Speaker Auditioning Experiences - Kolkata

We continued with our quest last Saturday.

This time we visited SKS Traders.

Cambridge Audio Amp + Wharfedale Diamond 10.4

We listened the combo in stereo mode for about 20+ minutes. Vocals, mid, bass were good. You can keep listening to this kind of music without any ear fatigue.

However, when it came to soundtracks (Pirates of the Caribbean, Titanic) it was obvious the speaker lacked that excitement you need during movies.

Overall this appeared to good speaker for music, but not so for movies.


Cambridge Audio Amp + Dali Concept 6 Series

This was just opposite of Wharfedale. Everything this was much more forward... vocals, bass... everything. Two words to sum up the sound would be - big, bold!!

Though not bright, I didn't like the sound as it appeared exaggerated.


Cambridge Audio Amp + Aviano 2

We tried Aviano 2 again just to make sure what we heard last day was not a fluke or if there was something wrong with the current setup.

But, Aviano 2 didn't disappoint :)


Cambridge Audio Amp + Aviano 6

Again this was excellent!


And we made up our mind to go with the Aviano series.

Unfortunately, the movie setup was not complete so we could not test the Aviano in 5.1 mode. We'll go back for this before buying.
 
midnitefreakin said:
has anyone heard/ took demo of space audio?

Product1

the product is exact replica of bose speakers and the price is 17.5k for the whole package.

My friend took the demo and he says, these speakers means serious business and are not jst cheap replicas.

any inputs from you guys? he took the demo in mumbai.

wat say?
Click to expand...

Is this available in Kolkata for demo? I am looking some low cost option for the surrounds. Also has anyone done a setup of 7 channel audio? What is being used widely for the 4 surrounds ? Not looking to spend more than 10K per pair of surrounds. I have Bose 161 for 11K pair and one advantage I found is that they can be easily stuck to any orientation on the wall with their swivel stands (have to be purchased separately though)
 
haisaikat said:
Is this available in Kolkata for demo? I am looking some low cost option for the surrounds. Also has anyone done a setup of 7 channel audio? What is being used widely for the 4 surrounds ? Not looking to spend more than 10K per pair of surrounds. I have Bose 161 for 11K pair and one advantage I found is that they can be easily stuck to any orientation on the wall with their swivel stands (have to be purchased separately though)
Click to expand...

its has no presence in bengal...but mumbai, bangalore, bhubaneswar...

i heard it in hurry for 5 mins, the surrounds really sounded nice, thhough will hav to go for another center and sub. Its sub was good but lows were not there :) but still 2 6.5 inches gave a lot of punch, good enuf for a 150-170sqft area...

rest next saturday will go for a detailed and 30 mins demo of the same with diff center and sub...

its surround will fit in you budget as he offered me 5.1 for 17.5k! :)
 
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midnitefreakin said:
its has no presence in bengal...but mumbai, bangalore, bhubaneswar...

i heard it in hurry for 5 mins, the surrounds really sounded nice, thhough will hav to go for another center and sub. Its sub was good but lows were not there :) but still 2 6.5 inches gave a lot of punch, good enuf for a 150-170sqft area...

rest next saturday will go for a detailed and 30 mins demo of the same with diff center and sub...

its surround will fit in you budget as he offered me 5.1 for 17.5k! :)
Click to expand...

Let me know how the demo turns out but in that case will the dealer ship to Kolkata? May be you can ask this to them and re-post here.
 
In my endeavor to look for compatible surrounds to match with Denon 1911 (fronts I am more or less done on Avianos --- mandark - subhadeepgayen team) around 10K / pair I was following up with Bose 161 speakers pair for 11K which was recommended to me by the Bose South City showroom here in Kolkata. The speakers have two 2.5 inch drivers (with Bose patented paper cone, etc etc) and although I have not done any audition on several reviews and youtube videos I found that these are good for their prices. Moreover they are coming with a custom direction adjustable wall mount. When I enquired about the suitable wires for these I was told that any 48/.20 wires would do (want help in these standards) otherwise I can use Bose wires which come in two packs (20ft for INR 1500+tax and 100m at INR 5000 + tax... of course the later bundle is more cost effective). Uptil now this was giving me a good feeling.

