Speakers (Paradigm/Bose) Receiver-watts (LONG) (1 Viewer)

[RickP]

Ok I recently got a new entertainment center and had no room for my existing front speakers so I went out to get some new ones. I had 2 Bose 301's I believe, the bookshelf ones. I thought they sounded pretty good. For the Center I had the Bose Center Speaker, I forget the model but its the thin black one. And for rear I had set of the Bose Acoustimas 3. I never really liked the sound of the rear acoustimas speakers, even when I hooked them up as main speakers. But since they were just the surround ones and looked cool up in the corners I didn't worry about it. Anyway I needed new speakers and headed to the mall and went in the Bose store. I ended up leaving with the Acoustimas 10 this time. I thought they sounded really good in the store, plus I love the way they look. So I get home and since the wires are already in the walls its a pretty quick setup. It looks great - little cubes on the wall in the back and ones in the front on the stands, I decided to keep using my center speaker because it was black and matched the TV better. So it all looks perfect. So I turn it on, listen to music. It sounds ok, not like in the store, just ok. Now I am not a big stereo person but I know what sounds good to me and what doesn't. For me I could keep hearing that bass modual thing, it sounded like it was working over time over there in the corner and i found myself kept looking at it because i could hear it and could hear where the booming was coming from. So next I watched a DVD. I had rented Sum of All Fears. Most of the movie sounded ok, not really worth the $1000 I just spent on it, but hey it lookes great sitting there. There were times when I thought that bass thing was gonna walk out in the room because it seemed as if was doing so much work. And at times I had to turn the volume up to hear the voices over the booming, which just made the booming that much worse. But anyway I figured it sounded ok, plus I own these cool little Bose cubes that look great. So the next day I was looking around and reading reviews about speakers, Bose in particular and not too much was all that great. Then I stumbled across this site, where I found all the Bose haters in the world, I mean these Bose haters even go on cruises together and talk about how much they hate bose (I am just kidding about the Bose hating, well some of you) but anyway I had never heard about most of the brands of speakers that you guys were talking about, I mean going in places like Best Buy, Circuit City, I never see them. So I went to some of the websites and read more. I ended up going to a local store and checking out the Paradigm's. They also had B&W's. I was listening to the Paradigm Cinema's, the smaller ones I believe they were the Cinema 70's. Personally I thought they sounded much better than my Bose. The guy was really nice, he said that Bose and Sony were the most recoginized brand names and here I walk in owning a Sony receiver and Bose speakers, I thought that was funny. Anyway he didn't bash Bose or anything which I thought was cool. I just simply told him I didnt like the way they sounded and was thinking about returning them and get something else in the same price range. So I ended up listening to the Pagadigm Monitor Mini's as the two fronts, Cinema 70's as the rear, Cinema Center, and 10" Sub. I thought it sounded much better, more crisp, and not so much of the bass was concentrated in one place (around the sub). He gave me a price of about $1250 for the entire setup with stands. About $1000 if I wanted to replace the two Monitor Minis in the front with the Cinema's. I told him I would think about it and be back. I looked a little more and found that these Cinema's are only 40 watts. My Sony receiver (845 I believe) is 100 watts times 5. So I guess all this comes down to a few questions I have. Is this setup good? Is this price good? Is that wattage ok with my receiver that has more power? Does that mean I would never be able to turn the receiver 1/2 way up?? If not what are some other brands that I sould look at? I am looking to stay around $1000 for the setup. Hopefully I havent taken up too much of your time. Thanks for reading and any replies!!

 

[Chris Quinn]

Glad you've discovered better sound. Paradigm is good speaker company. I'd have reservations about putting the Cinema series center channel(CC) in between two Mini-Monitors. These have different sized drivers and tweeters and are not going to provide seamless sound for sounds going across the front from one side to the other. Meaning these speakers are "voiced" a little differently. The two Mini-Monitors are going to have better sound reproduction than the Cinema CC. So, action going from one side to the other across the front is going to sound a little different on the CC. Now, in HT the CC handles 80% of all sound including all dialog so most would agree this is not the speaker to pinch pennies on. If you want to stick with Paradigm I'd suggest Titan mains, CC170, and Atoms for surrounds. With the sub that should get you out the door a around $1K or a little more.

Now then there are many other good speakers around the $1000-1200 mark and many less than $1K that are going to sound better than the Bose. I'll give you some names to look into; Aperion, Ascend Acoustics(the 170s replaced Mini-Monitors in my home for less $), Axiom, HTD, NHT SB1s, Rockets by Onix, and many others. A number of these companies or internet direct only. Most of the internet companies have a thirty day in your home trial period.

Post your budget and we will give you more suggestions. The Sony 485 I found is rated 80 watts per channel. I'm tired so I'll let someone else address the watts issue.

