Picked up some JBL Control 23 speakers - any good?

[Admetos]

You can argue until the cows come home, but these are not good sounding audio cables. The sonic difference between something like these and a pair of decent coaxial construction audio leads is audible through a £400 AV receiver with decent bookshelf speakers and a proper audio source.

Lucid is speaking the truth. Even on a good desktop 2.1 system I could tell the difference between cheap cables and more expensive ones. You don't have to spend mega money on RCA cables however, and I have found Belkin ones pretty good.

Case in point. The thin cable below was from a well known electronics retailer, it made my system lack dynamic range compared to the thicker cable. The thicker cable was ironically not expensive, and more the case the thin cable was just plain poor.

Spoiler

 

[Scougar]

I have done decent jvc rca cables somewhere to use (as long as I brought them with me to the USA).

However, if there is an optical option on the receiver I am using, I use that instead.

 

[Admetos]

However, if there is an optical option on the receiver I am using, I use that instead.

I don't know about your specific model Pioneer amp, however I read above it takes a digital input.

I do however run myself an A-Z370 Pioneer digital amp. I can say with confidence the DAC on this amp is very high quality, it produces a higher quality sound than the DAC on my Asus Essence ST sound card!

So if your Pioneer digital amp is anything like my Pioneer digital amp, then I highly recommend trying the digital input into it.

 

[lucid]

And what about speaker cable itself, doors that really matter so much? (Rather than the interconnects)

On a basic level the cable simply has to be fit for purpose. That means it should be made from pure copper rather than the cheaper alternatives of copper coated aluminium (CCA) or, less commonly but also poor, copper coated steel (CCS).

Next it should be of an appropriate gauge for the distance required to carry sufficient current with minimal loss. For example, 60ft of 20 gauge bell wire will lose roughly 40% of the amplifier's power as it travels along the wire, and it will also show a softening of the upper most treble frequencies due to capacitance. In this example I'd expect the treble to be affect from about 18,000 Hz upwards. (There are other factors that affect power loss and roll off etc too such as the speaker impedance and the damping factor of the amp; but to get in to that at this stage is way more detail than is needed.)

The same 20 gauge cable would be perfectly adequate at 10ft. That's because at a shorter distance the cumulative effects of power dissipation and capacitance have a much smaller impact.

As a general rule of thumb, and also because decent cables are available in certain common gauges (or cross sectional areas in metric countries), then something around 15~16 gauge (1.5mm CSA) is suitable for general use up to 40 ft per run. 13 gauge (2.5mm CSA) will do for twice the distance at similar losses, or lower losses on a shorter run.

Manufacturers can play around with the cable geometry and materials to affect such things as capacitance and inductance. This would then make it possible to have a smaller gauge of cable that doesn't have as much high frequency roll off compared to a conventional design, for example.

How far you decide to go with cables depends very much on the quality of the system they're being used with and your own perception of sound. Something basic but decent such as Van Damme Blue in 1.5mm or 2.5mm will be perfectly adequate at getting power from A to B with minimal losses based on the distance recommendations I made earlier. If you want to use something better and you can hear the difference then go for it.

 

[Scougar]

Missed out on the amp unfortunately. Should have got it when I saw it but at that point I hadn't given away the Onkyo stereo amp. I did see some massive tecnic 240w speakers for twenty bucks, but they were massive, about twice the size of the polks.

I am learning a lot from this thread but it has gone way off my original topic (my fault). With regard to that, I am going to build a wooden deck out back and if it is ok, mount the jbls out there for music, which I think will be fine.

I am glad to have been experimenting and looking forward to tinkering more.

 

[lucid]

I did see some massive tecnic 240w speakers for twenty bucks, but they were massive, about twice the size of the polks

$20 is about all that Technics speakers are worth. The brand made some okay to half decent electronics. Their DJ turntable (SL1200 and 1210) was good once the poor arm was junked and replaced with something decent. Speaker was never the brand's forte though.

I remember selling Technics in retail back in the brand's heyday in the late 80's. The first thing we did with any sale was to allow buyers to listen to similarly priced but smaller Missions (70 mkII). Anyone with decent hearing recognised the immediate improvement in detail, imaging and precision. The Technics looked impressive, but that's as far as it went. Bigger doesn't necessarily make them quality. Your Polks will produce better fidelity.

 

[Scougar]

Did a whole day search for receivers, and the only semi reasonable one I could find was a Sony str-de915 which gets reviewed as unreliable. Kicking myself I missed the chance of the Pioneer.

 

[Scougar]

Picked up a Sony SS-WS503 Subwoofer today for $5. It works... so that's a start lol. 100 watt 3ohm, passive sub. I have absolutely no idea if it's any good, but I needed a sub to go with the receiver I couldn't get to run in 2 channel (only 2.1/5.1), so I thought what the heck.. give it a go. Sounds alright.

Still not managed to find a decent receiver again though.

 

[lucid]

Sony SS-WS503 ........ 3ohm, passive sub

EEK!

This isn't a good purchase.

The average proper home cinema/music sub isn't passive*, it's active. This means it has its own amplifier built in which also includes controls for crossover frequency, phase and volume.




In the main an AV subwoofer will take its source signal from a phono socket on the back of the back of the receiver that's marked "Subwoofer". This is known as a Low Level connection because the voltages and currents are very low. Some subs also include speaker inputs, known as High Level connection because the voltages and currents involved are much higher; somewhere in the region of up to 30V and 3-4 Amps. This doesn't make them passive though, they're still active (internally amplified). The speaker inputs are a pass-through connection (see image below) that allow the sub to be inserted between a Hi-Fi amp and the main stereo speakers. The impedance of that pass-through connection is very high - roughly 1000+ Ohms - so the amp doesn't "see" it as a speaker load and so it doesn't affect how the amp reacts to the stereo speaker load either.




Your 'sub' is passive which means it needs to be connected to the speaker output of an amplifier. There's no way of controlling its volume relative to any other speakers being driven. If the speaker position or how it's wired internally means that it's out of phase (out of time) with the main speakers then there's no control to correct that, and lastly on the controls side, there's no crossover frequency control to blend the sub with the main speakers.

The biggest problem though is the impedance. Any decent amp or AV receiver will expect to see a 6~8 Ohm speaker load. Your sub is 3 Ohms. The lower the Ohms then the nearer the it is is to creating a short circuit (0 Ohms resistance) and so the more current that the device will suck from the amp from an amp expecting a higher impedance load. This is not good!! Your $5 sub might end up costing you a $100+ AV receiver when it causes the amp to blow.

In short, ditch the Sony sub. It's not the bargain you thought.





*There are some exceptions, but they are exactly that; exceptions, and they don't represent the majority of product that partners AV receivers

 

[Scougar]

I am taking the wired speaker cable output marked as sub woofer, and the receiver has control over that output for volume.

I know it isn't ace and the 3ohm worried me, but I thought I would give it a go with the original Sony receiver that would only work with a sub.

I know it isn't awesome, but I do appreciate the advice and learning. I never knew what hi input was till now.