Since you have auditioned Paradigm, Polk, Q-Acoustics subwoofers can you give a review and its comparision with SW150. Also can you tell the price of SW150.
Well I was looking for a sub under 20K. One common problem I found with the Polk, Paradigm, and Q-Acoustics was their reverberation, and boominess. When playing a tabla or a drum, the notes are not sharp and end up dragging with a resonating sound. I prefer a sub to be have fast response - it should create the sound quickly and the sound die quickly. I found the SW 150 to be better than these, but I am afraid that also need some tuning in tersm fo frequency setting and amplitude. That is what I will be doing over the next few weeks.
I see that you are busy setting up HT for your friend. You can also share the HT components that you have finalised/purchased, the reasons and the cost. It will be helpful for our forum members.
Yes, a very close friend of mine from Coimbatore requested me to set up a complete HT system for him within 1 lakh excluding the TV. He has purchased a 46 inch Series 5 Samsung LCD. The equipment I have already procured are the following:
1. Pioneer 610 DVD Player (Roughly 5,000, from Dubai)
2. Yamaha 663 AVR (40,000)
3. 4 x PSB Alpha B1s (30,000)
4. PSB CI Center speaker (12,500)
5. Wharfedale SW150 sub. (18,500)
6. 2 x High Speed HDMI cable from Eagle (3400)
7. MC 60 Audio Cable from Eagle (1000)
8. Component Cable from Bandridge (600)
9. ARSW23 Sub Woofer Cable from DAC (2500)
10. 70 meters of SPK 14 speaker cable from DAC (5000)
AVR
I auditioned the Denon 1909, the Yamaha 663 and the Onkyo 606. I liked the sound of the Yamaha 663 best for music and movies. It does not have scaling. The Pioneer 610 has scaling or DVD. Since my friend travels abroad a lot, I have requested him to get a 1080P external scaler in 6 months or so. That will take care of TV signals.
DVD Player
My friend and his family are not great connoisseurs of movies. I demonstrated the Oppo 983 and the Pioneer 696 at home. He decided the quality of the Pioneer is enough.
Sub
Explained above
Cables
I wanted speaker cables at roughly 50 rupees a meter. I auditioned a number of cables from DAC, MX, and Bandridge. The MX was out as I found it below par. There was not much difference between the DAC and the Bandridge, though I found the Bandridge to be 'brighter'. For fun, we also compared DAC to a pair of cables costing 1,00,000. I found the difference to be about 10% in terms of quality. I finally got the DAC spekaer cable at roughly 70 meter.
Speakers
My friend wanted bookshelf speakers only. I auditioned the Wharfedale 9.2, Epos, Canton Movie 60CX, and the PSB Alpha's. I found the PSB Alpha's to have the maximum clarity, to be musical, and handle low frequencies well. It also fitted our budget well.
I must sincerely thank two wonderful individual for helping me here.
One is
Raghu of Decibel who was instrumental in most of my choices. He would patiently switch amps, cables, and discs, and then argue with me which was better. I found his knowledge and understanding to be way above many people I have met. He never tried to push a sale, though I ended up buying 90% of the equipment from him. He kept pulling my leg saying I am brand conscious and literally forced me to have a blind test of the MX cables. He is really patient and fun to work with.
The other is our own member
TheVortex who was kind enough to loan his PSB Alphas for me to audition. It was when we met at Decibel that TheVortex and I realized we had worked together before. Thank you so much Bala.
I shall post a detailed audition of this set shortly as well as post a comparison of the Oppo 983 and Pioneer 610. I may add a CD player to this combination, and I am discussing this currently with Raghu.
Cheers
. can you throw more light on this external scaler? what would be the cost(in U.S).
