What speakers to buy

kon

So I am new to the home audio world. I have a Yamaha a-s500 amp that is rated for 85 watts per channel. I wanted to get a pair of polk speakers to go with it. After reading online everyone seems to be going with book shelf speakers with this amp, however i wanted to get the tsi-300's or even tsi-400's but I just don't know if my amp can handle those speakers. I just dont want to spend all this money for something that is just not going to sound good or not last because I didnt pair the amp and speakers appropriately. My room is 30x14 with low ceilings and I am using this set up for strictly listening to music. Your help is appreciated!

kon

Thanks, well im open to any suggestions you might have! But i would like to keep the cost below 700-800 if possible. And i also like to listen to music pretty loud but not more than the average ear can handle so I wanted a little more than a bookshelf speaker

Hermitism

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

kon

location? like in the world? US or wisconsin. But as far as where in my house..the speakers will be in the basement in a 30x14 room.

kon

Oh I fogot to add i have a psw10 polk sub! so i have a bit of base..plenty for me!

kon

So the tsi 400's would have enough power with my current receiver? or to be safe should i go with the tsi 300's

Zentish

30x14 is a pretty big room to drive with bookshelf speakers alone, although it depends on how you set up your rig and other factors in the room like furniture, floor, wall treatments and how high the ceiling is.

Your amplifier is 2 channel, so I'm assuming you're building a music listening area rather than a home-theater.

Some reasonable sized bookshelves and a subwoofer would easily drive one end of that room with decent sound.

Loud & Clear

I really like the A-S500. Clean and fast. Nice grip of the bass. Reminds me of the Rega turntables, in that it has excellent P.R.A.T.

kon

Okay yeah I think I'll go with the tsi300's because there are a bit cheaper and probably a better fit considering my amp. Also I have pretty low ceilings so I think they will do well. Since I have the psw10 im assuming that will hit some mids? Because its not a real low/deep sounding subs compared to 12 inch subs in my car(not an equal comparison but still)

ravaneli

nbrowser wrote: »

The TSi 400 might be a bit much for your receiver to handle.

Its the other way around. Speakers must be able to handle the power that is supplied to them, and the RMS numbers are simply a measurement of how much power they can handle without damage. The RMS designation on the speakers in not a measurement of how loud they can go.

To OP, if you like the 400 series and can afford them go ahead and buy them. It makes zero difference to your receiver. The receiver literally cannot even tell what is hooked on the other side, its just an 8 ohm load. The 400 series can however handle even more powerful receiver. If anything, the 440 will be play BETTER with the same receiver, than the 340, because Polk states that 440 have 91 db efficiency, vs 90 db for the 330.

Also, keep in mind and virtually nobody of the frequent posters here has engineering background or any respect for the laws of electricity.

Bottom line, if you can afford them, the 440 will be the better choice.

tsc

Just a heads up, I just purchased a pair of refurbished TSi300s direct from Polk through their ebay store. They were $159 total for the pair, shipped. I couldn't pass that deal up. Warranty is 2 years on refurbished speakers.

Edit to add: I can't speak to the quality of the speakers yet. I just ordered them yesterday, but from what I have read polk refurbishes to new standard. If they are like new as far as how they sound, I have read great reviews and know others who have these (or similar monitors) and like them a lot. If you still haven't bought by Saturday or Monday (they are supposed to arrive Sat) I'll come back and let you know what I think.

polrbehr

OK, so what makes you think the OP does not have some knowledge of, or respect for, the laws of electricity? Just saying... ; )

Can't a speaker be damaged by trying to get too much out of it from an underpowered amp? I could swear I've read something along those lines here before.

ravaneli

polrbehr wrote: »

OK, so what makes you think the OP does not have some knowledge of, or respect for, the laws of electricity? Just saying... ; )

Can't a speaker be damaged by trying to get too much out of it from an underpowered amp? I could swear I've read something along those lines here before.

What is underpowered amp? Find me manufacturer who sells underpowered equipment. Search underpowered equipment in ebay and see what you find. Nothing is underpowered. Everything has specifications, some equipment is rated to handle higher power than others, that's the only difference. The OP's receiver is powerful exactly as much as it was designed to be.

