Future z-5500 upgrade

[goobernoodles]

I saw a thread earlier about how someone was looking to swap out the front 2 speakers of his z-5500's and use higher quality speakers. I can't find the thread, and I was actually considering doing the same.

Is this possible? Can I buy higher quality speakers and hook them up to the z-5500 amp/reciever(ish)?

If so, some suggestions would be nice in a few price ranges. (100~200, 200~300, 300+)

 

[Eureka]

Well if they're connected by speaker wire, just use that wire to attach it to other speakers.

Try the polk audios that always go on sale in the Hot Deals forums, could be a good starter.

Norm

 

[goobernoodles]

Well, they are the version with speaker wire, so i know i could connect them physically, but the wattage would have to be within the same range, right? And if I'm going to spend some money on improving the system, I'm going to want a very noticable improvement, or its not worth it.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, some z-5500 sets connect with RCA and some have speakerwire connections.

If you have a speakerwire version you should be fine hooking up some 8ohm speakers.

Something to note though is that the Logitechs are going to have an internal crossover that's pretty high compared to a stereo/hometheater setup, so you're not going to get the full benefit of upgrading the speakers with the lower frequencies they could provide compared to the Logitech satellites.

There's no substitute for getting out to some stores with some familiar material and demo-ing some different options to see what kind of sound you like.

I went over some general options in this thread in my long post (it's a work in progress)
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=42&threadid=1778632&enterthread=y

Depending on what you get, it could be a big jump in quality.

It's certainly a good option if you want to move up to a speaker/receiver system eventually and want to take it in steps.

Are you looking for bookshelf speakers I'm assuming?

Some options might be

below $100
Polk R15s / R30s on sale from outpost.com

$100-$200
Infinity Primus
Paradigm Atoms / Titans
Athena
JBL Northridge series

$200-$300+
Klipsch
Boston Acoustics
Axiom
Ascend Acoustics
Onix Rockets
Swan
Aperion Audio
B&W

(I'm not totally sure on the price divisions here, but it's roughly right)

 

[slpaulson]

I did something similar with my klipsch 5.1 promedias... I replaced the left and right speakers with Klipsch RSX-4s. I'm definately happy with the results, and I'm saving up to replace the other speakers.

 

[goobernoodles]

Do you guys have any recommendations for stand out speakers in the 100-200 dollar range?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: goobernoodles
Do you guys have any recommendations for stand out speakers in the 100-200 dollar range?

Some ones you might want to see if you can find locally to demo

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp...ctCategoryId=cat03043&id=1118840369331 (Athena AS B1.2)
http://www.audioadvisor.com/searchresults.asp?qu=athena

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp...ctCategoryId=cat03043&id=1061127108717
(JBL northridge series)
You can get better deals going through harmanaudio on ebay
examples:
http://cgi.ebay.com/JBL-E50BE-3-way-8-i...65QQcategoryZ61381QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/JBL-E30-2-way-Books...1QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/JBL-E20-2-way-Books...14QQcategoryZ61381QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/JBL-E60-3-way-8-inc...7QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Paradigm
Atoms should be about $199/pair
Titans should be a bit more ~$230

Infinity Primus
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/542089023 (doesn't look like vanns has a sale on now)
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/542119485
(these are each, you'd need to double the price for a pair)
Looks like the prices are about the same as at Circuit City. You could go there to hear them.

Go out to some audio stores in your area. There are probably more than you think.
See what they have in your pricerange.

 

[alcoholbob]

At the low $200s price point, I have another name to add, SVS SBS-01.

http://www.svsound.com/products-spks-sbs01.cfm

SVS SBS-01 70-27KHz +/- 2.5db (100-20KHz +/- 1.75db); this is more neutral than most of the speakers in this price range.

And I believe the internal crossover on the Logitechs are *around* 120hz. It's fairly high, but 80-120hz (as 80hz is fairly normal and the THX standard) is not much considering the rest of the range the bookshelves cover : )

And this could always be a stopgap measure before you go out and actually get a receiver/amp.

