David Smith

First of all, let me preface this by saying that although I love my music and home theater and I am fairly knowledgeable about the A/V world, I am by no means an expert. That being said, I have a few words of my upgrade experiences to share.

Okay, just like many of you, I am always looking for a way to get the absolute best sound, HT and music, for the absolute lowest price.

Over the last several years, I’ve owned 5 different receivers from Yamaha, Kenwood, Marantz, and Sony. I’ve also owned 5 different DVD/CD players, several separate amplifiers (using receivers as the pre/pro’s), and an assortment of speakers from Infinity, Kenwood, Klipsch, Yamaha, Paradigm Performance – Monitor - Studio, and now Rockets and SVS.

Now, throughout all of this time, about the only thing I haven’t tried is a separate pre-amp. When I’ve tried separate amps I’ve always just used my receiver as a pre-amp.

Let me also say, before I go on, that my room is a fairly small, dedicated, listening / home theater room that can be completely closed off from the rest of the house. About 20’L X 12’W X 8’H.

You know what I’ve found (in my experiences, to my ears, in my room, of course)?

Once you have any good quality receiver with good quality DAC’s, good quality cables and speaker wire, and you’re using the digital out from your CD/DVD player, SPEAKERS ARE THE THING TO UPGRADE! It’s not even close. As far as the way a system sounds, the speakers make the single biggest difference by far.

I can tell you, every receiver that I’ve had has sounded nearly identical, with minor differences. Of course, these are all good quality receivers from each of the brands that I mentioned before.

Also, as far as separate amps, in my room, they can make a bit of difference over the receiver amps at EXTREMELY high volumes, but none at all that I can tell at my listening levels. Once again, it is a bit better, but worth the money? No way, in my opinion.

One other thing I have failed to mention is acoustics. When I set my room up properly with some home made room treatments, it also made a huge difference.

So, here’s the conclusion. I’ve always had a nice system for several years now and it’s always sounded “really good”. But until I bit the bullet and ordered my Rockets and SVS subs, I didn’t know what I was missing. To my ears, in my room, the sweet sound of the Rockets and the controlled yet powerful bass of SVS just make me melt in my listening chair.