Speaker Packages ?

[J4CKO]

Am setting up my home cinema, lot of work getting the room ready, sofa ordered, cabinets bought etc but not sure what to use as speakers, am borrowing a mates Quad something or other bookshelf ones, trouble is they are Birds Eye Maple, lovely but stick out like a sore thumb against the dark theme we have planned.

So, budget is stretched and cant be bothered buying random stuff off Ebay and cobling it together, I want good sound but it doesnt have to be the last word in cinema sound, am coming from the tinny rattlings of a 40 inch Toshiba telly to 5.1 surround and a 55 inch Samsung.

I bought an Onkyo 626 surround amp which seems perfectly adequate and was thinking of teaming it with something from here,

http://www.richersounds.com/products/hi-fi-separat...

Any suggestions, is the Wharfedale worth another £100 over the JBL's, budget is £300 really, can always upgrade later if the bug bites me but have spent quite a bit recently and have more to spend.


Also, speaker wire, was just goign to get some decent quality, thick-ish copper stuff off Ebay, am not getting into the realms of dedicated sets, does it actually make any difference at this level, obviously not going to use bell wire so thinking a reasonably stout copper cable should do, need a fair few metres.

[stevoknevo]

It might be worth persevering with ebay or AVForums as some excellent older gear comes up if you look hard enough that will be head and shoulders above the kit you linked to from Richer sounds. As an example, I was going to suggest hunting down a pair of Mission 77ds rear speakers (I have a pair that I bought ten years ago and they are still going strong, easy to mount on the wall, and have a very 'cinema' look to them)This was the first link I looked at on ebay and the guy is selling off his whole Mission package and Yamaha sub; new, that mission package was about £1200 iirc? My Mate bought the next up set of floorstanders (774e, the set here is 773e) and paid £1400 circa 12 years ago. Unless bidding gets crazy, I reckon you could get all of the Missions for <£300. However it is collection only and he is a bit away from you. Anyhow, gives you an idea of what you can achieve for your money

Any reasonable quality speaker cable will suffice.

ETA link http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/gordon_on_e_bay (I've no connection to seller)

[Troubleatmill]

Vinyl wrap the original speakers?

My Onkyo 818 runs Dali Zensor's very nicely.

Speaker cable. Get proper oxygen free copper ( not copper cover aluminium ) of a decent gauge. Job jobbed.

Edited by Troubleatmill on Monday 17th March 19:24

[spudgun GB]

I have the Wharfdale DX1 setup but I have replaced the front left and rights with Wharfedale 10.1 diamonds.

I'm very pleased with it now, but its worth auditioning them yourself with the amp you have bought as mine didn't really come into there own until I replaced the Sony amp I had with a more up-market Denon. Totally changed everything.

[spudgun GB]

Troubleatmill said:

Vinyl wrap the original speakers?

My Onkyo 818 runs Dali Zensor's very nicely.

Speaker cable. Get proper oxygen free copper ( not copper cover aluminium ) of a decent gauge. Job jobbed.

Edited by Troubleatmill on Monday 17th March 19:24

Is the Dali setup the 5.1 package? I was totally blown away by them at Sound and Vision this year. I could not believe such a fantastic sound came out of such a small set of cabinets. Very jealous indeed.

scratch that, I think it was the Fazon's that were at Sound and Vision. Still, lovely kit though.

Edited by spudgun GB on Monday 17th March 19:35

[stevoknevo]

Troubleatmill said:

Vinyl wrap the original speakers?

My Onkyo 818 runs Dali Zensor's very nicely.

Speaker cable. Get proper oxygen free copper ( not copper cover aluminium ) of a decent gauge. Job jobbed.

Edited by Troubleatmill on Monday 17th March 19:24

Great idea! The buy a centre to match the Quads and a pair of those Mission 77ds I linked to and a sub, and you'll have a very, very decent set up 8)

The Missions look like this and can be mounted thin side up or down depending what height you want them at.



They have a driver/tweeter on the opposite face and really diffuse the sound. Great for rear sound effects, however I ran them as a stereo pair through my old Marantz receiver last summer and they sounded great with music; not bad for a set of surrounds I'm considering buying another three for Left/Centre/Right duties. I've got a 7th month old boy and he is battering about the place in his walker, he has already pushed in the dome in my centre speaker and despite my floor standers being weighted with sand, he'll knock one over sooner or later...

Regardless of all that; a £300 kit from Richer sounds will sound far better than a telly ever will, but your receiver is capable of a bit more than that.

Edited by stevoknevo on Monday 17th March 22:10

[J4CKO]

I did consider Vinyl wrapping the Quads but I think their owner may object

Will scan Ebay again, it has to be bookcase speakers and a sub really, the furniture we have doesnt look like we will get floorstanders next to it.

[sprouting]

Personnel preference, but i would go with a matched pair of bookshelf fronts and a centre,

then with the remaining budget add a cheap pair of surrounds and cable.


http://www.richersounds.com/product/standmount-spe...

http://www.richersounds.com/product/centre-speaker...

[Dan_1981]

J4CKO said:

I did consider Vinyl wrapping the Quads but I think their owner may object

Will scan Ebay again, it has to be bookcase speakers and a sub really, the furniture we have doesnt look like we will get floorstanders next to it.

I've got a set of the Tannoy 5.1 SFX on ebay at the moment, in black - not sure if you're looking for something a little more powerful / further up the spec scale though?

[J4CKO]

Dan_1981 said:

J4CKO said:

I did consider Vinyl wrapping the Quads but I think their owner may object

Will scan Ebay again, it has to be bookcase speakers and a sub really, the furniture we have doesnt look like we will get floorstanders next to it.

I've got a set of the Tannoy 5.1 SFX on ebay at the moment, in black - not sure if you're looking for something a little more powerful / further up the spec scale though?

Yeah, probably going to go bigger and up the budget but keep the actual cost quiet.

I have some small Aiwa ones that sounded ok so may draft those in as rears to start with and spend more on the fronts, can use the Quads indefinitely, its just they are the wrong colour.

Need the bulk of the budget for the telly, £100 gets a Samsung 55 inch Smart TV, spend less ont he telly it is difficult to chage later, but she wont notice speakers.

[J4CKO]

Already have a pair of these


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tannoy-Sixes-607-Bi-Wire...

But my son has pinched them, wondering whether just to buy some more as always found them pretty good,

Have some Rega EL8's as well, floorstanders but think they are dead weedy, sound nice but no authority or power to them, ace for sitting listening to instrumental music but ste for films with exploding helicopters, which the Tannoys do very well if not exactly subtle.

[J4CKO]

I ordered the Wharfedales, found myself looking at old Mission 753's, lovely, but total overkill and would have screwed the room layout up, am sure they can produce enough sound for a suburban living room for films and games. Would have ended up with huge, mismatched speakers, at least these are a matched set and wont look obtrusive.

By the time I ruled out the crap, the overpriced, the ones that were too big, too small or the wrong colour its actually difficult finding them.

[Troubleatmill]

Nice choice.

Get down to Maplin, and buy some OFC speaker cable of a reasonable gauge.

BTW- If your amp is like mine - the ONKYO speaker terminals - should have a black bit of plastic in the middle of the red and black terminals. These can be removed so you can use Banana plugs.

Enjoy.