Starting today my living room renovations (electric work and some paint job) has started and I was about to proceed with at least making provisions for the speaker wires on the wall. Here I started getting confused... see below the recommended dolby 7.1 speaker placement from dolby site


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as per this the speakers should be at the ear height. But then again unable to find any suitable matching info on boseindia website I tried on google and found the bottom examples


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


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as per these images in most cases the speakers are mounted high on the walls.

So I called up the Bose Showroom once again and got their service center's number in camac street asking for professional installation of the speakers. After much hasstle in trying to make them understand (the phone passed from one lady who was initially denying that 161 can act as surrounds to another more knowledgeable guy) that I want chargeable - professional installation service from them in placing the speakers in ideal location in my living room they said the following
1. They will only suggest the speaker placement for the 161s only which is typically a point 54 inches from the floor and 18 inch from rear wall 6 inch from side wall based on "Bose standards"
2. They will play my Amp but will not try much advanced settings since they are not aware of and moreover tuning my amp for the speakers will not be in their scope.
3. There will be two visits to my place one before placing the speakers (engineer only) and one on the day of placement (engineer + service guy who will pull the wires etc)... however I was not convinced how much are they going to analyze my present room acoustics based on the placements of furnitures and deviate from their "Bose-Book Placement Guidelines" as stated in point 1.
4. Charge for these two visits will be 3000 + tax. -- Okay I thought I can bear this
5. This is the most interesting part, if I am deciding to use 4 161s as rear surrounds to complete the 7 speakers system of Dolby 7.1 they will charge me another 3000+tax even if they install both the speakers on the same day and make the same two visits (and not four visits.. of course that does not makes sense)--- at this point the phone was about to fall off from my hand.

Overall I got the feeling that Bose Engineers will NOT take satisfactory ownership of this setup since my whole system is NOT Bose. The guy kept on repeating that "Please appreciate that the quality of the final sound effect coming from your HT is going to be a summation of your Amp and front+centers+surrounds and will not soley depend on you Bose Rears." I heard this disclaimer in different playback tones at least 4 to 5 times during the entire conversation.

I have now made up my mind to try for other surrounds. Called the profx guy who demoed the 1911 to me and mandark, he said that the lowest priced rears he has are the Polk Tsi 100 for around 11K /pair and if I pay them 800 INR they can come to my place suggest best speaker placements and also tune my Denon system as best as they can even if the fronts are from some other place. Had everything been from they could have waived off their charge of 800 INR. This seemed more reasonable and value for money for me with more of a "vendor ownership" as compared to the Bose guys.

I am open to other options for surrounds if someone has any experience of better speakers based on their ownership / audition.
 
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Hi All,
On public demand the title of this thread is being changed from "5.1 speakers under 40K - Bose, Jamo, Yamaha" to the present title of "Speaker Auditioning Experiances - Kolkata".

Thank You
 
Hi All,
Today I visited SKS, Profx and Yamaha for speaker cables of HT setup. Here are the relative prices

SKS
Norstone 16 awg cables for 300 / meter (although over phone they said it was 12 awg but in person I found out to be 16)
DAC 16 awg cables for 100 / meter

Yamaha
Bandridge 16 awg cables for 80 / meter

Profx
Chord Campana 16 awg cables for 125 / meter
Chord Carnival 14 awg cables for 250 / meter

I think for surrounds we can use the Bandridge cables for 80 per meter but for fronts and center we can use the Chord Carnival series.

However Srikanth at profx was trying to explain that Chord cables are best since their wires are a mix of different metals... like copper carries all low frequencies well but not so good in carrying highs which is reverse for silver and hence having a wire made up of only one material is not a good thing. So Chord makes cables by mixing the right proportion of various metals for optimum output. Not sure if this is right but others can pitch in.

