Potential Setup Advice

You guys have been most hopeful. At Uni I'll get a pair of headphones or something.

I've decided on the Cambridge AV receiver. I'll use my current amp to drive my 2 Eltax speakers, and then I'll buy 2 other speakers to use as the rears.
 
Richersound have the Eltax Symphony Centre for just £15-

http://ws1.richersounds.co.uk/productlist.php?cda=productlist&sgroup=CENTRES

Could get Eltax Monitor 3's for the rears, which are £50 from the same place. My setup is just plain stereo, with just the Eltax Monitor 3's and they produce a really nice clean sound once they're on some good mass-filled (kiln dried sand from B&Q does the trick nicely) spiked stands (I'm using Atacama SE24). You might want something smaller and less directional though if you're in a confined space like a bedroom or something.

I dunno how RS sell that centre for £15 when it's RRP is £80. I read a lot of their supposed 'new' stuff is returns.
 
james.miller said:
oh no. no no no no no. Yopu can be replacement B&W drivers for a few quid, yet their speakers cost hundereds. The materials used in speakers are almost always very cheap to buy.
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Fair enough, but then why do they sound better? B&Ws kevlar cones must cost more than the card cones in cheaper stuff. Making a B&W DM602 speaker must cost more than it costs Creative to make a cheap plastic sat for their PC speakers surely?
 
fish99 said:
Richersound have the Eltax Symphony Centre for just £15-

http://ws1.richersounds.co.uk/productlist.php?cda=productlist&sgroup=CENTRES

Could get Eltax Monitor 3's for the rears, which are £50 from the same place. My setup is just plain stereo, with just the Eltax Monitor 3's and they produce a really nice clean sound once they're on some good mass-filled (kiln dried sand from B&Q does the trick nicely) spiked stands (I'm using Atacama SE24). You might want something smaller and less directional though if you're in a confined space like a bedroom or something.

I dunno how RS sell that centre for £15 when it's RRP is £80. I read a lot of their supposed 'new' stuff is returns.
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I ordered that literally about a minute after I read your post. As it happens I've got the perfect place to put it atm; on a shelf above my PC. Now, can I wire this to the "B" speaker output on my current AMP?

I don't really care if it's "returned" - as long as it works.

So do you think that's the way to go for me, as a student, to sit back and wait for various offers? If I got a sub now I'd have an awesome 3.1 setup :D

I'll wait until I've got some more cash, then I'll grab the AV amp, the Monitor 3s and a sub to complete my 5.1 setup. Are you SURE this will sound better than the Gigaworks S750s?
 
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james.miller said:
yeah but not a lot more. To build a b&W speaker you are looking at around £50 in material at the most. But then that's true of any electronics. They always cost us far more than they cost to produce.
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yeah exactly, the purchase price is always relative, b&w dealers like most hi end audio dealers make a standard 40% mark up on there sales anyway! so you can start to work out how much material costs really are.
but yeah its true of every manufacture.
 
Tommy B said:
So do you think that's the way to go for me, as a student, to sit back and wait for various offers? If I got a sub now I'd have an awesome 3.1 setup :D

I'll wait until I've got some more cash, then I'll grab the AV amp, the Monitor 3s and a sub to complete my 5.1 setup. Are you SURE this will sound better than the Gigaworks S750s?
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Certainly should sound better. I'm not here to give you guarantees though, I've never used Eltax symphony speakers or Gigaworks S750. Before ordering anything you should be checking out all online reviews/opinions you can find. That should go without saying. You are responsible for your own decisions.

Eltax obviously aren't top of the tree when it comes to hi-fi gear, and their speakers aren't the best looking in the world, but they do sound good for the money. The Monitor 3's get very good reviews, although they are a little fiddly to set up (the bass port is on the underneath and they have built in spiked feet). In theory they should make good rears for your system - if you're prepared to buy stands for them (and mass fill the stands) and your room is big enough for these kind of rears. If not then look elsewhere. Like I said there's bookshelf symphony speakers too, which are obviously designed to work with your symphony floorstanders and centre. There's also a symphony sub, although I've heard Eltax don't make the best subs.

There's also plenty of other places to get opinions on AV gear, like AV forums-

http://www.avforums.com/index.php

Using a PC forum to get recommendations for audio gear doesn't make a huge amount of sense. There's also a hi-fi forum here at OcUK.

