Towers or no Towers, that is the question

[Frost]

Hi,

I'm looking at upgrading my speakers. It's finally happened, the wife hates the size of my towers and wants them out of the living room. I'm going to keep them down stairs to start a new Home theatre project some day, but for now I just need to upgrade my speakers upstairs. So my question is, can I replace the towers with something relatively small and still get great sound? We listen to alot of music, as well as watch movies. But when I listen to music I crank it up pretty good. My reciever is about 5yrs old, but it's a decent reciever. I'm not looking at spending over $1k to do this, so good sound on a budget is what I'd like. (isn't that a shock)

I have read alot of reviews about speakers and seen the posts to go and listen to a bunch, but to be honest I probably won't do that. There are alot of experts (professional and hobbists) that I think could just give me a good idea of what i should get. Bose, you seem to pay for the name so I'm not even considering those.

Please let me know, any help is appreciated.

Frost

[L.J.]

Do you own a sub?

Were the towers for 2 ch or part of a surround system?

Are you trying to place the speakers on the wall/shelf?

How big is your room?

The more info you give, the better.

[Frost]

More info to help out.

The towers I currently have are 2 channel.

I don't currently use a sub with the setup (thats also something I'll need) because of the towers (I'm not sure if that's wrong or not, I'm no expert thats forsure) It was not part of a surround system package, I added the 2 rear speakers and centre channel speaker to my existing tower speakers.

The speaker placement I envisioned is to have the centre channel close to the TV (on, or under it in the stand, with some rear speakers perhaps mounted up high in the corner of the room or on stands, and two fronts on stands as well. Because this is the living room, I'm trying to concelle them as much as possible.

The room is a crappy shape for home theatre, and that's why I'm not to much concerned about it. I want to get it the best I can for what I have to work with, it's 'L' shaped, but the area the system will be in is about 15ft by 12ft.

[L.J.]

What brand of speaker are you using for your center and surround?

I ask because in most cases you would want to stay within the same speaker line all the way around to insure your speakers are voice/timbre matched. This will provide a smooth transition of sound and your speakers will blend well together.

A sub is a must as far as movies are concerned and depending on your music tastes you may want one to supplement your bookshelves. It is highly recommended that you audition speakers because of the impact they make on what type of sound your looking for. Some perfer a warm or laid back sound while others perfer an aggressive or foward sound. Speakers that may sound good to one, may not sound good to another. $1k is alot to invest on any product and I'm sure you'd like to know what your getting.

Alot of speakers fall under the "good" catogory and you will get a thousand recommendations on what sounds the best, but only you can decide that.

[topspeed]

Are you replacing all 5 plus a sub for under $1K or just the mains?

[JohnMichael]

A small speaker with good sound and good bass would be the NHT SB3. They list for $600 but can be found for less. They would make very nice speakers in a two channel system. They also have the NHT SB2 for surround and a matching center channel speaker if you want to do a smaller home theater system.

[Frost]

I'm looking to replace all 5 of my speakers in the long run. So here's what I want to do:

1. Get some speakers to replace my towers
2. Get a sub to replace the base I'm going to lose with my towers getting removed
3. Replace the remaining 3 speakers (2 rears, and 1 centre) because they suck. (Crappy sony speakers)

My most important things to get right now are the sub, and two speakers to replace the towers. If I can replace them all at once, great, if I have to do it a few peices at a time, I'm not to concerned about it. I guess I'm not looking to spend thousands of dollars just yet, that will be for when I build my media room in our future house. So I'm looking for a price range of 1k for all 5 speakers which I need to get 5yrs out of and then I will have my media room to start over again or even use some of what I get now if I like it.

I came across some Paradigm Titan v.2 bookshelf speakers on ebay that I was considering. The sound I'm looking for is crisp clean sound, with a speaker that can handle the highs and lows fairly well. It doesn't need to be perfect., but I'd like it to sound good. The sound I don't like is muffled sound or speakers that get really tinny sounding when they are cranked up. I'm probably asking alot for the price range I'm in.

The 3 choices I've narrowed my search down to are (but thats not written in stone, if anyone has suggestions please share them):

Cambridge Soundworks
Paradigm
Infinity

John, I've never heard of NHT speakers before. Is that the model and not the manufactures name?

[L.J.]

