HT Speakers to match Yamaha 1400 receiver

[flafonta]

I am thinking of buying a Yamaha 1400 HT receiver, and need to select the speakers (Towers and center).

I'd like to spend under $1,500 for the 3 speakers.

Any recommendations?

This is mainly for home theater listening.

I heard a set of KEF, Infinity and Klipsch at the local store.

The Kef sounded the best for stereo music to my hears, but this is really a HT system, so the Klipsch also interested me.

Any recommendations?

[spacedeckman]

you may find yourself unhappy over the long haul.

I kind of like the KEF stuff, but haven't really given it a good listen in a controlled environment to fully comment. But I lean positive. The Infinity stuff leaves me cold, and for me Klipsch is not even a consideration. But, you should have a dealer who sells Energy, Mirage, Paradigm, or literally dozens more speakers. I have really gotten to like Energy's new C series. It often gets looked over by people going to Paradigm, but the Energys have a much flatter frequency response, and sound more realistic to my ears. I am not very tolerant of recessed midranges which are becoming increasingly popular again (still?).

A 1400 will drive anything you will likely hook to it. You just need to get out and do some listening.

[Mikereyno]

I also just bought a new Yamaha (RX-V2400) and I'm considering new front and center speakers. My old set up was In-Wall Klipsch IW-150s, Klipsch KV-1 Center Channel with KSB1.1s for suround. I wanted to upgrade to towers for fronts. I was thinking of RF-35s and was unsure if I would also have to go to the RC-35s if I made this change. However, I am having second thoughts about Klipschs based on Spacedckman's comments about Klipsch (why are they "not even a consideration"?).

My first speakers for my first system out of college were Ohm Es. They are still playing stong in my bedroom with an older Yamaha receiver. Because of this I have looked at their website and am considering Ohm MicroWalsh Towers and the Walsh Center Chanel. These are only available through Ohm directly but can be auditioned for 120 days. Has anybody experience or comments about the Ohm set-up?

[TinHere]

Check out the Rocket's by Onix from AV123.com. The RSC200 is a great center channel using the Vifa XT ring radiator tweeter, and takes the strain out of listening to whispers. The 550's have a matching tweeter and togather they create a seamless soundstage. A real good bang for the buck system.

Here's a link:

http://www.av123.com/products_category.php?section=speakers

Happy hunting.

[This Guy]

man that wood is beautiful. is that the color you got yours in?

[TinHere]

man that wood is beautiful. is that the color you got yours in?

Yes, and I can tell you they look better in person. I also picked up a set of four 150's and the 100 center channel for my daughter in ebony. I like the way they look, but kept them because of how they sound.

[This Guy]

Sweet. I've got a DIY project coming up soon, it's gonna use four 5 1/4" woofers like yours and a planar tweeter. They aren't gonna look as good as yours, but should sound pretty sweet. Total cost is around $230 for the pair. Enjoy the speakers.

-Joey

[TinHere]

Sweet. I've got a DIY project coming up soon, it's gonna use four 5 1/4" woofers like yours and a planar tweeter. They aren't gonna look as good as yours, but should sound pretty sweet. Total cost is around $230 for the pair. Enjoy the speakers.

-Joey

Very cool. Sounds like a simple project........NOT! Good luck with it.

This is from a thread I found mostly quoting Dick Pierce who designed the variable cascading crossovers for the 750's.

"In a speaker of the caliber of a 750, that often leads to 3-way designs. It's a good solution,
but it's not without its own set of problems. For example, there is the inevitable 2-step image shift as we move from one non-
conicident driver to the next and then to the next. There are radiation problems due to different diffractive laoding and more.
The RSC200 is a 3-way, because the cabinet configuration dictated that as the best solution.

The 750 made a different set of demmands. Mark presented me with the initial cabinet design and we went back and forth.
I, personally, really liked the visual profile presented by the 750, but the narrow baffle presented obvious practical consteraints
to "easy" solutions for the low bass. One of the early concepts was a 3-woofer solution, but that presented a whole other set of design problems.
I convinced Mark to go with a 4-driver solution using the 5" driver. I then set off to solve the other issues using that as a basis." -DP

Fast forward again for some more comments on the Xover design, etc.

"For the most part, the crossovers are purpose designed specifically to
properly integrate the drivers into the individual systems using non-
symmetrical 3rd order electrical networks whose transfer functions are
tailored to achieve the desired acoustic response. Driver impedance is
linearized so as to provide a nearly ideal terminating impedance.

These techniques provide several advantages over more conventional means
of response tailoring using additional shelf and contour networks:

1. lower-loss, higher efficiency

2. presents a more resistive impedance to the amplifier

3. Simpler network topology leads to lower cost, higher reliability

The network designs provide one part of the story. In addition, though,
instead of using off-the-shelf drivers with less-than-ideal 4 or 8
ohm nominal impedances, the drivers are custom designed to present
impedances that are suited to the task at hand, and result in system
impedances which do not present the challenging load often seen in
other multi-way systems.

In the case of the 4525 [4525 was code name used for the RS750]
, a special network custom tailors the response
to each of the four woofers individually. At the lowest frequencies,
all four woofers operate together in synchrony,while at the highest
frequencies, a single driver is active, with a smooth transition
between the two occuring over 3 octaves.

This unique circuit provides several additional advantages:

1. At low frequencies, where the system must move the maximum amount
air, all 4 woofers are moving in perfect synchrony, with a total
radiating area exceeding that of a 10" woofer.

2. At high frequencies, where the wavelengths are small, a single
driver is radiating, for maximum dispersion.

3. Over the transition region, the relative size of the radiating
area dcreases smoothly with increasing frequency, resulting in
a near-perfect freqeuncy-independent directivity.

4. All this is achieved while still providing a near resistive load
impedance over most of the woofers' frequency range, making the
system easy to drive despite the complex system function."-DP

http://forum.av123.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1993&highlight=crossovers+and+Dick+Pierce

[This Guy]

wow, that is one complex crossover, far beyond my skill. I'm gonna start with a 2nd order 3 khz crossover that you can buy pre-made at partsexpress.com . If I don't get the sound I'm looking for I'll try to start tweeking it with the help from the guys at the PE forums. These speakers won't look or sound as good as yours, but for just over $200 I can't really lose. Just incase your curious, here are the drivers I'm using. Four of these in a parallel/series wiring.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&User_ID=16799213&St=1275&St2=74535798&St3=-67793399&DS_ID=3&Product_ID=122218&DID=7

And then one of these for the high end.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&User_ID=16799213&St=1275&St2=74535798&St3=-67793399&DS_ID=3&Product_ID=15969&DID=7

I'll try to post pics when they're done. Thanks for the link.

-Joey

[TinHere]

I'll guarantee you'll have better speakers than I'll ever make. :)

Dayton makes some good products at a good price. I'll look foward to seeing how they come out, and you can tell us how they sound..

The work Dick Pierce does is beyond what most people in the industry can do. Here's link to another article Dick Pierce wrote: Other good info on the site.

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/amplifiers/DampingFactor.html

Whew....Talk about hyjacking a thread.....But if flafonta gets the Rocket's I doubt he'll mind.

[This Guy]

Hey flafonta, sorry for taking over your thread, you can start another one if you didn't get the answers you wanted/needed. And Tinhere thanks for the reads.

-Joey