I'm looking for some new main front speakers for my home theater setup. I want to get 2 new tower speakers. Right now I have the Klipsch Quintet system, so I'll still use my center channel, 2 rear speakers, and the 10" sub. Any suggestions on some good towers that I can get for under $200 per speaker?
With that budget, I think you'd get better quality sound by going with bookshelves. Paradigm and B&W come to mind, both have excellent bookshelves in that price range. You should be able to include a decent pair of stands for that budget too. My recommendation: if you like the sound of the Klipsch's, try the Paradigm Mini Monitor ($300/pr), and add a pair of Sanus speaker stands (< $100/pr, depending on which one you get).
I don't necessarily like the sound of my Klipsch. I think they're a little to high. But you think bookshelves are the way to go? I already have Sanus stands.
Yes, I do think bookshelves are the way to go. Not that you won't get floorstanding speakers at $400/pr, you will. If I were in your place, I would not buy those speakers. Reasons: * You already have a subwoofer which I assume is adequate for your current needs, so the bass is taken care of. * You're replacing just your mains, so you apparently care about sound quality and perhaps spend a fair amount of time listening to music, you don't just want a loud impressive system. Paradigm speakers are traditionally a little bright - I have the Mini Monitors, and while I love them dearly, if I had to do it over again I would have bought slightly warmer speakers. I was young and inexperienced then, and the sparkliness of the sound was attractive to my ears. It was later that I learnt that with speakers, as with other things in life, you can't judge what a long-term relationship will be like based upon your first impressions. Anyway, depending on your tastes in sound (bright/mellow/bassy) and music (heavy rock, classical, light jazz/accoustic), check out Paradigm, B&W, NHT, PSB... there are others, I'm sure. The most important thing is to go and audition as many of these as you can. OK, abrupt ending, but I have to go eat lunch now. We can continue this discussion later.
I'd agree with going after bookshelves versus towers. Check with Klipsch and see what they recommend. Reason being is that you will probably have a mismatch if you use their center. Perhaps look at some Paradigm Titans and a CC-170 center. Other options are: nOrh 4.0 (I've got a pair of ceramic blue/silver up for sale for $350 including shipping) NHT SuperOnes B&W DM303 Energy Take 5.2 mains Ascend Acoustics CBM-170
Thanks for your feedback. I guess I just want to fill the room more with sound. You know what I mean? My Quintet system was fine when I bought, and it's still fine, but having satellites as my main speakers just isn't cutting it anymore. I really want to experience/feel the movie or music that I'm watching/listening to. Will a good pair of bookshelves do this for me? I just figured towers (being big) would really fill the room up with sound. But maybe that's a naive thought. If you could get back to me when you get a chance, that would be great. I'm enjoying this discussion!
How big is your room? My living room is about 20x15x10, and it opens up into the kitchen/dining area, which is similar. My Mini Monitors could rattle plates in the kitchen with the amp's volume at about 40%, and that was before I added a subwoofer. If you want loud room-filling sound, maybe NHT isn't such a good idea any more. Not that the speakers can't play as loud - they can, but they're not as sensitive as others, so they need more amplification to be played loud. If your Klipsch's have horn drivers, I would suspect they're pretty easy to drive (horns usually have high sensitivity), so going from Klipsch to NHT might seem like you suddenly need to turn up the volume a lot to get the same sound. If your amplification is adequate (the amp I refer to above is just 50 wpc), concentrate on the sound of the speakers. For instance: NHT's have a very sweet treble - excellent for violins and classical, not so exciting with rock. Paradigms have a more aggressive sound - excellent for rock, fatiguing for classical. And so on. Finally, Bryan has a very good point - mismatched timbre across your front 3 speakers could seriously detract from your HT experience (I don't know, as my system is music-only). You might want to look at upgrading all 3 together, or upgrading the mains now and the center channel soon after, or something like that.
Check out a pair of klipsch sb-2,i think they are in your ball park.For $250 each,you can get the sf-1.they are towers and sound really good. ------------------
Well, if you're keeping the Klipsch center, you would probably want to stay with Klipsch mains so that the front soundstage still matches. There probably isn't too much that will blend comfortably with Klipsch speakers, due to their horn tweeter design (someone correct me if I'm wrong). My issue with bookshelves is that usually you're gonna have to buy a stand, and once you throw that cost in, it's the same as floorstandings. So far, of all the speakers that I have listened to, my preferences are with Kefs. I use Q35 small floorstanding towers in the front and rear. They retail for $600, but I got them for $450. A friend of mine also got them for the same price at a different place (after he had listened to everything and decided that Kefs were what he wanted).
