Upgrade time

I would go for the 2020i for fronts as the the 3020s offer little benefit for extra cost, and 2010i would be plenty for your rears.

You want to pay about £100 for the 2020s and £65 for the 2010s. Keep an eye out for clearance deals from Richer Sounds.

edit: Here you go http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/buy/QACO-2010I-GRAPH-ES/Q+Acoustics+2010i+Graph+(Pr)+ES.html


To be completely honest here, as soon as my wife saw the 3020s when we was both sat down browsing them on the rainforest then looked at you tube vid she was won, ofc we are still arguing over wich colour to have , i prefer the wallnut ones since we have a lot fo wood in the front room, she actulay prefers the white ones. Also surely the bennifit of jsut being able to connect the cable sto the back rather than the bottom is better alone and bigger drivers ? over the 2010i ?

Again thank you very much for your post and advice
 
good points so far. Buy the amp, if budget is a concern just go 2.0 or 2.1 for now, rather than blowing on 10.1 trying to squeeze it all it. One option is to buy second hand speakers for the remaining channels to save money, I bought a second set of matching rears to match the sides rather than buying new.

Some tips, of possible get a better sub. I'd try XL200 minimum. I use a SVS SB13 Ultra so probably bit biased towards higher end subs ;-)
If you're close to side/rear walls you might want to consider indirect firing speakers such as bipoles, if you're sticking to 5.1. They are also generally slimmer and desgined for wall mounting, rather than regular speakers which are deep and not having speaker brackets fitted (nor are the speaker terminals inset)

As for second hand, do not discount it. When I upgraded, my left/right, center, and standmounts (which I'm not using as rears, but in a second stereo system, granted) retailed for £5000. I bought them all for £1000 and they're in 99% mint condition. People will have spare speakers that they shove in cupboards as they upgrade their speakers.


is the sub i listed not any good i thought it was mile sbetter than the one supplied with the q acustics systems. this will be a gift in other words i have to save for the rest and if i sucseed i get the sub(my first tim ehaivng to save for somthing lol)

Also you mention buying matching rears is this really important ? is there a reason fo rthis, i know it sprety important for the fronts to do wiht the frequency and cross over ?

I have seen the bipole speakers you have mentioned, they are prety exspensive, the one si have seen and also they are prety big ? . we are doing this in our living room, while i have got a certian amount of freedom, i think that might be pushing it slightly lol

Again thank you for the post
 
The BK Gemini is a sealed box, 10" driver, 150W amplifier. It's a good sub, but be aware of it's limitations. After all it is only a sealed box, 10" driver, and 150W amplifier. It's superior to the Q Acoustics sub though. I'd be looking at the XL200 ideally if it was me I'd get the best BK sealed box which is the XLS400. But it's always better to have a subwoofer that is too good, then having one that you are pushing too hard and it sounds bad. Like a motorcar, a old 1 liter car from the 80's could just about handle motorway driving speeds, but you really are pushing it, thrashing the engine, it's shaking all over. But 1.6injection handles it so much easier, at 70mph the engine is at a nice cruising speed, it's better build so not shaking.

The BK Gemini sub will be fine in a smaller room, for TV use, and for music. But if you want to feel deep clear bass at higher levels, and not worry about bottoming out the driver, running out of headroom, getting higher levels of distortion then you'll need something better.

I have two subs (two systems) One is a 12" driver, sealed box, 400W, Another is 13.5" driver, sealed box, 1300W. Personally I prefer sealed box subs now for smaller rooms (having ported before) But that's another matter. If I had a larger room and this is for movies, then I'd choose the 13.5" driver, ported box, 1300W version of mine (which I had previously, which I sold to buy the sealed box version) That was a movie monster, you could feel the floorboards flex and it made you feel funny as it could do output 10hz material.

As for white speakers, I would only recommend white speakers for ceiling/atmos/side/rears. Not front/center/sub. White sticks out, and with the lights dimmed, the white speakers will be very distracting. Had a person whose wife wanted white Monitor Audio speakers, I said no get a dark colour, he obeyed his wife (lol) when he got them both himself and his wife said they are distracting lol. So what did they do? Move the white speakers from the front to the rears, then buy the same speakers in darker colour for the fronts. haha.

As for bipoles, I don't think I mentioned any specific models. Generally bipole (and dipole and tripole) are generally more expensive than the treble/driver speaker counterpart because these dedicated speakers have several more drivers. From double to perhaps triple. I use bipoles for sides and rears, each speaker has two treble drivers, and two mid/bass drivers. I think they're £600 per pair new (so £1200 for four) but I paid something like £400 for all four (either second hand or ex-demo) I have another set of speakers, dipoles, which have two treble, two mid, and one bass driver.

these are my main speakers are these. Buy second hand, and get better quality speakers.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=662250&d=1428833584

Originally there were £3500 a pair. I paid £725 for them.

Q Acoustics are pretty small speakers overall. I wouldn't recommend going smaller than them, and get the largest Q acoustics standmount you can. Don't go for ones where they home theatre in a box size (small speakers)

If you want every single speaker identical, according to people like Dolby/DTS which they recommend. So if you wanted M&K speakers, you'd have 7 M&K S-150's. However due to the shape, or personal preference having 7 of those is not possible. For me, a huge square center won't fit, so I have to choose the horizontal ones (Celestion A4C) rather than another A3. For side/rears they are too big, and I prefer non direct firing speakers, so I'd choose bipole or tripoles (M&K do have tripoles)

Also having 7 of my main speakers all round is not possible for obvious reasons, unless I had a conference room.

I'll be putting a ad in members market..
 
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oh the Q Acoustics speakers require a fair bit of power. With 86dB sensvitity for one of the of those Q Acoustic models, do you realise that with my A3 speakers which are 90dB, that for a given power output, that mine would be twice as loud?

So if you had one Q speaker to the left channel, another to the right channel, and the amplifier was outputting 3W of music power, the right speaker will be 2x as loud as the Q speaker.

So effectivity you would need a higher end AVR to match the output on speakers that are more efficient per watt.

There is also things like speaker impedence (mine are 4ohm though which requires a good amp)
 
"Also you mention buying matching rears is this really important ? is there a reason fo rthis, i know it sprety important for the fronts to do wiht the frequency and cross over ?"

My side and rears are the same make & model (Definitive Technology BP-1X's) However my fronts are not the same make or models (Celestion A series) Apparently it's best to have speakers that are

a) The same make
b) The same range
c) Exactly the same speaker

However there are many many reasons why you can't or don't want to do this as I explained earlier.

The frequency isn't a concern, as the bass management in your AVR handles that, you set crossovers per speaker, or for the whole lot, then bass below that point get directed to the subwoofer. You can get away with smaller speakers to for side/rears but I wouldn't go too small. Because if you do, then more bass is sent to your subwoofer to make up for the lack of abillity of your speakers to play it, so you need a much better sub. The sub is a very important channel, you have bass from multiple speakers, plus the dedicated LFE channel. If you bought the BK Monolith would be best option.

BK subs are good, well built, however they do use torodial transformers (which I like in my amps) however I feel for subs it's not necassary and they sticking to class A/B not class D, which has pros and cons, but generally a good class D amp will run cooler, offer more power. BK subs seem to get a few complaints about humming/buzzing from the power supplies though. Class A/B are easy to repair, class D aren't.
 
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