Btw the Yamaha store had a pair of speaker stands for mounting bookshelves which are height adjustable and cost only 2500 a pair. :)
 
haisaikat said:
Hi All,
Today I visited SKS, Profx and Yamaha for speaker cables of HT setup. Here are the relative prices

SKS
Norstone 16 awg cables for 300 / meter (although over phone they said it was 12 awg but in person I found out to be 16)
DAC 16 awg cables for 100 / meter

Yamaha
Bandridge 16 awg cables for 80 / meter

Profx
Chord Campana 16 awg cables for 125 / meter
Chord Carnival 14 awg cables for 250 / meter

I think for surrounds we can use the Bandridge cables for 80 per meter but for fronts and center we can use the Chord Carnival series.

However Srikanth at profx was trying to explain that Chord cables are best since their wires are a mix of different metals... like copper carries all low frequencies well but not so good in carrying highs which is reverse for silver and hence having a wire made up of only one material is not a good thing. So Chord makes cables by mixing the right proportion of various metals for optimum output. Not sure if this is right but others can pitch in.

Btw the Yamaha store had a pair of speaker stands for mounting bookshelves which are height adjustable and cost only 2500 a pair. :)
Click to expand...

correction
the norstone cables for 300.meter is 12 awg and the 270.meter cable of chord is chord carnival classic whereas the same for chord carnival silver screen is 370/meter.

I got the DAC 16 awg cables from sks traders at INR 80/meter since I bought a wholw roll of 100m.
 
This Sunday we (me, mandark, subhadeepgayen) finally made the purchase of Denon 1911 for 40K each from profx and speaker we had already ordered Aviano 6 (me and mandark),Avinao 2 (subhadeep), Aviano 5 and 1 (All 3 of us). The total speaker package of 5.0 came down to 69K for me and mandark (with Aviano 6 as fronts) and 50K for subhadeep (with Aviano 2 as fronts).

We took delivery of one set of 5.0 speaker set from SKS and took it to profx (they were co-operative in allowing us to pair and listen 3rd party speakers). Earlier we had listed to them using Yamaha RX-V667 in SKS and now we heard them using Denon 1911 in profx. The Denon sounded better but we must say that tuning plays an important role and we believe that Yamaha could have given a better output if tuned properly.

On the question of power matching I would say that Denon was able to drive the Avianos in 5.1 mode properly in some high bassy scenes at a volume level of -12dB. For 2 channel music the Denons did quite well and at profx they tested it with sound raised to -4dB when it sounded quite loud to us.

However I must say one thing which re-iterated what Asit da had expressed earlier. The 2 channel music sounded much when the same speakers were coupled in SKS with Cambridge Audio 650A which is a dedicated 2 channel amp. Also some significat amount of bass and overall effect reproduction difference was noticable in 5.1 mode w.r.t Yamaha 667 in SKS when playing Dare Devil using Cambride Audio 650R amp which is a 7.1 receiver with 1400Watts power consumption. But both of them are very high blow to our pockets 650A ~ 60K and 650R ~ 80K. We could not test the same track with Denon since they were not available in profx, auditioned with Avatar BD.

All of us did agree to one fact though that tuning plays a major role in the setup and affects the final delivery of the show so we have to learn first how best to tune our amps to get the best out of them.

My thanks to all for so many important views and suggestions which helped us justify several things before buying which we did not know earlier.

My thanks to mandark (and his broher) and subhadeep for all the support on this sunday in loading and unloading all those heavy speaker boxes several times at different places.

I will post pics a little later once profx does the setup (amp yet to be delivered) and all is in place. Profx will be charging me ~ 800 for installation (cash on site) since I did not take the whole package from them and I was not willing to set up all by myself.

Also the chord cables for fronts are yet to be delivered.
 
I called up SKS Traders a few days back... They siad that the Wharfies 9.5 aare discontinued...:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
ANd they don have the stock..
Did u happen to find The Wharfedale 9.5 s there???

Its available all over d india... but SKS guy told me tat s its d/contd ...SO they don have them...
 
hemant0285 said:
I called up SKS Traders a few days back... They siad that the Wharfies 9.5 aare discontinued...:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
ANd they don have the stock..
Did u happen to find The Wharfedale 9.5 s there???

