Which Speakers to get?

[Omega]

Make it four votes from the Logitech woners.

[Zephik]

Go with the Logitech. REAL surround sound is always better. Bose is only good when you spend $700+, but even then, a true surround sound setup is better. Bose has the best 2.1 surround sound setup around, but its over priced for what you get and its not as good as true surround sound (5.1+).

Logitech FTW. Bose FTRPWDKAB.
*FTRPWDKAB = For the rich people who don't know any better.

[TheGreatSatan]

I bought the Z-5300e's

[Crazy Buddhist]

My neighbours hate my logitech speakers! Hope you are happy with yours

[carvernut]

go with the logitech, way better sound than bose, bose imho is junk if it's newer... bose has a sales department twice as big as their research side and their marketing and advertising is four times as big as their sales... you do the math, sad to see a company that used to make such nice products in the mid 60's and 70's fall so low today...

also fyi: bose does NOT post the freq response of their products, also please remember that even the orginal famous 901 had ACTIVE eq'ing. They were not well designed in box or driver design, a well made speaker and box compliment each other, and do not need an eq.

besides... the little 3 2 1 system they they try to say sounds so good can be easily overwhelmed with less money spent on a good stereo amp and good speakers,

example: the system i started with was a carver c4000 pre amp (modded slightly), a carver 1.5t stereo amp and a set of Klipsch KG 5.2 floorstanding speakers, all these were purchased used of course... cost was less then 500.00 for the entire setup and can dip into 28hz when properly placed in a well treated room and has no need for a subwoofer... and the sound is phenominal vs the weak sound of bose

just my 2 cents

[carvernut]

thank you... i've loved looking at some of these mods which are wicked cool so i decided to join up and listen in...


btw alittle something VERY interesting about bose if you really want the facts about them: http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html please note that if you look at the drivers that are the 2.5 mid high units, they only extend to 14 khz... far short of what you would want for any system.

specs on the bose AM-15 home theater unit satellite speakers:

Frequency Response 280 Hz to 13.3k Hz at ±10.5 dB plus or minus TEN DECIBLES PPL! >_<
Sensitivity (SPL at 1 meter)* 85.1 dB
Impedance (minimum/nominal) 5.3/8 ohms
Bass Limits (-3/-6 dB) 280/220

* measured with 2.8 volts of pink-noise input

and everyone wonders why i have a vendeta against bose

[carvernut]

I have an altec lansig 5.1 setup for my htpc, that I am very satisfied with, and a harmon-kardon 2.1 system that USED to almost match my 5.1 in sound quality.. now it doesn't work for some reason just "hums"..

(btw i am no audiophile in any extent.. I can hook up a car stereo and subs to amps, etc, but that's it.. I don't know technical terms, "dB" ratings and all that stuff.. )

-Jeremy

just hums, alot of things can cause that... try cheaking your input jack and make sure all your contacts are solidly soddered...

db rating of sensitivity: 85 db means that at one watt of power into these speakers will generate 85 db's of sound, for each additionall 3 db increase you will have to DOUBLE your wattage, this is why the famouse Cewrin Vega Strokers were so fantastic, their sensitivity was over 97 db's @ 1 watt...

in other words these bose speakers... or any other speaker with a 85 db rating would need 16 times more power than than the strokers to reach the same output... becuase for each 3 db gain you must double your wattage,

so lets start with the bose, to reach 88 db's we go from 1 watt to 2 watts, from 88 to 91 we now need 4 watts, from 91 to 94 we need 8 watts and finally to reach 97 watts we need 16 watts... not very much granted in the world of amps that easily put out many K's of watts... but now lets apply that to the stroker... 97 db @ 1 watt now to 100 db's is 2 watts, 103 puts us at 4 watts, 106 db's from 8 watts and 109 db's output from 16 watts... thats a gain of 12 db's JUST from having a more efficient speaker.

the more efficient your speaker the easier it reproduces sound and takes less power to do so... plus the less efficient the speaker the more power it takes to put out the same... but the more power also means a higher resistance and then begins to introduce magnetic flux iregularities and variations in your sound waves, deviating from the true recording and becoming distortions and phase shifts resulting in coloration of your sound.

and i absolutely loved those old Altec Lancing systems, they sounded very truely hi-fi for being so small.

[Luke122]

I'll try to break that down..


Frequency Response 280 Hz to 13.3k Hz at ±10.5 dB

-This means that from 280hz (mid-bass.. a good fullrange speaker should get at LEAST to 100hz) to 13.3khz (humans can hear up to 20khz), there should be no more than 10.5db of difference. That is CRAP!!!! 3db = 10x louder! 10.5 db is a totally unacceptable number! So some frequencies will play 1000x louder than others?


Sensitivity (SPL at 1 meter)* 85.1 dB

- From a distance of 1 meter (approx 3.3ft) this speaker will play 85db with one watt of power. My Sony bookshelf speakers are 88db, and the speakers that Airbozo was so kind as to intermediate ship to me are 91db!!! Not only is this a measure of loudness, but also of sensitivity and accuracy. This speaker with its low efficiency will likely have huge fluctuations in its output. Oh wait..

Impedance (minimum/nominal) 5.3/8 ohms

- This measurement is the avg resistance of the speaker; ie the load that the amp will see. Due to different frequencies and different boxes affecting the resistance, this number can get huuuuge. I've seen 21ohms in competition car subwoofer systems.. but those guys are running 1000's of watts and drawing 100's of amps of current.

For a small speaker to range from 5.3 - 8ohms, this can be a huge stress on lower powered home audio amps. Potentially destructive.. some amps recommend 8phm MINIMUM.

Bass Limits (-3/-6 dB) 280/220

- At 280hz, the output is 3db lower than the rest of the spectrum. At 220, its 6db lower! A good bass output from a speaker should be like 100hz.. lower is better,, to be 6db down at 220hz is junk. Your ipod headphones probably are better than that!!!

[carvernut]

heya luke! nice to meet someone else as nutty about sound as me! glad there are some ppl who care... interesting what happens when you start doing some testing and actually get real time numbers off these bose systems isn't it? sad really... so many ppl think that bose is the best out there

yeah i loved that 10 db varience of the full range lol... i refuse to go over +/- 3 over the entire range with tweaking the crossovers and room... 10 is so so crazy off the charts it's totall trash

[carvernut]

Omg.. everything you just said to me.. was GREEK guys. lol. You totally proved that I have a LOT to learn in the audio area.

+rep to our two major audiophiles here!

-Jeremy

and i know how to turn a dremmel on all in what you specialize, i've been messing with audio from the tender age of 13 lol... and alot of these numbers won't make sense to the average user... thats how bose takes advantage of everyone.