Piecing together a speaker system

After looking at your links I am assuming you have a budget of +/- $500. At the moment the 2 best speaker brands I can think of for that budget are Pioneer sp-fs52 and Infinity Primus p363. Both have been getting rave reviews on a few audio sites. You can grab them for $99-$130 per speaker, there are usually a lot of deals going on. With a little digging you can find measured frequency response curves for both speakers. They measure very flat for their price and if you want clarity a flat frequency response is a great place start.

I prefer the same speaker throughout my system and in a small apartment living, room floor standers might be easier to place properly in a room (don't have to limit them to asymmetrical placement like bookshelves). Both sets of speakers have their own marketed bookshelf surrounds and center channels (only if you cannot fit all floor-standers). A common mistake people make is using a specifically designed center channel speaker. There are a ton of reasons not to do this and I can provide the information but it will take a long time to post. Suffice to say, if you can use the exact same speaker for your L/C/R do it! If not use a matching bookshelf speaker of the floor-standers.

http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-SP-FS5...ioneer+sp-sf52

http://www.amazon.com/Infinity-Primu...ty+primus+p363
(Way over priced I saw them at Fry s a month ago for $119.00 each)

Couple links worth reading:

http://www.soundoctor.com/surround.htm

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=89614

Is there any way to get wireless speakers to place outside that will connect to receiver via adapter?

I wouldn't recommend wireless audio just yet. A normal Red Book CD with a 16bit/41kHz sample rate requires 1.411-Mbps whereas Bluetooth A2DP (advanced audio-distribution profile) maxes out at 768kbps. There would definitely be a loss in sound quality with half the required bandwidth available. Eventually it will get there but for now we gotta rely on wires.

What would you suggest to putting a couple speakers outside with the receiver inside? Buying a second receiver? :\

What is your current receiver brand/model?

Some receivers have Multi-zone features. I have never used them but what they do is allow you to play multiple sources from the receiver to the different rooms. So for instance if your gaming in the living room your friends can be listening to music, outside at the same time. If you haven't used up all 7 speaker outputs on your receiver (running in a 5.1 mode) you can use the unused 2 (surround back) outputs to power the stereo system outside. Now if you have used up all 7 speaker outs for your living room (7.1) most receivers that offer Multi-zone will have a pre/out that you can hook up to an external amp and then to the speakers. Hope this makes sense.

Pretty good choices, I'm a fan of Polk. I would hold off buying your separate pieces if you can until black friday, I mean unless you find some good deals. I got:
Fronts: Klipschs
http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-Icon-V...+speakers+vf35
Center: Polk CS20 (monster huge center)
http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Cen...&keywords=cs20
Rears: Polk Monitor40s
http://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-Mon...ords=Monitor40
Reciever: Denon 2311CI
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AVR-2311...eywords=2311CI

I got pretty good deals on all of the speakers; however, it seems the receiver has almost lost double its value over the last two years.

Np Sean
I thumbed through your receivers manual and it states its rated at 6 Ohm. The Infinity's are rated for 8 Ohm but measurements show they bottom out at 4 ohm I would skip them. The Pioneer's are rated at 6 Ohm, so I would go with them over the Infinity's in your case.

Alpha
Buying HT electronics is like buying a new car, they loose value really, really fast. Before moving to start grad school a few years back I sold all of my HT gear except for the preamp, why? I bought it 8 months earlier for $2,000 and the highest offer I could get on it was for $950. All the speakers, subs, wires, amps I was able to easily get 80% back, so its almost like I rented it

Gosh I just love people on the Government dole buying luxury items.

Sean's personal life is irrelevant to this thread. Sorry you are so butthurt about it but no one gives a fuck.

mkopec_sl said:

Ever heard of timbre matching?(Or voice matching) The main point in timbre matching is in the vocal range. This is where most anomalies will manifest themselves. Noises, gunshots and other such niceties are quite "nonlinear" (for lack of a better word) but, we are very prone to notice changes in voices. If the tonal character of a character's voice changes as it traverses from speaker to speaker to speaker, we will most likely fail the illusion.

So most audiophiles, from what I have read, use the same speaker/monitor for all 3 front positions (Some even voice match the rears in a 5.1 or 7.1). I would highly discourage you in getting your RH/LH speakers from one brand and the center from another.

Also I would highly discourage you to buy speakers online before listening to them at some brick and mortar. They will not have the same dynamics in the store as they do at home, obviously. But you can still tell a shitty sound to a more pleasing sound when it comes to your own ears.

Click to expand...

Great response mkopec. Timbre matching is very important for a seamless sound-stage. If you have to sacrifice timbre, the surrounds are where you should do it, they really dont provide much more than positional queues during the experience. I dont recommend doing that but not everyone has space/budget to have the same 7 speakers in a room. The best upgrades a person can do for their HT/gaming experience in order is;

1. Room acoustics (out of seans budget but sadly most important)
2. Better speaker for center channel duty
3. Subwoofers buy 2-4 ( exact same sealed sub) of whatever you can fit/afford in your room
4. Amplifier (most speakers are not properly powered which leads to distortion, clipping)
5. Main L/R (match the center speaker exactly if you can)
6. Surrounds (try to match the front-stage speakers) Don't try to improperly squeeze a 7.x surround into an area that can only accommodate a proper 5.x.
7. Ignore Dolby, THX placement recommendations and use only ITU standards (how they are recorded)

Addendum- Only use direct radiating speakers (avoid dipole, bipole, omnidirectional) Lots of room acoustic issues and every song/movie/game is mastered using Direct Radiating.

As someone who loves audio I focus on the engineering, many audiophiles focus on the sound. To each their own but I feel that speakers have just a single job and that is to accurately reproduce the information that was recorded. To meet these requirements one must have a flat frequency response, phase alignment, dynamic range. All of these requirements are measurable, therefore I avoid all audio companies that do not have 3rd party measurements. What mkopec says is true, if you can listen before buying go ahead and do it but don't let that scare you off from a well measured speaker if you cannot.

The speaker is just there to deliver what the artist intended, not what the speaker designer wanted you to hear.

It looks like they are 90 degrees on both sides. I would move the couch up until its flush with the door frame, that should get you to 110 degrees, it should also reduce some of the rear reflections (never good to be near a wall in audio, middle of the room is best but rarely practical). I wouldn't move the speakers any closer to the back corners. Corners reinforce low frequencies and the bass will become stronger, this can be good and bad depending on what you need. I have a sneaking suspicion that that table in front of the couch is reflecting a lot of energy coming from the front-stage toward the ceiling, especially from the important center channel. I would get rid of the table and move the center channel forward until it is slightly hanging off of the TV stand, this way you wont get as many early reflections and it should improve the clarity.

After the couch is moved make sure to aim the center of each spear at the middle of the couch.

This will be the best $50 you can spend right now to improve your Ht/gaming audio experience,http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...uctId=12680845
Setting all of your speakers to the same trim level will greatly enhance the playback quality.

Height looks fine.