Upgrading rear sorounds & LFE. HELP!!

ccon2000 · February 2005

Hello,

I want to upgrade my rear surrounds and LFE to match it with my CS1 (center channel) & R30's (fronts).

Currently I have the Bose Acoustimass 5 Series II and quite frankly am not too fond of them. May I also add that they are over 3 years old and currently are being sold on EBay?

Can I use another pair of R30's as surrounds with the PSW10 as my LFE or should I switch my fronts (R30's) to rears and get new R50's as fronts?

Can I go wrong with any scenario? Please Help!!

Here is my current setup:

Sony 42" Grand WEGA HDTV (KDF-42WE655)
Onkyo Surround Sound Receiver (TX-SR502)
Samsung DVD Player (DVD-HD841)
Polk CS1 Center Channel
Polk R30's Fronts
Bose Acoustimass 5 Series II (pending upgrade)

Mjr7531 · February 2005

Welcome to Club Polk!
Getting either the R30s or the R50s would be fine for your system. I would suggest you splurge and get maybe Monitor 50,60,70 for your fronts to timbre match the front stage and move back the R30 as surrounds. Depending on your needs (and size of your room) a PSW10 would be fine, but otherwise, you might want to look into the PSW505, or maybe even another Brand, SVS comes to mind. How big is your room?
Btw, cute dog

ccon2000 · February 2005

Thank you for your information. I kinda have a weird room in that the living and dining rooms are shared. Overall the sound is excellent, but since I am wanting to upgrade, I also wanted to know if it was worth it. Meaning, will I notice inprovements over the current setup? Room is 14x20 with the living room being 14x14

Nemesis · February 2005

Outpost.com has R-30's on sale for $50 each: problem is the sale is only on the CHERRY ones. I don't think that will match your rig (though they might match your dog), but a deal is a deal.

I can't recommend the R50s as for only a little more money you can get a nice pair of the Monitors. I believe that would really up your front and your current R30s would improve the rear.

Tour2ma · February 2005

Originally posted by Nemesis
...(though they might match your dog)...

LOL... missed that little killer when I first navigated around that monster sized pic...

Welcome, Nemesis...

R30, 50 or new Monitors are all economical ways to go. Go get your listen on and audition them...

On your LFE question, I assume you are asking if you should upgrade your sub. The PSW-10 is entry level and you have a pretty large listening space, so sure, it's an upgrade candidate... But all things in their own good time and since you like the sound of your front stage, I'd say now is not the time.

Mjr7531 · February 2005

I'll second Tour, but if you are absolutely itching for a new sub, and you want to pressurize your room so you get "pounding" bass, you might want to consider a pretty big sub, I have my setup in the basement, which is basically one big room, so I have to pressurize a 20 x 20 x7.5 ft room. I don't, and it sounds fine. However, as upgraditis is, I want to replace it, basically, audition, audition, audition, and if you have to go with an impulse, make sure you have a good return policy.

mrmusicman · February 2005

ccon2000-

How do you like that tv? I was considering that same model,and was wondering what you like/dis-like.

mike

Tour2ma · February 2005

Why would a "musicman" ask a TV question???

mrmusicman · February 2005

up-grade bug bit me.:D

ccon2000 · February 2005

Dear mrmusicman,

TV is excellent. No cons about it but the price. $2299 at Circuit City. You can also find the tv for $300 less on EBay, but it is up to you if you wanna take that rout. This has been my largest electronic purchase and I felt more confortable with a local store. Also, the tv is is even better if you have other sony products like camera, camcorder, PS2, etc...

cjoyce · February 2005

What you could do is if you have different size speaker wire, then you can put the bigger size speaker wire going to the speakers that you want louder, and the smaller size to the ones you want to sound smaller. You can also, if you can, use your reciever to try to use surround sound and there is a setting that you can adjust the way that the watts are distributed.

Willow · February 2005

Originally posted by cjoyce
What you could do is if you have different size speaker wire, then you can put the bigger size speaker wire going to the speakers that you want louder, and the smaller size to the ones you want to sound smaller. You can also, if you can, use your reciever to try to use surround sound and there is a setting that you can adjust the way that the watts are distributed.

WTH did you try and say? bigger wire to the speaker you want louder ? I'm not sure if you were to change the cable size and leave the volume set the same you will notice one louder than the rest. Just buy 14-10awg for all you speaker cable and the rest is history.

Tour2ma · February 2005

Off-the-wall or not, that's no way to welcome a newbie...

Welcome, cjoyce...
Using undersized wire to choke off the signal to speakers is not the way to go. Will it reduce Volume... yes, but it also impact sound quality.

