audio experts needed

[John Reynolds]

The wife and I bought a 56" widescreen HDTV-ready box last year but have yet to buy a receiver or surround speakers. Spare cash is a little tight for the rest of this year thanks to an upcoming European vacation, new car, and my recent PC upgrade, so I'd like to keep the entire setup under $1,000. I'm something of a Klipsch fan and was looking over their website last night and thought that maybe their Promedia 5.1 speakers, combined with their DD-5.1 decoder/preamp box, might be a decent, affordable sound system for our living room (which is probably medium sized). Our DVD player has component out, which runs directly to the TV, so I'd like to avoid a receiver with component in/out since they're pretty expensive.

Basically, my main concern with the Klipsch speakers (500 watts) is whether or not they would be good for a medium-sized living room, since they're essentially PC speakers. I hope so because this setup would run me around only $800 with stands and additional cable.

 

[Simon F]

Basically, my main concern with the Klipsch speakers (500 watts) is whether or not they would be good for a medium-sized living room....

Excuse my ignorance, but is that 500 watts "peak" (aka marketing "Music Power") or RMS? If it's RMS, then that would surely be more than sufficient.

In the demo room at my work, for example, I think they demonstrate the Digitheatre DTS system which only has 220 watts RMS. It seems sufficiently loud enough two rooms away!

 

[John Reynolds]

Yep, according to the site specs the speakers are 500 RMS.

 

[pascal]

This is a lot of power

I like Bose for home theater.

 

[Ty]

Well ask yourself if you're a Home Theater in a box type of guy (ease) or willing to do more research on what is out there. I know it can be quite tough to create a HT system on a 1K budget but there might be better alternatives for you. How much of an audiophile do you consider yourself? How important is 2 channel music vs. HT? You can try www.audioreview.com for some good starting points. I've just started the research portion for a decent HT set up myself.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Personally, I'm a fan of Yamaha for home audio. We just picked up a really Nice Yamaha reciever for the living room to go with our projector system for about $400. I can't remember the speakers that got paired with it, but the system sounds *very* good. I also have an older pair of Yamaha bookshelf speakers hooked up to my stereo/computer which I've been really happy with.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Judas]

you guys seriously think that wattage means louder?

no no no no no NO!

wattage.... is the clarity.... plus how well it can push that clarity a distance. It's not loudness...

 

[pascal]

Do you mean the many decibels between the minimum and maximum output in the linear part of the curve without the distortions at near saturation point. Yeah , it is gooood

 

[Ty]

you guys seriously think that wattage means louder?

no no no no no NO!

wattage.... is the clarity.... plus how well it can push that clarity a distance. It's not loudness...

Well doesn't wattage basically equate to loudness without distortion (which is what you mention I believe with clarity over distance)? I know that a 200watt amp does not put out 2x the sound volume (dbs) over a 100watt amp as it actually requires a difference of 10x or so I've been told.

 

[Reznor007]

If you could somehow come up with mabe $2,000-2,500 I could show you a setup that would fit a living room much better than the Klipsche set would. I know it's quite a bit higher...but back when I bought some speakers, I spent over 2x what I intended, but thinking back, I am alot happier than I would have been.

If you're intersested, just say so and I'll link to some pictures and stuff here.

 

[MPI]

First... Speakers don't have "wattage". They just have a recommended max. power input. The amplifier delivers the Watts. The speaker delivers dB, as in sound(which _can_ be converted to Watts OTOH, but most speakers have an efficiency of 1%).

Secondly, one speaker can deliver four times as much volume per Watt as another. It has to do with the speaker's sensitivity and is measured in dB/W@1m.

 

[Ty]

First... Speakers don't have "wattage". They just have a recommended max. power input. The amplifier delivers the Watts. The speaker delivers dB, as in sound(which _can_ be converted to Watts OTOH, but most speakers have an efficiency of 1%).

Secondly, one speaker can deliver four times as much volume per Watt as another. It has to do with the speaker's sensitivity and is measured in dB/W@1m.

#1 is certainly true but John (first post) mentioned that he is considering the Promedia speaker set which includes the amp portion as well.

 

[RussSchultz]

Look into recievers that can switch component video. Very useful, especially if your HDTV ready display only has one HD input.

Your cable box or dish will be component, progressive scan dvd will be component, etc. Much better than buying an external switch box.

I know best buy has reciever plus speakers for under $1000. Of course, these setups would probably make you scorned by all real audiophiles, but they're too busy with their cryogenically molecularly aligned cables to make too much fun of you.

 

[John Reynolds]

Well, got the Promedia 5.1s in yesterday. Spent a few hours wiring everything together, building the stands, blah blah. Sounded great for the 10-15 minutes before the decoder/preamp died on me. No, I didn't have the volume maxed or anything. . .the unit just died. But, man, the Matrix sure sounded great for 10-15 minutes.

Hopefully Klipsch will RMA me a replacement unit fairly quickly.

 

[diarrhea_splatter]

Man that sucks, I remember when my Rocktron Velocity 300 went out on me. Eventhough it's a power amp, any part of your equipment (guitar or home theater) that goes out just plain sucks!