Av speaker upgrade worth it ?

[danny77]

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded my av receiver, although still probably and rightly so considered entry lever gear the Onkyo TXNR676 was a massive improvement on the older and cheaper Pioneer vsx-323.

The speakers I'm currently using are a Tannoy TFX set although I have replaced the sub with a Cambridge Audio SX120. I have read about matching certain speakers to certain amps etc and i'm wondering if I can get a worthwhile upgrade by maybe changing my centre and front speakers .

When I first set the onkyo up I noticed a massive improvement in sound , everything just sounded better, music,normal tv,football, watching films you can now hear more things if that makes sense and levels seem better ie dialogue is clear now as before you'd have to turn it up really loud to hear speech.

So although the tannoys aren't the best speakers in the world the onkyo made them sound a lot better then they did with the pioneer, I've been looking at centre speakers at around £150 and then stand mounts for L and R front about the same price ,just unsure whether it would be an worthwhile upgrade and the difference would be negligible.

The centre speaker sits directly on the fireplace the tv is wall mounted just above , the left and right speakers and about 2 metres either side wall mounted in alcoves which are about 1200mm wide by 400mm deep.

 

[danny77]

Thanks for the replies, Lucid from reading some of your post on here you know a lot about av and the ins and outs of gear , if you was limited to getting the speakers from rs would there be any 3 speaker set up you would recommend trying for £300 to £400 or there about, or do I need to look at upping the budget.I know its low end gear etc but there surely some better then others in that price point and better then what i'm currently using.

Also with regards the crossover of the speakers being 140Hz does that mean I should change the crossover setting or leave it as the accueq set ,I've read that accueq either works well or it doesn't and people tend to get varying results, I know you can set distance and levels etc but not compensate for things like the auto cal would , is it worth paying someone to set up ? Thanks again for your time

 

[danny77]

Thanks for the replies, loads to read through , the auto set up got the distance on all speakers was ranged from spot on for two of them and within 40 to 100mm on the others, I think the sub was maybe a little further out . i'll measure the room layout and knock a basic diagram up .

ps whats antimode? I know that onkyo calibration went downhill after changing from audyssey like I said earlier some people love it or hate it , i'm not sure if its worked wonders or the fact changing amp has made a massive change to the sound coming from the tannoys .

 

[danny77]

"made a massive change to the sound coming from the"

Try it with and without the EQ, on Yamaha you can disable YPAO by using pure direct

There's a button on front panel "pure audio" which I assume is the same, it turns off any processing and sounds worse, dialogue harder to make out etc

 

[danny77]

Here's a quick layout of the room I did in paint , its not great but shows the basics if that is of any relevance, floor standers are a no go as no room. The centre sits on fireplace which is 230mm deep and 240mm below the tv.
The room from bottom wall at the bottom of image where main seating position is to the chimney breast is 3400mm, the width across room is also 3400mm the alcoves either side of chimney breast are 950 wide and 370mm deep. are the front left and right ok in the corners as shown in image or would it be better bringing them level with the chimney breast so then all 4 sats would be in the corner of a 3400mm x 3400mm square .

https://imgur.com/a/ARsg8

 

[danny77]

Tv has been mounted there for years mate never been an issue bottom of tv is only 1150mm from floor so not as high as some others I've seen. How do bipoles work and what do they do different from standard speakers ?. I'm really unsure what to do to be honest originally I was looking at spending £300 to £400 on the front 3 speakers now thinking it may be best spending that just on the centre and upgrading the front L&R later when funds allow and then further along maybe upgrade the 2 rears

Edit . Just read up on bipoles and from what I can gather there better for the rear / surrounds , for general movie /tv they wont make much of a difference would they,

 

[danny77]

I went in a couple of places yesterday and listened to some Q Acoustics 3020, Tannoy MERCURY7.2, DALI SPEKTOR 1 and Monitor Audio BRONZE 1 all of the speakers listed where matched to the centre within that line up.

There wasn't a big difference between them to be honest but with being in different shops it was hard to do a back to back comparison. I got the Tannoy Mercury 7c Centre Speaker and a pair of Tannoy Mercury 7.2 for£200 which was the price just for either the centre or stand mounts on some of the other brands I looked at today. The size of the new speakers make the previous satellite speakers look like a ten pound Bluetooth speaker that you'd pair with your phone , below is a pic to show the difference in size.

I've not put the brackets on yet and have just sat them on the av unit and computer desk, already there's a big improvement in sound. I ran the auto set up and the amp has set the crossovers as
Front 40hz
Centre 90hz
Surround 90hz
Lfe 120hz

@lucid Do the crossovers look right ? shouldn't the surrounds which are the tfx sats be set at 140hz/150hz also I'm mounting them over the weekend , would it be worth bringing the fronts out along the wall so that the front of the speakers are level with the chimney breast so that the speakers aren't sat right in the corner.

 

[danny77]

"Do the crossovers look right"

No. The front one at 40hz is way too low. Others probably ok though. Look at the speaker specs, it'll say something like 80hz-20khz +/- 3dB.

Whatever that hz number is, set it to that, or higher. Not lower.

The specs for the centre speaker are Frequency response (Hz) 62 - 32,000 and the fronts are Frequency response (Hz) 42 - 32,000 and the sub is Frequency response (Hz) 34 - 150 , is it a case of trial and error or personal taste and also equipment used with regard setting the crossover , I've seen a lot of people say 80Hz following what THX say but I would imagine that all set ups vary as some speakers do different things better and worse then others if that makes sense.

Would you run the auto cal and then fine tune from there,with regards the figures below what does the lfe figure indicate

Front 40hz
Centre 90hz
Surround 90hz
Lfe 120hz