home theatre with DECENT mids?

[cliffordsfleas]

What do you have to spend to get a home theatre system with some really good mids?
Most systems are all high's and rumbling lows. I find with no mids and saturated high's my ears start to hurt after a while on most systems. I have quite musically sensitive ears and I find the low mids to be the most overlooked range of sound in most speakers.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If you want quality speakers, your best bet is to find some that appeal to you separately and build your own system vs. a "Home Theater in a Box" system that are sold everywhere.

I assume most of the systems you've tried so far are those "All in One" type systems that come with 5 speakers, a receiver, and a subwoofer?

EDIT: Oh, and for how much it will cost... well I guess that depends on what kind of performance you're looking for 😉

Just for a ballpark (and of course, others can feel free to disagree with me), but for $300/pair, you can get some pretty good bookshelf speakers. 5.0 would therefore be about $1000 with speakers of that quality all around (less if you ended up concentrating on the front speakers and spending less on the surrounds). Then maybe $300-$400 for a decent receiver and then depending on how big your space is, a decent subwoofer for $300 or more?

So I guess that comes to perhaps $1600 for a pretty solid 5.1 system?

EDIT2: Oh, and http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...wsDAjello/Welcome2.JPG

 

[s44]

Cheapest decent option: this rather amazing Energy deal for $500. Of course, you could spend as much money as you like, but you'd probably have to hit about $1000 to improve on that.

Plus surround receiver, of course, but that's another topic.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Paradigms are great for mids. They tend to require more power than more efficient speakers, like Klipsch.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Rio Rebel
Paradigms are great for mids. They tend to require more power than more efficient speakers, like Klipsch.

I actually don't like the tight sounding mids such as Paragdigm and B&W. They sound very forced to me.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: Rio Rebel
Paradigms are great for mids. They tend to require more power than more efficient speakers, like Klipsch.

I actually don't like the tight sounding mids such as Paragdigm and B&W. They sound very forced to me.

I think Klipsch is either rubbish and/or overpriced. Paradigms are pretty neutral.

Of course, if you want to spend some serious money, Ascend Acoustics has some nice speakers.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Funny how subjective this subject is. I've never heard Paradigms described as "tight" or "forced". I have often heard them described as "neutral".

And some people swear by Klipsch. To me, they seem to emphasize parts of the spectrum over others, and I prefer neutral. But someone else would describe them as "dynamic", and see it as a positive.

I guess the Romans had it right..."De gustibus non disputandem est" - Of taste there is no disputing.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Rio Rebel
Funny how subjective this subject is. I've never heard Paradigms described as "tight" or "forced". I have often heard them described as "neutral".

And some people swear by Klipsch. To me, they seem to emphasize parts of the spectrum over others, and I prefer neutral. But someone else would describe them as "dynamic", and see it as a positive.

I guess the Romans had it right..."De gustibus non disputandem est" - Of taste there is no disputing.

It is probably just me 🙂 I picked Def Tech BP2000TL for mains and many people sneer at Def Tech.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: s44
Cheapest decent option: this rather amazing Energy deal for $500. Of course, you could spend as much money as you like, but you'd probably have to hit about $1000 to improve on that.

Plus surround receiver, of course, but that's another topic.

That actually is a really nice deal on the Energy speakers. I have that subwoofer as part of my computer setup, and for an 8" sub, it really thumps! I was quite impressed with it.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: s44
Cheapest decent option: this rather amazing Energy deal for $500. Of course, you could spend as much money as you like, but you'd probably have to hit about $1000 to improve on that.

Plus surround receiver, of course, but that's another topic.

That actually is a really nice deal on the Energy speakers. I have that subwoofer as part of my computer setup, and for an 8" sub, it really thumps! I was quite impressed with it.

And I just spent money on a receiver.... ugh....

Must resist spending money....

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: s44
Cheapest decent option: this rather amazing Energy deal for $500. Of course, you could spend as much money as you like, but you'd probably have to hit about $1000 to improve on that.

Plus surround receiver, of course, but that's another topic.

That actually is a really nice deal on the Energy speakers. I have that subwoofer as part of my computer setup, and for an 8" sub, it really thumps! I was quite impressed with it.

And I just spent money on a receiver.... ugh....

Must resist spending money....

Eh, just chalk it up to doing your part to stimulate the economy.

 

[spacemanspliff1]

Energy or The Speaker Company are the two best deals for decent sounding speakers. I recently purchased the speaker companies LCR-3 for my 3.1 HT. No issues at all so far beyond the grills being kind of cheap. The speakers do everything you could want for Ht and do fine for music too. I am running them with a Denon 589 and they get louder than you can stand to be in the room with for long periods and still not distort.

http://www.thespeakercompany.c...nt-Speakers-P41C6.aspx

edit: they also have a decent cheap 5.1 sys under their pc speaker section. It's $70 so it isn't applicable in this thread but just fyi.

 

[Tiamat]

If you want good anything, make sure you set the speakers up in as least of a compromising way within your room. The distance between the speakers and the walls will affect the FR within the upper bass and mids. If you are forced to place the speaker less than 4' away from the front wall, you will always have some problems in the 80hz-220hz region. This is due to the rear reflection cancelling out the frequencies in this range due to the 1/4 wavelength relationship with the distance separating the driver from the wall behind the driver. Note that frequency problems usually affect their respective harmonics as well. If you have a problem at 80hz, most likely, you will also find problems at 160hz, 240hz etc. This is why the midrange/upper bass is often lacking. Seating arrangement in the room also affects the mid and upper bass region quite a bit. This is due to the modal relationships within the room respective of where the seating is located to those dimensions.

The fault is 90% room, 10% speaker in most cases (Just arbitrary numbers signifying that "most" of the fault lies with the room/setup).

 

[alcoholbob]

Paradigm is basically a North American B&W clone, so they have a traditional British sound curve, which is to say, inaccurate, but can be pleasing to hear depending on the sound material. For a wide variety of musical tastes, I wouldn't recommend British sound since it exaggerates the upper bass and the treble. Although one advantage of British sound is that it takes less amplifier power to get to a "psychologically" higher volume level since its tipping up audible frequencies.

But the Paradigm Signature series with beryllium tweeters is fantastic and is a deviation from their normal designs. It falls within +/-2db across the entire performance spectrum. It's as neutral (well almost...) as any design I've seen from Joseph D'appolito's Usher Audio, or Harman's flagship Revel series (both high end, super-accurate audio).

Energy speakers is also a B&W clone and they try even harder than Paradigm. They try to pattern their speakers even visually like B&W.