Old Big Speakers or New Small Speakers?

[Chris Frost]

I have listened to both types of systems for surround sound / home theatre. Personally I prefer the older, big and heavy speakers. Nothing can immitate the way they fill a room in my book.

Definitely big full-range speakers all round if you have the space and the power to drive them properly - and an understanding wife


It's a bit OT for this section of the forum but the point is well made about global economies and global living standards.

Global economics = Dot.com bubble, sub-prime bubble, and now a Commodities bubble

The supply/demand fundamentals don't support oil at $130+ per barrel or corn at $6 a bushel, yet the speculators can drive prices this high because of a centralised trading system. It's madness. People in poor countries are starving because they can't afford bread just so some fat cats add a couple of extra million profit to their portfolio.

[Filterlab]

not to mention next years probable national healthcare system ,(that will fail as bad as all governmant programs do)

Crikey, not the US now surely?! The NHS in the UK is a complete travesty and it fails and falls at every hurdle.

[Filterlab]

Anyway, back on subject;

I love big speakers for home cinema, they have a looseness and weight that is ideal for the task in hand. When I move to a larger place I'll have five (or seven) floorstanders for the cinema side of things, plenty of gravitas.

[BajaGringo]

I just spent some time at a friends house several hours drive north and sat in his living room as he proudly played his "new" surround sound gear. The speakers were all small, he spent a small fortune and although it sounds good, it pales in comparison IMHO. What caught my attention was that he has a very large living room area - probably about 500ft² (50M²) and plenty of room to accommodate any size gear and speakers/arrangement. As a single man there is no WAF so I had to bite my tongue.

What he spent on that setup from a local mainstream electronics retailer could have bought some very nice (albeit second hand) Hi-Fi gear and some great "old school" speakers that would have provided a much different experience.

When leaving last night he told me that he would be down next month to see my place here in Mexico and hear my setup. We have friends in common and the word gets around.

I almost don't have the heart...

[Nick]

Of course you could always have big new speakers

[combwork]

Of course you could always have big new speakers

This is true, but there's something about `old school' speakers. Maybe the build quality, maybe that they've had a few years to settle in. If your amp sounds harsh, older speakers can also help by taking the edge of a bit. The price you pay is not so precise a sound but for home cinema, maybe a good mix would be well matured front and rear (Pioneer CS99A, or any of those big walnut veneered jobs from the 1970's) with a dedicated modern front center for clarity with dialog.

[Mike Reed]

Having indulged myself in the deep end of quadraphonics in the late seventies, I've never been persuaded by surround sound for visual use, as it were.

What I can't understand is the compromise one must surely make when trying to marry pure audio and audio-visual. Even if one could equal the amplification aspect from 2-channel to 5-channel in qualititive terms, surely, having five speakers in a 360 degree arrangement must bugger up the subtle nuances of music recorded in stereo.

It's different if you have two entirely disrete systems in different rooms, of course. Guess you'd need to be both idle and rich to fully indulge those!

The same obviously applies as well to quadraphonic sound, whic WAS only for music, but as most people know, and I learnt the hard way, that was a short-lived and expensive disaster.

My freeview box (and before that, an Arcam Delta 150 tv tuner) is simply plugged into the Preamp. and I can't fault the sound. Surround it ain't, though. Maybe if I watched films (only rarely), it would be a different matter, but for most mainstream quality tv programmes, surround would surely be overkill.

Or have I missed something.........?

[BajaGringo]

I understand what you are saying Mike which was my original frustration with surround. Plus, I wanted to have something that I could use for just some good old fashioned stereo at times. I ended up with the following setup which gave me a good balance of the two...

BajaGringo Audio Setup

[Mike Reed]

Strewth! Not such much surround sound; more enveloping sound!

So that's what life is like in Lower California; not bad!

[BajaGringo]

I make do...