Home Cinema Speaker Recommendations

Doobedoo · 13 Jun 2018 at 17:21

Hi Guy's. I've recently started acquiring bit's for my home cinema setup but need recommendations on either 2 rear surround speakers or 2 front surround speakers. I will prefer to save some money and buy second hand and keep the cost down without buying rubbish.

So far I have

Sony STR-DN1080 as a receiver

3 x Monitor Audio Radius 180's as left, right and center (but could possible use left and right for rears).

And a BK XXLS400 for the sub.

What do you think?

lucid · 13 Jun 2018 at 22:11

Monitor Audio Radius 45s.

Doobedoo · 13 Jun 2018 at 22:36

I don't fancy the idea of 45's they look too small to me plus people want stupid money for them. Smallest I'll go is 90's but I'm preferring the idea of getting some floor standers for the front and moving the 180's to the rear.

I have my eye on some Kef IQ5's or maybe some Monitor Audio Bronze BR5 if I can find a pair for the right money. Do you know of other similar speakers that will likely sell in the same ballpark as these?

lucid · 14 Jun 2018 at 06:50

S/h look at MA BX5

I'd be careful of mixing Kef and MA across the front sound stage. Also, IMO, Radius 180 would look odd as side/rear surrounds.

413x · 14 Jun 2018 at 21:58

I've got MA rx all round.
Started with a 5.1 all in cheap package. Upgraded to bx then bit bullet for RX.

Package to BX was a bigger step than BX to RX
Ran RX fronts with BX rears for a while. But I would not mix brands

All second hand

Haven't heard anything anywhere near comparable to mine. So cant comment on comparison

benjii · 15 Jun 2018 at 00:50

Doobedoo said:
or maybe some Monitor Audio Bronze BR5 if I can find a pair for the right money.

I have a pair of these, a pair of the Bronze FX's, Bronze Centre and the Bronze W10 sub. The whole setup is cracking, but the BR5's really stand out, they're fantastic.

Metallifux · 15 Jun 2018 at 09:24

lucid said:
Monitor Audio Radius 45s.

I have the 45's as rears, surprisingly good.

Doobedoo · 16 Jun 2018 at 20:43

Well I’ve won some BR5’s so should pick them up tomorrow, will move the 180’s to the rear and maybe bi-amp the fronts. Will also upgrade the centre at some point.

What is the best way to set the BR5’s in bi-amp? What cross-over settings will I need to use ect?

Doobedoo · 16 Jun 2018 at 20:46

Metallifux said:
I have the 45's as rears, surprisingly good.

My issue is not necessarily how well the will perform but how much people want for them.

The ones I seen went for not a lot less than I will be paying for the BR5’s and more than I paid for all 3 180’s.

hornetstinger · 22 Jun 2018 at 11:29

The issue with tiny little speakers ignoring sound quality is they are harder to drive, require more amp power and have poor frequency response ( which is related to sound quality)

Calo · 6 Aug 2018 at 00:09

To the OP, I have also this weekend bought and set up a Sony STR-DN1080. There are some hidden features you may have missed too!
Firstly, I replaced a five year old Yamaha RXV something 7.1 AV receiver as it was on HDMI 1.4, no 4K etc. And my word, this Sony sounds FAR better than the Yamaha with exactly the same speaker setup, and I was not anticipating that at all. Maybe expecting a little jump in quality as the Sony was 150 clams more expensive compared to when buying the Yamaha, but the details in sound, and control of the bass, its a different level.

Now then, I bet you missed this. The Sony has six HDMI inputs, all equal right? However, VIDEO 1 does not support UHD colours and is basically just for DVD players or old consoles, while the BD/DVD and SA-CD/CD are described in the manual as having "better sound" and should be used when connecting equipment for listening. Such a great technical term that is - "better sound" I can only guess that those two HDMI inputs go through some slightly better quality capacitors? The VIDEO 1 input thing is borderline false advertising as people could feasibly buy this thinking they can hook up six full UHD 4:4:4 colour video feeds.

lucid · 6 Aug 2018 at 00:29

Doobedoo said:
Well I’ve won some BR5’s so should pick them up tomorrow, will move the 180’s to the rear and maybe bi-amp the fronts. Will also upgrade the centre at some point.

What is the best way to set the BR5’s in bi-amp? What cross-over settings will I need to use ect?

Bi-Amp is a bit of a gimmick feature and waste of time with any receiver where all the power is being pulled from a single transformer.

413x · 9 Aug 2018 at 10:50

I don't biamp mine.

hornetstinger · 9 Aug 2018 at 11:32

413x said:
I don't biamp mine.

It's worth it if you have two separate amps is four monoblocs or two stereo power amplifiers, or a 4 channel amp with 4 separate PSUs or windings or enough capacity power supply / storage caps so one channel isn't effected by another. I think the caps in my amp is 30,000 uf per channel