Run length and speaker impedance are the variables to consider in choosing the minimum guage of wire needed. You can always go larger, as Willow suggests, but not smaller. Here's a good reference...
http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable

As for adjusting your AVR to route power... The intent of this feature is to calibrate your HT rig for balanced impact in your listening area. Any other use is going to adversely impact your HT experience...

Whadyasay · February 2005

In terms of a great and affordable way to up the LFE level in that space, an SVS Cylinder-type sub in the corner would be perfect. I also agree about the wire guage. It's not difficult to find some good-quality 12 guage in-wall (if needed) speaker wire, which would probably be ideal.

Willow · February 2005

I didn't mean to come off in a bad way, I really couldn't understand what he was trying to say.

Sorry if I came across the wrong way and welcome

okiepolkie · February 2005

Tour (and probably others),

I read that article a little more in depth today while I had some time and came up with a question regarding wire. I also know this is somewhat insignificant, but I'd still like to know to satisfy my own thirst for knowledge.

I realize the wire itself will produce a resistance to current.
To make sure wire is below 5% of the speaker's nominal impedance, can you take a length of wire and use a multimeter to measure the wire's resistance? For example: hook a probe up to one end of the speaker wire and hook the other probe to the other end of the speaker wire.

Tour2ma · February 2005

Sure... and on the low Ohm scale you'd be using hooking up at least one is the way to go.

If you pinch the VOM leads to the wire/ terminations with your fingers and the wire happens to be higher resistance, you end up measuring your skin's resistance... Not too likely with wire, but I've had a couple "WTF?" experiences...

cjoyce · February 2005

Now I have the RT/10s in the front and the R30s in the back for surround, so all I did was buy some 22g wire for the RTs and 16 for the 30s and it worked out fine. I was told to do so at Polk because I didnt want to empty the bank on all the other stuff that I needed to get. Its the independant way to raise the resistance in the wire, it sounds the same!

cjoyce · February 2005

I have an amplifier that I use for my giutar, but I want to use it to boost the power of the amplifier in my reciever, but I cant figure out how to do it. If someone could help it would be great!

Tour2ma · February 2005

M'kay... Now you just messing with us, right?

cjoyce · February 2005

Its a really old reciever from pioneer and only has Pre out so i cant hook it up. Im not that dumb!

Fulmer · February 2005

Maybe I missed it, but what is your budget? I would highly recommend staying away from the polk subs. At just about any price range you can do better, especially if you're willing to buy online. If you can swing $400 or more, go with an SVS. $200 or less, go with a Dayton 10" from partsexpress or the Atlantic Technology T70.1 PBM. As for speakers, I would recommend R50s if your budget dictates- just make sure you wait for them to go on sale for $79 or $89 each. I don't believe you can get the Monitors for a similar price, but I could be wrong. I have the R50s and truly like them- they are an outstanding value. Again, it all depends on your budget. Do your research on subs, and don't be too quick to pull the trigger on one just because it's the same brand as the rest of your speakers. Oh yeah, welcome to the club.

cjoyce · February 2005

Well, I think my "budget" is just fine thankyou. But I'm the kinda person who likes to hang on to my old stuff as long as it works. If you go online and find the Pionneer VSX-504S, I think you would want to keep it to.
P.S. I have the RT/10's that I bought for quite a bit after my old ones burned out.

AsSiMiLaTeD · February 2005

Originally posted by cjoyce
Well, I think my "budget" is just fine thankyou. But I'm the kinda person who likes to hang on to my old stuff as long as it works. If you go online and find the Pionneer VSX-504S, I think you would want to keep it to.
P.S. I have the RT/10's that I bought for quite a bit after my old ones burned out.

WTF?

Tour2ma · February 2005

Well said...

Conor,
I think Fulmer was answering the original con2000's original posts (after all, it's his thread)... You may want to try starting your own.

As for your guitar amp... can't help you as I do not know guitar amps. That said, I can't believe that's a good aplpication... For starters, is it 2-ch?

cjoyce · February 2005

its not a 2 ch. But all that would mean was that i couldent use the guitar and the stereo at the same time right? I can still put it on my reciever but i was trying to figure out if I could do that with only the Pre-out on it.
sorry about that fulmer

unc2701 · February 2005

Guitar amps are an extremely poor choice for amplifing anything other than guitars. Yes, I did it in high school and yes, I more or less destroyed that guitar amp. The biggest problems are that they're designed to amplify a limited range, use low level inputs (kind of like for mics) and are designed to introduce distortion. It's easy to screw up your guitar amp hooking it up to a stereo. If you really want to go this route, you're better off picking up a keyboard amp, but there are better cheap ways to improve on your stereo.

cjoyce · February 2005

Well, I already have the giutar amp so I dont want to pick up one for a keyboard. Plus I thought that amps were just used to amplify whatever comes into the imput right? So what did you do to screw up yours?

Upgrading rear sorounds & LFE. HELP!!

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