Its available all over d india... but SKS guy told me tat s its d/contd ...SO they don have them...
Click to expand...

They said the same to us as well. Said that only 10.x is now in stock which we did audition though and did not like . HEard that 9.x was better but did not get a chance to audition anywhere in Kolkata
 
haisaikat said:
This Sunday we (me, mandark, subhadeepgayen) finally made the purchase of Denon 1911 for 40K each from profx and speaker we had already ordered Aviano 6 (me and mandark),Avinao 2 (subhadeep), Aviano 5 and 1 (All 3 of us). The total speaker package of 5.0 came down to 69K for me and mandark (with Aviano 6 as fronts) and 50K for subhadeep (with Aviano 2 as fronts).
Click to expand...

Congratulations Saikat, Mandark and Subhadeep on your purchase!
I have also ended up narrowing down to Aviano series after going through other options like KEF, Focal etc for which I have shared my experiences here.

Do you have the system set up yet? How are you finding it.. any feedback/suggestions to share before I conclude on this Aviano package(6FS+5C+1R+7SW)

I already have the receiver Denon 791(same as 1911), and saw the other thread where AV receiver's power matching with that of speakers are discussed in detail and convinced that I am heading in the right direction by matching this with Aviano 6 based package.

Btw, I am planning to set this up in the living room of size 12X16ft with a requirement of 50% movies-50% music
 
gk@hyd said:
Congratulations Saikat, Mandark and Subhadeep on your purchase!
I have also ended up narrowing down to Aviano series after going through other options like KEF, Focal etc for which I have shared my experiences here.

Do you have the system set up yet? How are you finding it.. any feedback/suggestions to share before I conclude on this Aviano package(6FS+5C+1R+7SW)

I already have the receiver Denon 791(same as 1911), and saw the other thread where AV receiver's power matching with that of speakers are discussed in detail and convinced that I am heading in the right direction by matching this with Aviano 6 based package.

Btw, I am planning to set this up in the living room of size 12X16ft with a requirement of 50% movies-50% music
Click to expand...

I think I am very happy with this purchase. Please note that in showroom mostly the Avianos are played with CA amps which have higher output capability be it two channel or multi channel and hence if possible you should take your amp to the store and try out the audition if possible before comiting for the purchase. Audessy setup is a must do before listening and insist this at the store as well. Avianos reproduce sound very nicely with my 1911. For the sub, I think Aviano subs are real ground shaker and this sunday we did a home audition and will post the reviews soon. Please also audition the Polk DSW 660 wi if this is available in your town, this is the new line of sub from Polks.
 
haisaikat said:
I think I am very happy with this purchase. Please note that in showroom mostly the Avianos are played with CA amps which have higher output capability be it two channel or multi channel and hence if possible you should take your amp to the store and try out the audition if possible before comiting for the purchase. Audessy setup is a must do before listening and insist this at the store as well. Avianos reproduce sound very nicely with my 1911. For the sub, I think Aviano subs are real ground shaker and this sunday we did a home audition and will post the reviews soon. Please also audition the Polk DSW 660 wi if this is available in your town, this is the new line of sub from Polks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response Saikat.. glad to know that.

Couple of hours after my earlier post, I went ahead with the mentioned Aviano package :). My personal preference has been to pick everything from a single brand and preferably single series(for the sake of consistent sound signature) and hence went ahead picking even the SW from MS Aviano. Total package cost after negotiation was 92K with some 1K+ for installation, Expecting them to be delivered by around end of the week.

Btw, I see that you went ahead with DAC 16 gauge cables.. did you consider 14 gauge for floor standers.. as I see that as the general recommendation/preference. For SW, a dedicated subwoofer cable is preferred I suppose, which one did you pick for that?
 
^^ couldnt resist the ot.. I think the profx guy mentioned you to me regarding the speaker cables when he had come over to my house to check the room for speaker placement :)
 
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