Suggest any one of these two speakers

[digirans]

Dear all,
I am ranjith kumar from chennai. Recently, i had purchased onkyo TX-SR508 and my hall size is 11w x 17L. I need suggestions for buying 5.1 speaker system. My amp wattage is 160w at 6ohms or 90w at 8ohms. I liked to use my amp on 90w at 8ohms for more clarity.
My speaker configuration is 8ohms, 3way, 4drive speaker system, 12inch powered subwoofer and my budget is 90,000. I will watch movies and listen songs, nothing particularly, but whatever it is more powerful and clarity.
I auditioned most of the showrooms and After lot of study, finally optioned and doubleful with between two brands - Polk audio RTi A7 series or Mordaunt short - Aviano 8 series. Please clear my following doubts and finalize any one of these.

1. Polk audio - cone made up of polymer composite and MS made up of
CPC aluminium, which one is best.
2. Which one produce smooth but powerful base.
3. Sub woofer 12inch - front firing or down firing.
4. is really bipole/ dipole surround speaker is required.
5. In MS bi-amping input is possible or not.

Thanks,
Ranjith kumar.

 

[Flash]

Ranjith,

1. Clarity will not increase or decrease with what ohm speakers you use.its your source material , placement, speakers etc that dictate that
2. Polk and Mordant Short models which you mentoned are both good . see what sounds best to your ears
3. There is nothing good or bad about Cone materials difference on both Polk and MS.
4. If you are going to add a Subwoofer into the mix. which speaker produces more bass should not be a primary concern as your SUb will be handling most of the Bass load.Its the midrange, Soundstage, imaging , that should be your primary deciding factor amongst the 2.
5. How many woofers is not important for clarity soundstaging etc. there are 2 way bookshelves that are way better than the 2 models u mentioned
5. In a 5.1 setup. Dipole is preferable as your rears. but it is not a must . You are use direct radiating as well. the rear speakers are used for effects. Its your choice again
6. Subwoofers have front firing, down firing, sealed, ported, etc etc etc.

 

[ShaQ.Blogs]

dont rush....decide on one at a time. You have the wrong priorities...and I agree with flash...mostly

Polk and Mordant Short models which you mentoned are both good

this i disagree. You can get better for the same budget...which of course, you have mentioned yourself. I contradict this in the sense, if you can get much better for the same price how can they be good


@Ranjith.
First decide on your front 2 speakers. This should be your goal. Buy the best you can afford. If your budget is below 50K for fronts, go for bookshelves, you will save money and you will need it and should use it for a real good sub!! I totally agree with flash that "there are 2 way bookshelves that are way better than the 2 models u mentioned". You can do way way better with bookshelves at below 50K budget, in fact get some terrific boookshelves around 30-40K (do note the bookshelves will sound a little hollow in the sense it is missing bass....but dont worry, subwoofer will make up! While auditioning, if you audition with a worthless sub then you will feel that I am nuts ...it depends a lot on which subwoofer you use!!)...and dont do the mistake of buying speakers based on bass even if it is tempting. If it comes along with midrange, Soundstage, imaging then consider it a bonus. But dont buy it based on bass (would be a really good idea to crossover high like 120Hz or 150Hz to audition speakers so you dont get carried away by bass). If I were you i would forget those two models, and consider some bookshelves like PSB Image B6 for a start (others can chime in).

Once you decide on your bookshelves, the center is pretty much matched and you dont have to worry which one (you might have 2-3 models to choose from for that particular fronts). With a budget of about 1 lakh, you can get bookshelves and center for about 50K - 60K. I would strongly suggest you get a good subwoofer first instead of surrounds. Later on you can add surrounds...you can in fact compromise on surrounds and it wont *affect you much*. But compromise on fronts, center or subwoofer will leave you unhappy somewhere.

For subs you should look at brands like SVS, HSU, Rythmik...they have some terrific subs that many other subwoofers wont match up even close. A 50K sub from them, for the bookshelves would be ideal. You will get one which will go way down to 20Hz, and play tight, and accurate, and linear, and also will be powerful. You will not feel the need for a speaker for bass below 100Hz.

 

[HTuser]

It is known that "Sound signature of preference is a personal thing" as mentioned by Paritosh in another post.

I would like to write my experience here.

During calibration Audyssey set all my speakers to 40Hz. I increased this to 60Hz. ie anything below 60Hz will be redirected to subwoofer.

While watching Die Hard 4, in the initial scene where the hacker is being targeted by professional killers, the machine gun sound was coming from subwoofer. When I changed the crossover to 50Hz, it was coming from center channel. I could clearly make out the difference. Many are saying that less than 80Hz is not directional but, I could find difference.

In the movie "Inception" during the initial scenes one of the explosion was coming from the surround speaker. That was giving a better effect.
If we set the crossover to 100Hz, it will come from Subwoofer.

When there is a .1 channel, why the "Masters" are recording the low frequency sounds to individual channels? Possibly they would like that sound to come from the respective speakers. Which may give better effect.

I don't know exactly at what frequency sound changes to non-directional which we won't be able to differentiate.

Presently I set cross over to 40Hz for all my speakers. Still enough effects are coming from Subwoofer. The Dark Knight is one of the best example. (I am happy with the current configuration)

So based on my experience I recommend speakers which can go as low as 40Hz or 30Hz. Low frequency sounds encoded in the .1 channel will come from Subwoofer anyway.

I may be wrong, there may be issue with my setup. But this is my experience.

 

[ShaQ.Blogs]

This is interesting...havent come across this before.
I would like to believe this has something to do with setup...i cud be totally wrong.

frequencies below 120Hz are usually non localized

Edited:
gave it a thought...and I believe this could be the problem of receiver, its crossover, and filters...after all the crossover is achieved using filters. And filters have rolloffs. this means although you set the low pass filter to 80hz the sound is not reduced *significant enough* until about 160hz or so.
If the low pass filter if set at 100/120 can take up to 200Hz before the audio is filtered to a low enough level....and hence why most subs have a frequency range upto 200hz and not 100hz although crossovers are usually set around 100Hz. It is usually preferred to avoid the overlap of a sub having a rolloff, and the crossover filter rolloff in the same frequency range. While one is flat other rolls off. This is exactly why for a sub setup, it is advised to set the crossover to the highest possible value!

Hence in my opinion it is the problem of setting an incorrect crossover, and you are seeing its results..while others may not have noticed this or experimented in the same fashion. Why not try the thx recommended 80Hz. I am perplexed though, why only from the center? Try set the volume of sub to minimum, and reduce the volume of center on receiver setting and i expect you to hear this from the remaining speakers as well. (For the gunshot scene, at least)
As for the localized effect it could be because of placement that you are able to distinctly hear it from the center.

 

[HTuser]

When I bought the subwoofer I was interested to hear more from the subwoofer and set crossover to 80Hz.

But I found many sounds are ending up going to subwoofer instead of other speakers. While watching transformers-2 I found that even optimus walking in normal scenes also going there. I felt like unnatural and I changed the settings back to lower crossover frequency.

Anyways I am happy with my setup and not planning to take AV receiver for a repair. Earlier I had Sub+Sat setup, and now I could feel a huge difference. Thats why I recommend speakers which can go down to 30Hz to 40Hz and one good subwoofer.

Presently I am on tour. Once I am back I will do some more testing and let you know the results.