[Closed] Small, discrete speaker systems; Bose or alternatives?

Have had to rethink the speaker system. We live in the upstairs of a converted Edwardian townhouse, which is constructed using bricks and wood, not concrete. Our downstairs neighbour can hear the current speakers if turned up loud, so a subwoofer really is out of the question as it will cause too much vibration. Which means we are now limited to smaller speakers, probably wall mounted on adjustable brackets. A rummage in the cellar yielded a pair of smaller Mordaunt Short MS10i speakers, which I'd forgotten about. So I reckon they'll be perfect really. They were the forerunners of the current ones, which I bought because I wanted 'more' sound. But as we seldom have the system up loud anyway, the MS10s will be more than adequate.

So the current amplifier will remain, which is good because it now means we'll save a chunk of money. I may still try to demo some of the speakers mentioned on here though, for a future 'upgrade'.

Mount the subwoofer on tall legs, or a shelf, so it is close to the ceiling - you will be able to hear the bass but it won't be near the floor to vibrate and annoy downstairs.

You should try his V2 version, it is quite impressive and has a lot more bass extension, especially as you are so close .

You're getting a bit carried away with this TurnerGuy; as I said, our living room isn't a specially treated listening environment, therefore we won't be spending too much time and money on getting the 'perfect' set up. As long as it sounds fairly decent, we'll be happy. Neither of us are 'audiophiles'. There is no suitable location for a subwoofer other than the floor. At most I may hire one if possible, and see if it makes a significant difference/doesn't disturb out neighbours, but you're talking about investment with very little 'return' for us really. You're obviously different and have other priorities.

Might cart mine (11ohm & new, since you ask)

I have 11ohms as well, much prefer them. But if you want a real upgrade (costly though, about £1k) you should try the Cicable external crossovers, the reduction in thd is huge - normal LS3/5as just sound dirty now to me. And I also think the thin wall cabinets that Doug sells (some on ebay for £198) make a big difference, although I did both upgrades at the same time so can't tell which one is responsible for which bit.

You're getting a bit carried away with this TurnerGuy

As long as it is somebody else's money there's no limit to my enthusiasm 🙂

As some others have mentioned, I'd highly recommend the Boston Acoustics 5.1 set...

[url= http://www.trustedreviews.com/boston-acoustics-soundware-xs-special-edition_Surround-Sound-System_review ]review 1[/url]

[url= http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Boston-Acoustics-Soundware-XS ]review 2[/url]

Very very impressive for their size and price! The speakers are about 100mm cubed.

Same as the people who don't believe cables make a difference to sound quality. Until you have listened and made comparisons in a properly set up demo room, please don't make assumptions.

Provided you're not running over a quarter of a mile you could use bell wire and not notice a difference. #PlaceboEffect

In fact, by using massively thick shielded cable you probably make things worse.

As long as it is somebody else's money there's no limit to my enthusiasm

😆

It's more about finding an effective and practical solution, rather than working to a set 'budget'. I've come to the conclusion that it really isn't worth throwing lots of money at the situation, because that won't necessarily deliver the best solution for us. I'd happily spend on really nice set up, but if that's only going to offer a very marginal (if at all noticeable) 'improvement' over a set up costing a fraction of the price, then it's simply not worth it. I may consider something for our other place though, as that has greater potential for developing a nice set up. I think the floorstanders will be going up there actually. But again, we're happy with quite a modest system, and the existing equipment there is fine.

Provided you're not running over a quarter of a mile you could use bell wire and not notice a difference

the difference to bell wire can be very obvious - between two cables of similar RLC is another matter and placebo effect is a big factor.

I can quite happily recommend the Q Acoustics 2000 set up, since my purchase they have been tweaked and are now getting ever more glowing reviews.
Have you thought about in-ceiling speakers? they can be quite directional but would give good sound quality and be unobtrusive.
Examples of both [url= http://www.avforums.com/forums/members-home-cinema-gallery/1346244-bodgit-scarper-fun-games-low-budget.html ]HERE[/url]

Jwt; I've thought about ceiling speakers, but that would involve quite a lot of work, mess and disruption, so that's out. Putting some in the kitchen might be a possibility though.

