george.Legeza
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2002
- Messages
- 96
A friend of mine just purchased a set of five Fluance speakers (the SX-HTB package). He's coming from a pretty basic RCA Home-Theater-in-a-Box. His old HTiB included five small wood satellite/mini-bookshelf speakers, a pretty standard receiver, and a small, passive RCA subwoofer. He's on a tight budget, so he's been doing small upgrades here and there for the past few months. His first upgrade was the Dayton 10" Subwoofer from Partsexpress, which did quite a bit to enhance his system.
He made the decision to purchase the Fluances last week and received the speakers a few days ago. We set them up with his old RCA receiver and there was quite a difference. These speakers sound excellent for the price point and definitely better than any speaker packages I've heard at major retailers like Best Buy or Circuit City. From what I've heard, I think it would be difficult to buy any other five speakers for under $500 that would compare to these. The mains stood out to me especially. They put out quite a lot of bass and movies sounded decent even without the subwoofer. The center also sounds excellent, but I haven't had a chance to hear much of the rears since we underestimated the length of wire required to connect them.
He also replaced his RCA receiver with a Yamaha HTR-5640. The new receiver definitely helped the speakers and they don't sound so strained at high volumes. As a matter of fact, they do an incredible job of maintaining their clarity without becoming unreasonably harsh or uncomfortable to listen to.
Overall, I'm very impressed with this stuff. I'm considering buying the SX-HTB myself and using it in my bedroom, or possibly just picking up a pair of Fluance towers. From what I've heard so far, these things seem like an amazing value for the money and I'm looking forward to being able to listen to them more critically later. Anyone on a serious budget for their home theater should definitely give these a try. It's hard to go too wrong for under $300.
(on a related note: we also 'upgraded' his speaker wire for the mains from 16 ga. to 12 ga. wire. The speakers sounded better, but we did this at the same time as hooking up the receiver, so it's hard to tell just how much of an improvement that yielded with these speakers. I will say that they sounded very decent to my ears with the 16 ga.)
He made the decision to purchase the Fluances last week and received the speakers a few days ago. We set them up with his old RCA receiver and there was quite a difference. These speakers sound excellent for the price point and definitely better than any speaker packages I've heard at major retailers like Best Buy or Circuit City. From what I've heard, I think it would be difficult to buy any other five speakers for under $500 that would compare to these. The mains stood out to me especially. They put out quite a lot of bass and movies sounded decent even without the subwoofer. The center also sounds excellent, but I haven't had a chance to hear much of the rears since we underestimated the length of wire required to connect them.
He also replaced his RCA receiver with a Yamaha HTR-5640. The new receiver definitely helped the speakers and they don't sound so strained at high volumes. As a matter of fact, they do an incredible job of maintaining their clarity without becoming unreasonably harsh or uncomfortable to listen to.
Overall, I'm very impressed with this stuff. I'm considering buying the SX-HTB myself and using it in my bedroom, or possibly just picking up a pair of Fluance towers. From what I've heard so far, these things seem like an amazing value for the money and I'm looking forward to being able to listen to them more critically later. Anyone on a serious budget for their home theater should definitely give these a try. It's hard to go too wrong for under $300.
(on a related note: we also 'upgraded' his speaker wire for the mains from 16 ga. to 12 ga. wire. The speakers sounded better, but we did this at the same time as hooking up the receiver, so it's hard to tell just how much of an improvement that yielded with these speakers. I will say that they sounded very decent to my ears with the 16 ga.)