Yes, your best bet would be to upgrade slowly. Perhaps split your budget on a sub and bookshelves and get the matching center and surrounds or fronts later.

So wifee doesn't like the floorstanders. Bookshelves on stands are gonna take up the same amount of space. What model Sony towers do you have? I've had a couple myself :(

[wayner86]

Maybe you could consider Ascend Acoustics. Although i've never heard these speakers myself, i have read many great reviews. You can find reviews on this site i believe (in the reviews section), and also on the AVS forums. They apparently have some bang for the buck appeal, & the 30-day guarentee is always nice. I was just on their site looking at some options in your price range, and i found that 5 CMB-170 SE's + 1 HSU STF-1 can be had for ~$1,150(shipping included). I can personally vouch for HSU's quality subs, i own a VTF-2 MkII and it is fantastic. Whether its a bunch of smoke up the rear or not i've read threads on the AVS forum where the Ascends are compared to Paradigms studio 20's. If i were in your shoes, and not caring about auditioning the speakers i'd shoot for this set up (my personal opinion, always exercise your options and look around). To look at the speaker set up i was refering to, go to ascends site, hit the "loudspeakers" tab, select the package systems, when the little table pops up, change "fronts", "centre" & "1st surround pair" to CMB-170 SE and for the subwoofer select the HSU STF-1 and hit calculate.

Acend Acoustics site:

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/

Wayne

[Frost]

Thanks for all your advice everyone, it's very much appreciated. I shall take your information and use it wisely. I'll let you know what I get in the end.

LJ, my towers aren't Sony, just the centre and the rear speakers. I don't know what they are to tell you the truth, but they are cheapo's I know that much.

[superpanavision70mm]

Here is my thought on the matter....

Buy a pair of Polk Monitor 40's ($300) or if you want to spend a bit more go with some of their even higher bookshelf models. Use them as your mains for now until down the road and you can replace them in the future by using them as your surrounds. The Monitor 40's enable you to biwire them for good separation and they are ported for bass. I agree though with the comment about speakers with stands will take up just as much as floorstanding speakers, but I guess the wife needs to make her point.

[Frost]

I will check out the polk speakers as well.

Ya, to be honest I would very much love to keep my towers instead of replacing them, or even get new ones but whadda gonna do. My thought with the bookshelf speakers is that I can still get decent sound out of them and when I show them to the wife without the stands she will be happy. When I add the stands later, she'll figure it out that there was no difference from the towers to bookshelfs with the stands. Then I can get new towers, keep the new bookshelves and add the few other components. Then I'll have a much better system which I otherwise would have had difficulty justifying the upgrade of the towers to the wife. That would never had happened but this way it will.

See boyz, it's all about the illusion of compremise. :ihih:

[JohnMichael]

John, I've never heard of NHT speakers before. Is that the model and not the manufactures name?[/QUOTE]


NHT is the brand name. It stands for Now Hear This and the model I suggested is the SB3. www.nhthifi.com

[superpanavision70mm]

Here is a little nugget of information to help out with the wife issue. Your wife will most likely be happy if she realizes that you are compromising in some way to her side and you can benefit greatly from it. I like your thought process of using her idea of getting rid of the towers, but the stands will practically be the same, thus you can get a few upgrades out of the deal...and she will be happy in the end as long as some progress was made in her direction. Wives don't care if it sounds better, only if it looks better...RIGHT?

[L.J.]

How about getting some really nice cherry or maple towers?

Hows bout just getting a new wife :devil:

All joking aside, your gonna end up with a much better system in the long run.

[Frost]

LOL, great forum discussion. Not only will you get excellent audio advice in this forum, but you will get Wife lessons as well. Nicely done!

[Frost]

You guys are going to love this one. After some discussion with the wife, she said she doesn't want to get rid of the towers, she just wants to get rid of the exsiting towers. She said, and I quote "Lets just get some nice new towers that don't look like we are living in the 80's". I knew I married her for some reason.

So now, what kind of towers?

[accastil]

You guys are going to love this one. After some discussion with the wife, she said she doesn't want to get rid of the towers, she just wants to get rid of the exsiting towers. She said, and I quote "Lets just get some nice new towers that don't look like we are living in the 80's". I knew I married her for some reason.

So now, what kind of towers?
i hope youd give a good listen to mordaunt short 502. these are very good in both music and HT.