And when the time comes to buy your AV receiver, consider a used one.
 
james.miller said:
yeah but not a lot more. To build a b&W speaker you are looking at around £50 in material at the most. But then that's true of any electronics. They always cost us far more than they cost to produce.
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Of course, but it's still probably 5-10 times what it takes creative to build it's top end satellites.
 
james.miller said:
that's really not the point. what im saying is, sound quality is most definately not proportional to price.
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Not for every single product, but as a general rule it does apply and is a useful guide. Or to put it another way, you would find more examples where it did apply than where it didn't. Just because you can think of examples where a particular speaker sound better than a more expensive one doesn't mean there's no general relationship between sound quality and price. Are you saying £10,000 speakers aren't, in general, better than £50 speakers?
 
in general you cant even compare the two. however, i know of some speakers that are unbeatable at any price. you could spend £100k and it wouldnt be enough. However that doesnt prove anything except why you cant make comparisons like that.

Same goes for amplifiers and subwoofers also. You buy the right gear, and it cant be touched by stuff costing twice as much. It is in no way proportionate. as hesky touched on, brand name and styling are the biggest influences on price:)
 
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In general though, if you bought 50 different sets of speakers costing £0-500 and another 50 costing £501-1,000, and did direct comparisons between the two groups (every speaker in one group versus every speaker in the other group, all setup to sound their best), wouldn't more than 50% of the winners come from the £501-1,000 group?
 
fish99 said:
In general though, if you bought 50 different sets of speakers costing £0-500 and another 50 costing £501-1,000, and did direct comparisons between the two groups (every speaker in one group versus every speaker in the other group, all setup to sound their best), wouldn't more than 50% of the winners come from the £501-1,000 group?
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Last time I upgraded my speakers I went out with a budget of up to about £2000. I listened to EVERY SINGLE SPEAKER I could between £0 and ~£2500 to see which pair I liked best. Took me ages too.

Winner? £320 Mission M35i floorstanders with my amplification (Musical Fidelity / NAD). Close second was a pair of Dynaudios, distant third was some ProAcs.

The Dynaudio speakers cost nearly all of the budget, the ProAcs about £1100.

Do not underestimate how powerful personal preference is.
 
james.miller said:
i know of some speakers that are unbeatable at any price.
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If such speaker systems exist, then everyone who can afford it would be buying them. Chances are, people into this range of speakers are educated buyers rather than your average consumer.

What I am more inclined to say is that, yes, the higher you go, the higher the diminishing returns. This applies to headphones, and I assume it applies to speakers (I have listenned to some mid-high end systems as I have a cousin who sells speaker systems, but I still have more experience with headphones). So at one point, two speaker sets may only have subtle differences, but a less insignificant price difference. And at that point, personal preference will play a bigger role. I agree with fish99 overall that price can be used as a general indicator, at least up to a point.

That is why you have terms like "budget, midrange, high range", which is normally sorted by price. The best of the budget range is not likely to compete with the best of the high end. It is not absolute of course, different companies have different pricing structures, so two speakers competing in the high end market may have an insignificant price difference, but sound very similar. But even the cheapest there is not going to be pocket change.
 
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There is the whole diminishing returns thing. I am slowly becoming convinced that its not as clear cut as that.

Take a look at the top of the line PMC speakers. About £20,000 a pair and an absolutely fantastic sound too.

Then look at the top of the line B&W speakers - about £70,000. These are £50,000 more than the PMCs and by the law of diminishing returns, they should be only slightly better.

They are absolutely night-and-day better in every single way imaginable.

The reason nobody goes out and buys one particular speaker is that personal preference has a lot to do with it - and for anyone serious, more important than price. If what I preferred was directly linked to price, I would have a pair of Dynaudios sat here, wouldnt I?
 
.. and on that basis, I would say that no speakers are "unbeatable".

The laws of diminishing return would suggest that the PMC are not quite "3.5x" better than the B&W. Not had experience with the top of the end of those speakers, so I can't speak about them. But if the PMC are already fantastic at that stage, I would expect that they are good enough that nothing can be technically 3.5x better than it. However, the sum of subtle differences may make one speaker subjectively sound 3.5x better than another.But I would suspect that it would be because the person amplify the value of those last, say 10%, 350% fold.

Just an educated guess. I have become extremely weary of the term "night-and-day" in audio.
 
Im a firm believer in well thought out simplistic designs and topologies when it comes to audio systems, some of the most clean and transparent systems have used the most simplistic circuit designs.
you just dont need to spend 50k+ on a pair of speakers to accurately reproduce a musical performance. flagship speakers like b&w's nautilus are a mish mash of speaker theory that the company pushes through its whole range, there more of a defining statement than an audio speaker.

system synergy is also crucial here, drz those dynaudios might have sounded much better on a different amp, perhaps your set-up complemented the missions better, or simply you liked the way they presented the music to you.
 
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