What I really want are invisible speakers. Which sound wonderful. 😆

http://www.stealthacoustics.com/invisible_speakers.php

or

this one's quite interesting:

I have to say TurnerGuy; you know your stuff!

Sadly, they also involve a fair amount of extra building work. 🙁

Would be fantastic if they also sounded good though.

I have to say TurnerGuy; you know your stuff!

just googled invisible speakers!

lordy - is this still running 😉
sorry, CBA to read back through so - if anyone has mentioned [url= http://www.artcoustic.com/Gallery.html ]artcoustic[/url] i apologise.

'discreet' wall mounted speakers which can be customised with your choice of art on the front - they just came to mind as an audiophile photographer friend has them in his showroom - his have samples of his work printed on them & he uses the framed versions so it looks almost like your standard wall mounted photo....

not cheap but...

lordy - is this still running

It's proving far more informative and useful than most of the other threads on here. 🙂

So, I bought an Apple Airport Express at the weekend, to try stage 1 of the plan. Took a while to sort out, because I'd input the wrong wi-fi password. 😳 And I was then quite disappointed to learn that it only plays audio via iTunes. I thought it would play all audio from a computer. Is there any way round this? Will all the audio from an iPad/NAS set up play through the AE?

Hoping there's a way round this/something I'm missing, because otherwise it's back to the drawing board. 🙁

And I was then quite disappointed to learn that it only plays audio via iTunes

That's not strictly correct. It will receive anything that can make a connection via airplay. On iPads/iPhones this equates to most audio apps, but probably less universal on a computer. If you are on a mac then there are a couple of apps that claim to be able to reroute the computer audio to an airplay device although I can't vouch for there effectiveness.

thx118 - I'm at work at the mo so haven't read the whole thread. Which speakers did you decide upon?

BTW - I have some old Bose speakers for in the back room. Hifi (2 channel) as well as 5.1 in the front room. The Bose speakers are perfectly adequate for what I want - background music while pottering about/friends around for dinner. Sound quality is reasonable, but it's not a listening room.

<don's flame proof jacket 🙂 >

Try porthole for streaming other stuff from a Mac. Works for spotify so should do the trick?

Which speakers did you decide upon?

Haven't decided on any yet; still need to shop around a bit. Sadly the Mordaunt Short speakers I found are faulty, and probably are beyond economical repair really, so back to square 1 on that score.

It seems only certain apps can use the Airplay function, although there are several on iOS so things like streamed internet content will work. We were trying Chrome on a Pc laptop, but apparently you can play stuff from Safari on the iPad. Hopefully. And Spotify etc use Airplay on iOS. So that issue seems to be sorted; that was the main concern, that we'd be limited to using just iTunes and would have no YouTube etc playability.

It's not as simple as Apple suggest though. Nowhere near. Bit of misleading marketing really.

Forgot to mention; the sound via the AE isn't as good as a source directly connected to the amp. Sounds a bit 'lacking' for want of a better expression. AIFF and MP3 files.

While the Airport Express has wonderful functionality, it's Digital to Analogue Converter (DAC) is a bit on the cheap side. If your chosen amplifier has a digital in port, use it. If not, buy a basic DAC as well.

Seems you're right. So, what DAC (without it costing a fortune; this project seems to become more expensive every day! 😯 )?

I too have been playing with an Airport Express recently. I was putting iTunes stuff through it and into my rather old Cyrus III amp and Dynaudio's. It sounded the same as plugging in an iPod which is fine most of the time when it's just for background but if I want to really listen to music then I use my Cyrus CD player (or a turntable)... as you have found I think it's the whole iTunes thing and low end DAC that makes the music lack detail.

I've got bigger fish to fry at the moment so I'm not going to be changing anything more until I'm ready... but I was in Edinburgh at the weekend and popped into HiFi Corner to have a look at the Neat Iota Speakers and Linn Kiko system.

I liked the look of the Iota's and it would be a solution as they are tiny but sound very good... but from the little fumble I had with the Linn Kiko it would be my choice for a full-on passionate f*&^-fest love affair. I'm struggling to get how good it was out of my brain... just not sure I can justify what is a horribly large amount of cash to spunk... albeit on something I will use most days and bring me lots of pleasure 😯

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