You cannot damage a speaker as long as you supply less power than what it is rated to handle. For 440, this appears to be 200W. The thing is, it may be possible for a receiver that is rated for 2x 90W to generate more than 90W per channel. If you turn the knob all the way up you may get over 100W per channel, but distortion will be severe. Eventually you will burn the receiver if you push it to these extremes. Since the Speakers (440) are rated much higher than 90 W, it would be rather difficult to damage the speakers BEFORE you damage the receiver. If you keep pushing the AVR your AVR will end in smoke , not those particular speakers.

Now if your avr was ALSO rated at 200W and you push it all to extremes, then yes, it can go over the rated power and damage those speakers.

As long as you don't do stupid **** everything will be fine, and 440 will play better than 330

hochpt21

I do not have an engineering background, but in a similar situation...

My Monitor 50's sounded much better to me being driven off a 85w receiver than my Monitor 70's did.

My own ears did tell me that...weird.

Erik Tracy

Amplifier power and speaker power handling capability is a coupled relation - and BOTH need to be factored into any discussion of the application and use in question.

An amplifier can be classified as 'underpowered' relative to the speakers connected to it, their efficiency, size of room, dynamic levels of the music being played, and the level preference of the listener.

Some people who post here don't seem to have much actual experience with audio equipment, applications, and listening and instead base posts on what a link said on the internet.

I have personally fried more tweeters by overdriving an amp into inefficient speakers (40watt amp into 4ohm/89db speakers rated for 25-200watts) - learned the lesson the hard way that Power is your friend....so beware anyone saying you cannot damage a speaker with an amp rated less than the power rating of the speaker.

txcoastal1

nbrowser wrote: »

........Remember, the more drivers, the more juice the tower will need to sound good at higher volumes

My friend
Untrue statement...
example LS9 speakers are 8ohm 93db efficient has 12 drivers and 9 ribbons tweeters vs my Dyaudio C1's with 2 drivers 4ohm 85db efficient

marvda1

ravaneli wrote: »

What is underpowered amp? Find me manufacturer who sells underpowered equipment. Search underpowered equipment in ebay and see what you find. Nothing is underpowered. Everything has specifications, some equipment is rated to handle higher power than others, that's the only difference. The OP's receiver is powerful exactly as much as it was designed to be.

You cannot damage a speaker as long as you supply less power than what it is rated to handle. For 440, this appears to be 200W. The thing is, it may be possible for a receiver that is rated for 2x 90W to generate more than 90W per channel. If you turn the knob all the way up you may get over 100W per channel, but distortion will be severe. Eventually you will burn the receiver if you push it to these extremes. Since the Speakers (440) are rated much higher than 90 W, it would be rather difficult to damage the speakers BEFORE you damage the receiver. If you keep pushing the AVR your AVR will end in smoke , not those particular speakers.

Now if your avr was ALSO rated at 200W and you push it all to extremes, then yes, it can go over the rated power and damage those speakers.

As long as you don't do stupid **** everything will be fine, and 440 will play better than 330

you are quite wrong my friend, it is far easier to damage your speakers with an amp that is lower wattage than one that is too much power. let's say you have a speaker that is rated 20-200 watts, you are more likely to damage it with a 50 watt amp than a 300 watt amp or for that matter a 500 watt amp because if you over drive the 50 watt amp into clipping for a long time your tweeters will most likely go before your amp.

music is not straight line power, music has spikes or peaks. think of this, if you had a continuous tone playing say at 8:00 and say that's 2 watts of power playing, now go the volume control turn it up to just where you can hear an increase in volume. that minute increase is 3db, a 3bd increase in volume is double the power , so you go from 2 watts to 4 watts, another 3db increase is 8 watts,16,32,64,128. so you see your 50 watt amp is quickly asked to put out a lot of power it cannot thus it distorts and it's a crap shot which goes first your amp or speaker, usually your tweeter since it can handle far less power than your woofers.
the higher the power the amp the more it can handle those peaks

ravaneli

I mentioned that if you push to extremes, you can get from an amp a little more than its rated for, but probably only for a short period of time before it goes in smoke. And the power will be useless for music anyway because of severe distortion. Nobody does that except punks who live on foodstamps. But if you think you can crank 2 x 200 W out of amp that is rated for 2 x 50 W, even for a short period of time, you are delusional. I don't see how you can damage 200W speakers with 50W amp. If you tried really hard, you will end up with burned amp, not speakers.
And the tweeters that everybody talks about.. don't worry about them, worry about the entire speaker and how much power it can handle. Power is not distributed evenly to all speaker. By the way, in a 200W speaker, fed with 200W power, how much do u think goes to the tweeter alone?