These speakers are backordered for another month though (March) : (

http://soundstageav.com/speakermeasurements.html <-- speaker measurements for some of the brands that Yoyo has suggested so far.

 

[goobernoodles]

Ok cool, I'll see if I can hear some of these. Thanks.

 

[goobernoodles]

Hmmm... Yoyo. The thing you mentioned about the high crossover frequency... Obviously most of these speakers will hit lower frequencies than the logitech sat's, therfore eliminating the sub's need to hit them.

My question is... would it be practical to just use the audigy 2's crossover control to set the sub crossover freq lower?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: goobernoodles
Hmmm... Yoyo. The thing you mentioned about the high crossover frequency... Obviously most of these speakers will hit lower frequencies than the logitech sat's, therfore eliminating the sub's need to hit them.

My question is... would it be practical to just use the audigy 2's crossover control to set the sub crossover freq lower?

I don't think that would really help because the sub's internal crossover can't be adjusted. I haven't had a crossover control in any soundcard I have used, so I have never tried adjusting it through a soundcard.

The sub is still probably going to take whatever is below it's crossover point and then send that to the sub.

I've hooked up logitech satellites to run fullrange for fun, and below 80hz they start to go insane. This was z-560 satellites I was using. I bottomed them out pretty easily with some lower notes.
With smaller drivers in the z-5500s, the sub is probably very good at keeping everything below the crossover frequency away from those satellites.

 

[goobernoodles]

The control with the audigy 2 is in the bass management tab of speaker settings. You check Bass Redirect, then theres a slider for the crossover frequency. I'm no audio genious, however, it seems that this slider just dictates how high the sub will play. I can set it so that the sub won't play anything over 10hz to 200hz.

What I'm saying is, if I get better speakers, they may handle the upper bass frequencies better than the sub does, so maybe using that would help. I could make the sub not play those notes. See what I'm saying?

I could take a screenshot if you want.

 

[alcoholbob]

The bass redirect doesn't do anything in terms of the internal low band pass. Sure, you can dictate what the sub receives, but the satellites still do nothing below 120hz.

In other words, turning them on or off will not effect what the mains will play, which is what you are trying to accomplish.

 

[goobernoodles]

Ok, gotcha.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, even if you tell the speakers what you want to do, I think they're still going to basically say "uhhh.... no" and then send the bass to the sub anyway.

*on another note*
On this bass redirect thing... I've seen a lot of conflicting info on this.

I wish I has an A2 so I could figure out what was going on with it.

Astrallite, do you know much about it? If you hooked up an A2 to a 5.1 input on a receiver and then used the bass redirect, would that get a subwoofer signal for games?

I've seen several people say they had no problems using that sort of conneciton and several people say it was impossible.

 

[alcoholbob]

From personal experience, no, it's never worked.

From what I've read, it doesn't actually generate a ".1" LFE signal, so no, it wouldn't provide a subwoofer signal for games. For surround gaming with *integrated* subwoofer output, you pretty much have to run a DDL-equipped sound card in order for receiver crossovers to be enabled, as 6-channel direct is bereft of processing.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
From personal experience, no, it's never worked.

From what I've read, it doesn't actually generate a ".1" LFE signal, so no, it wouldn't provide a subwoofer signal for games. For surround gaming with *integrated* subwoofer output, you pretty much have to run a DDL-equipped sound card in order for receiver crossovers to be enabled, as 6-channel direct is bereft of processing.

Do you have any idea what the people are doing when they say it just works?

If I never saw someone say they got it to work easily, I wouldn't be confused.

 

[alcoholbob]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they are swapping the center channel input with the subwoofer input in 6-channel direct. A scan on google for A2 bass redirect seems to confirm this suspicion.

Although, it's possible there is another way (never say never), I'm just not sure how it would be accomplished. If people say they've made it worked, I'd like to hear what they've actually done.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Well I posted a thread in OT to see if I could get a hit on someone that has it working right somehow.