New speaker purchase

Gulfstrings

DTLA wrote: »

BASICS
I live in a large concrete loft, the living area measuring 15' x 30', not counting the connected loft and kitchen areas. The ceilings are 19.5'.

Welcome. Still kind of new here myself and find it pretty informative and forgiving.

To start, I think your living space really needs to be considered as much as the stereo equipment. Concrete walls with such tall ceilings ... are the floors "hard surfaced" as well?

Those hard surfaces will be softened with furniture, rugs/carpets, window coverings, etc., and hopefully reach an acoustic balance. But those 19.5 foot ceilings are a challenge. We build our factories with high ceilings to aid in noise abatement. Great for factories - not so good for home stereos. Seems these heights may cause you to consider larger speakers, or possibly isolate your stereo to a listening area where those high ceilings don't exist.

We have 16 foot ceilings in our home and though they are finished (not concrete), they still make for a lot of volume. We are able to have our system's front speakers face the shortest wall-to-wall dimension in the space and I think that helps a lot, but I sometimes wonder if all that volume is costing me performance.

So ... thinking maybe some info re getting good performance within your unique space would be helpful stuff.

Good luck.

DTLA

Gulfstrings wrote: »

Welcome. Still kind of new here myself and find it pretty informative and forgiving.

To start, I think your living space really needs to be considered as much as the stereo equipment. Concrete walls with such tall ceilings ... are the floors "hard surfaced" as well?

Those hard surfaces will be softened with furniture, rugs/carpets, window coverings, etc., and hopefully reach an acoustic balance. But those 19.5 foot ceilings are a challenge. We build our factories with high ceilings to aid in noise abatement. Great for factories - not so good for home stereos. Seems these heights may cause you to consider larger speakers, or possibly isolate your stereo to a listening area where those high ceilings don't exist.

We have 16 foot ceilings in our home and though they are finished (not concrete), they still make for a lot of volume. We are able to have our system's front speakers face the shortest wall-to-wall dimension in the space and I think that helps a lot, but I sometimes wonder if all that volume is costing me performance.

So ... thinking maybe some info re getting good performance within your unique space would be helpful stuff.

Good luck.

I live in an all concrete bunker! It is actually an old Federal Reserve building, so it is built like a tank. Acoustics were the last thing they had in mind when they built the place. I figured that would be an issue... Do you think bookshelves and sub are enough to fill the joint?

Erik Tracy

DTLA wrote: »

Thank you for your attention to detail.

My needs are very simple: I am plugging in a a turntable, a PS3 (which I use to run a hard drive, CDs, DVD, etc), and a satellite receiver.

I'm beginning to warm to the idea of bookshelves and a sub. I had a chance to listen to the RTi A5s and A7s, but I am having a hard time finding the LSi9s locally. I keep hearing about the Monitor 70s as a wonderful value, but again, cannot find them locally.

In terms of musicality, what receiver would you recommend? Would the LSi9s stipulate a different purchase?

I'm sorry for all of the questions, I figure I'm more likely to get informed opinions here rather than a salesman, and research only provides so much. Many thanks.

You've got some components and priorities that don't really make for a quick easy recommendation.

The PS3 is a great value in a do it all player especially if hdmi connected to an AVR or a pre/pro, but not known for stellar analog output performance.

And you have a TT, so any receiver or pre/pro would need to have phono inputs, and if not, then you would need to buy an external phono preamp.

Music is your priority, but you want to build up to HT at somepoint. It would be a bit of a waste, though, imo, if you were to buy a multi-channel AVR to get HDMI capability, but then only use it for 2-channel.

So, here's my deflated 2cents opinion....start with a decent integrated amp with HT bypass so that you can connect it later into an AVR, and then get some floor standers that have good response - and forgo the sub for now (you can get by w/o a sub for music so that you can use more of your budget to get a better set of floor standers knowing that you will get a sub later to fully flesh out the bass).

If you shop smart - you can find some pretty good used equipment at a very fair price.

You could use this setup to connect in your PS3 via RCA/analog for now, connect the satellite, and your TT and focus on the music for now. Then upgrade to an AVR and flesh out a 5.1/7.1 speaker compliment along with a sub.

Gulfstrings

DTLA wrote: »

I live in an all concrete bunker! It is actually an old Federal Reserve building, so it is built like a tank. Acoustics were the last thing they had in mind when they built the place. I figured that would be an issue... Do you think bookshelves and sub are enough to fill the joint?

Whew! Haven't got a clue! Is there like ... echoes and stuff in there? Or an area you could set up as a listening space where all that "bounce" could be minimized?

Do you plan to soften things up with cork board or lots of furniture?

Fed Reserve, eh ... any old bills lying around? Printing press? Have you checked everywhere? Maybe old bribery memos or confessions?

Hard to say, but you might just want to get the biggest soundmakers you can, power 'em with all the watts you can muster and see what happens.

Who knows ... might even wake up an old bureaurcrat or two.