These nonsense has to stop. People cannot give personal opinions about the laws of physics. It is not up to you.

Erik Tracy

This is where real life experiences outweigh someones claim of physics.

Real burnt out tweeters not burned up amps.

Just wrong.

Picture to be posted later.

marvda1

the reason tweeters go first is the clipping distortion is in the high frequencies. check the specs on a tweeter then a woofer, look at the the power handling.
enjoy:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/power

polrbehr

I would think most manufacturers, regardless of brand, have product lines designed to do certain things at certain price points. So no, I do not believe they sell underpowered amps, but the fact remains that some amps are not powerful enough for all applications or expectations.
And who said anything about getting 200 watts from an amp rated at 50 wpc? I just don't get your line of thinking there (and I won't even go near the foodstamps reference, sheesh).

If anyone wants to read up, our own Polk site has the following:
http://www.polkaudio.com/polk-university/articles/how-do-i-prevent-damaing-my-speakers-again
(see, I knew I read it somewhere... and I like the fact that there's a popcorn pic at the top LOL)

Geoff4rfc

LOL, this thread got rava-troll-ied

marvda1

I am not saying get 200 watts out of a 50 watt amp. music is dynamic, I was showing the power requirements for a certain level of volume and what power is needed when that big bass drum or canon shot comes along in the music. so yyou can see how you easily need way more than the 50 watts on peaks. if you don't push the 50 watt amp then problem but think about that party when you've had a couple of drinks and want to boggie.

Geoff4rfc

marvda1 wrote: »

I am not saying get 200 watts out of a 50 watt amp. music is dynamic, I was showing the power requirements for a certain level of volume and what power is needed when that big bass drum or canon shot comes along in the music. so yyou can see how you easily need way more than the 50 watts on peaks. if you don't push the 50 watt amp then problem but think about that party when you've had a couple of drinks and want to boggie.

Rest your bones dude, ravatrolli will argue his spew to the death with a 10' spear hanging out of his back side with a flag hanging off of it "Look what I read off the intranet"

ravaneli

I am talking to OP: forget about these street-smarts, talk to electrical engineer or anybody with electrical background. It is more likely to burn the 330 series with that amp than the 440. All the WATTS are saying is how much power (heat) the speaker can handle. Power is split through the drivers in the speaker, and very little goes to the tweeter. Clipping is just causing power overload, that's all. But the 440 series have so much headroom that I cannot imagine circumstances where you can damage them with your receiver. You would need to really push your amp for a good while and like I said, amp failure is more likely. If ANY TWEETERS FAIL to that amp you have, it will be the tweeters of the 330 before the tweeters of the 440, that is for sure.

The 440 are the better speakers, they will sound better with that amp, and they are pretty much guaranteed not to get damaged from your amp, so if you have the money, 440 is the right choice. But in all situations, on scientific issues do not listen to these people here.

ZLTFUL

Wow dude...just wow. You do know that a clipped waveform can cause damage just as easily as "overpowering" right? If you don't know that then you are even more clueless than I was originally led to believe by your previous posts.

kon

So I'm getting a bit lost in the technical talk (Im A newbie), what speakers should I get for the best sound quality considering my current amp and subwoofer (psw10)?

kon

So I'm getting a bit lost in all the technical talk (I'm a newbie) what speakers should I get for the best sound quality for listening to music with my current amp (yamaha as500) and sub (psw10).

tonyb

kon wrote: »

So I'm getting a bit lost in all the technical talk (I'm a newbie) what speakers should I get for the best sound quality for listening to music with my current amp (yamaha as500) and sub (psw10).

There is no correct answer as to the BEST....very subjective plus we don't have your ears. What will work with your gear, Anything in the Monitor line, RTIA line at A5 on down. That psw10 subwoofer isn't going to be very effective either in that big a room.

cnh

I'll tell you what your amp can drive and will actually sound good. A pair of Polk LSi-7 bookies. Throw a sub into the mix and you're good. The Vifa tweeter in that series is an almost "perfect" match for the sound signature the Yamaha puts out. It draws the highs out more. I've heard this combo and was pleasantly surprised.

BTW that Yamaha has a 4 ohm switch on its backside which can be engaged for the above speakers.

But it sounds like you really want to go towers. If so the Rti-A5s would do you!

Nice to see Ravioli back in action! Things have been quiet around here for a while, don't you think?

Enjoy!

cnh

marvda1

I cry "uncle", the world is flat!