Definitely not: Sony, Samsung, LG, Creative, Logitech, Philips, Bose, Denon, Panasonic, Technics, Gale, Eltax, Pioneer, Onkyo, Acoustic Solutions, anything to do with PC manufacturers and the peripherals relating to them,
Possibly, but you need to do your homework carefully:
- Yamaha - the brand makes fantastic electronics, and on occasions some excellent speakers which mostly stay in Japan. We're not in Japan though, and Yamaha has found it very hard to compete with the British brands that could arguably be considered the best in the world at small speakers. Most of what we get as Yam sub/sat systems in the UK then is cheaper surround kits sold as starter packages to partner AV receivers. You buy, you run for a while. Then, when the short honeymoon period is over, you start looking again for something better. Only buy a Yam 5.1 set if you're hard up for funds and you're not in to music.
- Boston Acoustics - American brand Boston were one of the first to make tiny satellites the size of Bose cubes but that actually sounded okay. The Soundware series is a lifestyle type product range for homes whether sound is wanted but speakers must be discretely hidden. The clue is in the shape of the satellites; they're a box but shaved to fit in to the ceiling corners of a room. That's just about the worst place you can put a speaker, but it's what the lifestyle market wants.
The fact that the satellites have a tweeter and a midrange driver (albeit only small; 2.5" dia) puts it streets ahead of Bose with their 3" mid driver trying to be a tweeter too. However, these are not speakers for those interested in music as well as movies.
- Cambridge Audio - there have been several approaches to making a single small driver that does treble as well as midrange.
Bose just took the smallest driver they could find in the 80s, disregarded the fact that it wasn't very good for treble, but went ahead and marketed the crap out of it so pulled the wool over the eyes of three generations of consumers. At the end of the 90s
Mission, Wharfedale and
TDK of all companies(!) had a go with something called NXT technology.
The idea here was to add a voice coil and driver magnet to any rigid flat-ish surface and by vibrating it to to turn it in to a speaker. If you'll forgive the pun, the principle is sound. It's basically what a speaker driver is minus the diaphragm suspension and cabinet. There was talk about putting this to work in passenger aircraft cabins for both noise reduction and speaker use. The tech is used though for high-end invisible speakers in architecture. The problem for Mission and others was getting the balance between cost and performance compared to traditional drivers. The tech died a death. (More on this in the Mission segment below)
This brings us to
Cambridge Audio and others using something called
BMR drivers. This is current tech. It's a bit like a hybrid of NXT with a conventional speaker. The cone is no longer cone shaped but a flat rigid plate made out of a light-weight but stiff honeycomb sandwich. There's a conventional suspension to allow the driver to move. The driver voice coil is larger than for a conventional driver of the same size. Partly, this helps with the rigidity.
BMR drivers get much closer to the idea of a midrange driver that can do tweeter frequencies, but it's not perfect yet. Cambridge Audio Minx satellites use BMR drivers. On the plus side, they throw a really wide image which means a very broad sweet spot where you can sit and get decent sound. The negative is that the top end isn't as sweet as a conventional tweeter/mid combo. These are a bit too new to find in the bargain basement pricing range.
- Mission - This is a brand that has been around from the peak of the stereo Hi-Fi era in the 70s and 80s. They've made a massive range of speakers. Some were class leading for their time. Others were far more pedestrian. Opinions vary a little but there's general consensus on what's good and not-so-good from their ranges. Read some reviews.
For sub/sat systems Mission dabbled with NXT tech. They has two product offerings. At the higher end it's the M Cube system. You can think of this as a forerunner to BMR driver systems. There was also a more budget-oriented system called FS-1, and then its replacement the FS-2. All of these are great for movies unless you have a brittle sounding amp (late 90s / early 2000 Denons). M Cube is passable for music but FS in either -1 or -2 variant should be left out of the running.
Fairly safe bets:
Monitor Audio, Mordaunt Short, KEF, Tannoy, Canton, Wharfedale, Jamo, JBL, Q Acoustics, ELAC (not to be confused with
Eltax or other variants created from bad spelling such as
Eltex), Acoustic Energy (not to be confused with
Acoustic Solutions)
All of the above is painted with a very broad brush. Personal preference plays a part too. KEF is a good brand, but I'm less than enthusiastic about their early generation Egg speakers (HTS2001). I find them dull and lifeless unless driven at high volume. Someone else might disagree and love them
. got 6 B&M VM1s from the MM. Having to leave the centre speaker off the stand, since it's in front of my monitor, and if it's on the stand, it cuts off the start bar from my vision. Will try and find a way to raise my monitor an inch or so, so I can put it back on the stand. Once I get the power cable for the woofer, I'll be setup! Without the woofer, it's hard to say if it's better/worse, though I'm sure it's better. Will start to push the system a bit more in the future!
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