaker could sound very different when on a tube amp. I had some ProAc tablettes which were very iffy on my Quad 909s but beautiful on my Rogers E40a tube amp, changing character massively.

With a 2.1 system that images well you shouldn’t need a centre speaker, unless you leave the source providing a 5.1 signal because you have forgotten to switch it to 2 channel.

And a sub should match OK as long as it has a sharp cutoff at 100Hz, you can place frequencies above this. Many subs aren’t so good at this, especially cheap ones.

Small speakers plus a sub may well be easier to integrate into your listening room – floorstanders and large speakers may interact in ways you can’t control easily without electronic compensation and/or room compensation/treatment and obtrusive speaker placement.

r don’t – I thought they were sh1t driving my rogers speakers – worked well with Ruarks though

I run mine through BW 603s they sound great.

Hold their value well as well. My amp is now 25 years old, and still going strong.

I use my stereo for the sound source with DVD’s and it sounds pretty good – voices are nice & clear & there’s plenty of punch for action scenes.

I’ve got a NAD 3020i amp that I’ve owned since ’94 and a pair of TDL RTLII Mk2’s that I bought around ’96/’97.

You could easily pick up a similar set-up off e-bay for £250 or so.

I’d weigh up how much you want to use the system for films though and don’t rule out an AV set-up, given that you mention it in your OP – everyone seems to have written off some kind of AV system entirely, but you should be able to get hold of a half decent system second hand for your budge without compromising sound quality for music too much.
A Yamaha or Onkyo amp and then spend the bulk of the speaker budget on the fronts and get some budget rear speakers. most AV set-ups let you run the front speakers as combined front/centre so you could always do that until you have enough funds to get a dedicated front speaker.

I’d go to a shop and listen to some speakers. Try some new ones in your budget and then try some more expensive ones. The difference might not be as great as you think and at least you’ll have some comeback if anything goes wrong with them.

With regards to the Amps; yes at that end of the spectrum amp like the Quads and The Rogers will have more of effect of the quality of sound from a speaker but your are talking about a couple of grands worth of amp there and even they will be limited if the speaker can not match the sensitivity.

Obviously an under driven speaker will not sound anywhere as good as one powered by an amp that isn’t having to be driven at max capacity to get anything out of it. That said the Db sensitivity of a speaker will have a lot to do with how that ‘power’ displayed by the speakers.

I’m running 70’s MS400 / 700’s with 40 watt AR Cambridge A60’s that sound better than a even a slightly higher power amp.

I still maintain that on a budget like that the value is in the speakers.

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=10&order=desc

Look on pinkfish

B+W make some quality speakers. Big sound too, if that’s your fetish.

I think I ideally want floor standers, good warm bass but I dont want to be rocking the walls… it’s a terraced house! warm year clear vocals with detail and no separate sub. I’m going to go to a few places to listen before I buy too so I can see what I actually want more rather than just thoughts.

Anyone tried the circa £300/400 valve amps from china? there are quite a few people raving about them for the cost and they aphetically look good to me

http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread.php?128577-KEF-REFERENCE-ONE-TWO-speakers

Much speaker for the money and a 100 watt amp of some sort would drive them fine.

My ears are tuned by KEF Ref. 104aB’s, those ones above might be great 🙂

retro83 – Member
I found that using 2.0 or 2.1 with films meant the vocals got a bit lost.

I’ve ended up with hifi speakers on the front left and right channels, and a sub, centre and rear left/right from a (relatively) cheap Pioneer surround set for the rest.

The sub, centre and surrounds are only used for films, when playing music the amp is set to only use the front left and front right. Works pretty nicely.

TurnerGuy – Member
With a 2.1 system that images well you shouldn’t need a centre speaker, unless you leave the source providing a 5.1 signal because you have forgotten to switch it to 2 channel.

And a sub should match OK as long as it has a sharp cutoff at 100Hz, you can place frequencies above this. Many subs aren’t so good at this, especially cheap ones.

Small speakers plus a sub may well be easier to integrate into your listening room – floorstanders and large speakers may interact in ways you can’t control easily without electronic compensation and/or room compensation/treatment and obtrusive speaker placement.
My system consists of a Yamaha DSP-AX2 amp, with a Sony 5.1 Pascal speaker setup*, the speakers are small oval alloy enclosures with two midrange drivers and a tweeter between them. It’s set so that when I switch the amp to ‘CD’, actually my Cambridge DVD99, it only uses the front l/r speakers and sub, the same when I switch to CD-R, actually my Mac Mini via TOSLink, and when I change to Satellite the whole 5.1 speaker system comes into play.
Does involve a bit of fannying around initially, getting speakers balanced correctly, the sub integrated, etc, but once done it should just stay there, nothing else needs doing. Listening to the latest free Uncut Magazine CD, which has a good wide variety of music on it, and the sub isn’t obtrusive, but when you get a track like Dust, by Lucinda Williams which has some very low frequency bass on it, it’s full benefit can be felt!
*Excellent little speakers, had the whole lot for over fifteen years, bought as ex-demo from a shop where I once had a Saturday job, £1500-worth, got it all for £750, never regretted it. Got a lovely Sony MDS-JD940 Minidisc deck hooked up to it as well, lovely bit of kit, all sorts of editing capabilities built-in, like custom fade-in/out, text input via an IBM PS/2 keyboard I liberated from a pile of old computer kit at work.

Given what you’re looking for I may be able to help. I’ve a pair of Monitor Audio RS6s Floorstanders, Audiolab 8000s amp, fed by a Raspberry Pi with a PI-DAC+, all came to around £500ish give or take used. It sounds absolutely great, plenty of bass, warm midrange and veru clear vocals. The one bit to change it’s quite “bright” at the top end, am looking to change either amp or speakers to resolve thos, not sure which yet.

I’d definitely agree with the used route, to allow for chopping and changing parts with no or little loss. Good luck!

Floorstanders are way overkill for a terraced house… I’ve not used my tannoy m3’s for years.. Just use my m1 bookshelf speakers on stands with a reasonable amp and they are more than capable of filling the living room with more than I need.

I have an active sub too.. But i rarely turn that on unless I’m angry with the neighbors.

But I guess it depends on the particular speakers.. My m3’s sound wonderfully loud and articulate but they have very little bass extension.. Thier m1 bookshelf brethren are a much more full range solution despite being obviously smaller in driver size and much smaller boxes.. But don’t quite have the finesse of the m3 floor standers.

I have a mate who has some B&W floostanders and a meaty Sony amp.. And my God they can kick out ludicrous volumes without even becoming close to losing thier control.. Very impressive.

Floorstanders are way overkill for a terraced house

No they’re not. Why would they be?

There’s no kill like overkill.

I would search on eBay for used and nearest first, find loudspeakers that look suitable then google for a review. Then once you know rough age and selling price contact the seller to see if you can have a listen. Should bo OK I’d have thought. Floorstanders will be a tough sell second hand as they’re costly to ship. From what I can see local to me, there are good quality speakers available for your budget.

If you room is genuinely 8x6m then you’ll be fine with floor standers.