Need Advice on Speaker Decision

[NaOH]

Was going to get a pair of Athena floor standing...but due to wattage constraints (my Denon only puts out 85w rms) since they max at 285w rms..

I saw these in the BB ad

Text


They're max is 85w rms... I think it should be alright. What do you guys think about these speakers. I live in a junior 1 bedroom so not much room. I'd probably get 4 of these and a center channel. Do you think these are worth it? Or should I get something better? I've always been a fan of the klipsch promedia line...

 

[PurdueRy]

You do realize that 85 Watts per channel doesn't need to match the max speaker power handling right?

In fact, its better for the speaker's power handling to be higher than the receivers max output power...

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
You do realize that 85 Watts per channel doesn't need to match the max speaker power handling right?

In fact, its better for the speaker's power handling to be higher than the receivers max output power...

Yeah, but it's max was at 285wrms...so 85wrms seems like it would underpower the tower ones.


edit to original...changed to 285...just checked specs again

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: NaOH

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
You do realize that 85 Watts per channel doesn't need to match the max speaker power handling right?

In fact, its better for the speaker's power handling to be higher than the receivers max output power...

Yeah, but it's max was at 285wrms...so 85wrms seems like it would underpower the tower ones.


edit to original...changed to 285...just checked specs again

85Watts of power will make your ears bleed in a home environment.

Keep in mind that 285W of power will only make the speakers approx 6dB louder compared to 85W.

 

[Nohr]

I'm running my Athena AS-F2 towers (250W power handling) on 100W per channel. Nothing wrong with 85W, I wouldn't be concerned about it.

 

[NaOH]

Ooh okay, thanks. I don't have much experience with home theater systems so I figured the receiver wasn't enough to power those tall speakers.

I guess I have one more question. I live in an apartment that is pretty small (about 480 square feet). I'm starting to think floor standing + sub is overkill (almost in all aspects, but mostly for low freq). My living room is quite small so I was thinking about changing my mind to bookshelf on stands.....most likely some athenas or PSB. I mainly play games and watch movies, but I care about music the most.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

What's your budget for all this?

There aren't a lot of options for decent computer speakers so although you like the promedias, there are a LOT more options for speakers so I wouldn't say that liking the promedias as computer speakers means that Klipsch would be the best option for you.

In terms of space, I don't think you really save much space going with bookshelf speakers on stands vs. floorstanders since it takes up basically the same amount of space in your room (unless the stands have storage space in them or something ... but I do agree that if you're using a sub, you're not going to get much benefit from the better bass extension floorstanders tend to have. Either way you're going to want to set an appropriate crossover point to your sub.

I have some info in the sticky thread about auditioning and trying to pick out speakers. We could shoot suggestions at you, but unless you go out and listen to them, you're not really going to know if they're the right ones for you. Check out the upgrade path section as well if buying a decent complete 5.1 setup is going to be tough on your budget.

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
85Watts of power will make your ears bleed in a home environment.

So true. I don't think people really understand what they're asking for when they talk about 200w-300w speakers. Hell, my new Sony receiver only puts out 70wpc in surround mode, and that's way louder than I can tolerate.

Clarity > volume, at least in my book.