And yes I do not like Bose. I think it is the deceptive marketing and how over priced for what you get that bugs me. If they we selling Acoustimass at a reasonable $200-300 I don't think audio enthusiasts would get so worked up about Bose.

 

[RickP]

About the receiver its a Sony STR-DE845 (you had said 485 in your post) the sticker right on the front which I have never removed says 100 watts X 5. I will look into some of the other brands and see if I can find someone locally who sells them to check them out. I really like the look of the bose, but I am realize I am not going to get a speaker that small that sounds good, but those Cinema's were pretty close to the side of the bose double cubes. Anyway thanks for the suggestions......

 

[Chris Quinn]

For Bose size speakers check out Mirage Omnisats, Gallo Micros, Focal.JMlab's Sib and Cub, and Ascend Acoustic HTM 200s(ascendacoustics.com).

485 845 all the same to us dyslexics.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Also for Bose killers that are dang near the same size as
the Acoustimass Jewel Cubes check out the MK MP Series (not
cheap..) but nothing MK is! (good stuff)

 

[Mark Sherman]

here is a bose Killing System



B&W DM600 for the fronts and rears

B&W LCR60 for the center

B&W Asw300 Sub



$1400.00 for the whole set up



I would not worry about the 100 watts even at normal Listening conditions a Receiver is only putting out 30-40 watts


Sort of like when you are driving your car down the highway at 65-75 MPH you are only using about only a 1/3 of the total HP.


Good luck and happy hunting

 

[John_Clement]

Mark's got it right. The B&W 600 series are one of the "best value for sound" speaker setups you can get. Think about your room size, when you check out the B&W's you may find the 601 S3 (a few $ more) better for fronts, the 600 S3's should work fine for rears. The Paradigm's are really nice also.

 

[Myo K]

i think sony receivers are notorious for overrating their power output greatly, i wouldnt besurprised if the real wattage was somewhere around 15 per channel, all channels driven continous. but then i dont have enough experience with sony receivers, ive only had one sony htib receiver that claimed 80 watts per channel, needless to say i was very underwhelmed.


can someone shed some more light on real sony receiver specs?

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I think he's afraid of overdriving the Paradigm Cinema series, which are not rated for lots of power. They are designed to be used with a sub, and crossed over, such that they do not handle much bass. As long as they are set to small in your receiver, it's no problem. Too much power is far less dangerous than too little power. At normal listening, you are using very few watts anyway, and if you're watching a movie with all the bass crossed over to the sub you're using a very tiny amount of power. I wouldn't worry about it at all. As for the speaker choices, I second the notion that you do not put the cinema center with the mini-monitors, unless you are big on music. If so, better L/R might be worth it if you care more about that than stepping down from the minimonitors and matching across the front. The center that matches the mini-monitors is the CC370, which runs, gee i forget, somewhere like 300-350. If you do not want to pay that much more for that, you may think of stepping down the mini-monitors to the performance series, and getting Titans or Focuses, and getting one of the matching centers, either the 170 or 270, preferably the 270. B&W 600 series is quite nice, i suggest you go listen to that if you have the chance. I personally favor the Paradigm monitor series over the 600/601s. The 602s are a closer call, but I the 600 series is pricier, and in my ears anyway, fatiguing. Both of these would be AWESOME setups, but I'm not familiar with the pricing of the cinema series, except that it's about the same as the performance series, just packed into a smaller package, without the bass. I'd guess that that price is about right, and quite a bargain indeed. Need I say it blows the SH*T out of bose. Go return the bose system, listen to more brands if you can, take your favorite cds and a DVD or two, and see what you like in your pricerange. Paradigm is pretty hard to beat unless you really do some hard searching, though.

 

[Mark Sherman]

Where do you live Rick? That way i can make some recommendations on where to go and check some speakers out

 

[Guy Robinson]

Anything pretty well beats Bose.

 

[RickP]

Thanks for all the help. To Mark Sherman, I live in Maryland, near Annapolis. I think I will go back and listen to some more of the Paradigm speakers, I also wanted to go check out the Mirage Omnisat speakers, does anyone have an opinion on them, I see that Tweeter locally here sells them.

 

[Chris Quinn]

I also wanted to go check out Mirage Omnisat speakers

There is a huge Mirage Omisat thread over at www.avsforum.com also one of the audio/ht mags(I don't remember which) had a review last month.

 

[Myo K]

sound and vision magazine the one with the one with the yellow cover and the surf girl face one it.
that magazine has the omni sat review.

its this months magazine

 

[Clark F]

Does the store you visited carry the Paradigm Esprit line?
The salesman I bought from steered me to Esprits instead of mini's because they are floor standing, and you are spending the $100 you would spend on stands on the speakers instead. I bought Esprit B's for fronts, a C170 for center and the 10" sub for about $1000. The fronts and center work great together. I love the sound from my Paradigm's (powered with a Yamaha RX-V630).