How to buy new speakers? - Page 6

It's too windy (and loud) to run Audyssey today, so I took photos of the final setup. You'll see I swapped them for tweeter-in configuration. It felt right the right thing to do, since my speakers are farther apart than optimal, because of the room config. I've still got them set for 0db, though. I'll let Audyssey deal with that.

Higher Res & Full Picasa album. The best, below.

(Warning grill-less shots for those of you who are speaker-prudes )

The Front View (running Xbox 360 Visualizer). Adjusted TV mount so it is no longer unlevel to Center and put some leather-backed felt between the gap so if it sinks, it won't crunch the Rosenut finish)

No Grills :)

Left Surround.

Banana plugs. The stands have a cable-routing feature, so except for this bit, they are hidden. And I ran the surrounds under the floor (via basement), and they go through underneath the base. The size difference between the plug and wire was too great to use heat-shrink tubing, so I had to kludge it with hot glue. You can see that SVS speakers are ready for bare wire, plugs, normal connection, bi-wire and bi-amp. The plugs are, well, plugged in the box (I think it's because those wacky Europeans made their AC plugs match speaker connections and could accidently plug stuff in.)

SVS is truly an Engineering-driven company, because after setting up your speakers, there's spare parts! :) I tossed all the extra feet, frequency response charts, and foam plugs (bungs) into the MCS box.

The boxes. Thankfully I have a clean, unfinished basement to keep these, in case I ever move. This SVS shrine is about 8 ft long, 5 ft tall, and 2 ft deep.

The stands are the one less-than-amazing product I've seen from SVS. Their wall mounts, Omnimounts 30, are perfect for the MBS and sold with no apparent markup. The stands are good and stable, but aren't a dead-perfect match. The MBS doesn't mate to them or lock in (I used the rubber pads the stands came with to grip the MBS). You have to jockey it around and fine the best centering by eye (or ruler).

Now, this may be normal for these large-footprint surrounds. Some googling suggests that Paradigm's custom-made stands for the mini-monitors are the same: undersized top plate with no lock-in specific to the speakers. So if this is what Paradigm does, I can't ding SVS much for it.

If you're motivated, you could look around and see if there are stands designed for these large surrounds. Otherwise, buy from SVS. Despite my minor grumbles, I'm content with them and like the wire-hiding a lot.

I don't know anything about the M-line being on backorder. But I am curious about your sub's delay. I might know why that is, but I could be wrong and can't comment on it :)

Yes. And conveniently, I have a subwoofer box large enough to hold a human body...

And did you end up getting the sub with the revised digital amp? And I think they were revising components in the speakers last Fall.

I didn't demo any B&W's - the ones I saw at my local stereo shop were outside my price range :) They certainly have their fans and I've read good things about them. And high-end B&Ws are gorgeous... The 800 series looked so nice in the showroom floor...

http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/Speakers/Home_Audio/800_Series_Diamond