has anyone even suggested to mmcheese to make his own stuff? i am a college student and that is precisely what i did for the whole system, minus the cabinets for the speakers. terry was very nice to make me those, and i thought he did a bang up job. most commercial products just don't have the bang for the buck that mmcheese is going to want, especially to acheive the resolution of grado headphones (or any nice headphones for that matter). also, in a dorm room (small place), i still have to stick by my tannoy system 600 speaker choice and t-amp. i installed a system like this for a freind (for studio monitoring on a budget) and it is killer. most normal commercial hifi speakers are going to have too much highs for a small, improperly damped college dorm room. i have been there, and it is no fun. it will take notch filters, high capacitance cables, or foam on the walls to tame that down.
BTW, I heard the fostex room at CES this year, and there was nutso horn bass from two stereo drivers ff-165k in bk-16 cabinet, with super tweeters rolled in at 15000hz. so they did not have the imaging of true full rangers, but man the bass was great. i thought i was hearing the best subwoofer i had ever heard. there was no subwoofer though. abbys don't do that kindof bass because they are voigt pipe type transmission line, not horns. course, in the fostex room, there was alot of solid state power being dissipated within the tungsten cables on the way to the drivers (to help tune the qts).
the speakers being reccomended to this fellow on this forum are all very good, but they are not by any means the best he can do within his budget and time (i am assuming the time frame is when school starts in a month?).
the thing about amps and stuff is that all that reigns supreme is production of real music that the user recognizes as such. i think that alot of people around here throw only money at the problem and miss the mark entirely. efficiency and real world synergy reign supreme. not dollars. the t-amp puts out 5.5 very nice sounding watts. it looks dinky, but that thing means business. i have powered paradigm mini monitors to huge volume with it. course, you should not pair it with theils, but something like the tannoys (at $250 each) and at 90 db will work quite well, and will get way more than loud enough for the size of his room. also, studio products in general give a vastly greater bang for the buck than traditional hi fi products. studio engineers in general are not idiots with their money like some folks that peruse these forums. course, they are hard to audition at a dealer. one must buy them and return them if you hate them (which probably won't happen with the tannoys). abbys at 95 db will be even better, even some large, fe-208 based back loaded horns at around 100db will be even better. b ut neither of the last two choices will fit into a small room, except in mine, where i don't give a crap about anything BUT the stereo system. i have found that getting really nice sound out of speakers it is all about not stressing your amplifiers in order to get music out. i have to say that people who think that single drivers can't do bass simply have not heard a well implimented system. now, can this fellow's system be that well implimented for under 1000 dollars? that will depend on HIS level of creativity. there will be the creativity in designing a subwoofer (try a 10 inch sub resonant design (tinyest cabinet you can get away with, bringing the resonant frequency of the cabinet ABOVE that of the crossover frequency - hence, bass with no resonance and great transient response. pair this with a nice 100 or 200 watt subwoofer amplifier) or you could take the months is takes to design a back loaded horn to get good bass out of a single driver (or buy a bk-16 kit from madisound). or you could be a slave to the limitations of the normal stereo market. go ahead, build your own cabinet, buy the drivers, wire it yourself. it is not as hard as you think and you will have far more ownership over everything when it is done. upgraditis tends to not be as costly as well when you learn how to REALLY tweak a system with a few bucks in capacitors, resistors, inductors, and wire instead of buying the usually far less effective tweak flavor of the week, like buying 5000 dollar ebony tuning blocks, or some products from Golden Sound (like the ultra tweeter that goes up to 1ghz, woowee!). mmcheese's level of creativity will determine whether or not he gets a system that sounds ok, and is passable, lasts him through college, and gets him the girls (or guys) or one that makes him and his freinds crap their pants on the first few notes every time he comes home from class to get stoned and listen to music. i must say that concentration on strickly widely available commercial products just won't get you there. this tacktic obviously has not worked for alot of people on this forum.
i have to thoroughly disagree with the towers thing though. i have never heard a single amped (meaning not bi or tri amped) tower sound very coherent. bi or tri amping would be out of the budget. and the crossover steals too much musical energy and electrical energy to even allow cheap but good amplification. there are also usually bad phase issues. bookshelves also won't visually dominate like some ugly status symbol towers, also you can spend less on amps, which would loose their pace trying to keep up with a complicated crossover (as opposed to a smaller one in a bookshelf) leaving more money for cds.
bigger just aint better, guys and gals.
I do have to say though, that some of y'all have obviously been lied to and duped by marketers your whole life. it is very apparent from the acoustic and electronic theory that you present in discussions. it aint from years of studying acoustic and electronic theory, or even from studying music itself. it is from being only a consumer and a product researcher. there is nothing wrong with being a consumer, as long as you understand that that is as far as your hobby goes. you opinions are appreciated, but leave them there. don't specifically personally attack people, especially when your science and art are out of tune. go ahead, talk on the consumer level, but don't give me any funny smelling science for a second. i can sniff right through it. triple the duty? do you know how many octaves are in the audible spectrum? do you think that most multi-driver designs are evenly distributed like that? sure, some of them are, but there is tons of variance. the duty that single drivers don't have is that of trying to power a taxing crossover. there is tons of power and music lost in the passive crossovers in most consumer stuff. not to say that there cannot be great passive crossovers, but 99 percent of companies don't take the time to tune them very well, or use truely great electronic components and you end up with a musical and phase coherency mess. full range just means a really good and very extended midrange driver that also happens to do good highs and lows. and properly amplified, they do NOT break up under complex material. the 166esrs i have huge instrument separation, and i sometimes listen to prodigy, as well as organ, and yes, even classical chamber music. given proper electronic resolution, i beleive they are far superior detail wise to any multi driver system (except front loaded horns). full rangers are usually far more technologically and musically advanced than multidriver systems as materials quality is a must. huge magnets of exotic high flux density material, a tiny gap between voice coil and magnet, and low cone weight are a must. these are all very hard things to acheive at the low price demanded by huge speaker companies. fostex, however, does a very good job. there is a reason why single drivers and tubes are poopooed by most companies - most companies are too lazy to buy expensive drivers and components that eat away their profit margin. it is as simple as that. they would rather go with readily available things that take little to no engineering knowledge to make and even less genuine love for their products or their customers. but that is the business world, which is quite separate from the real pursuit of seeing god through your speakers. that is a personal pursuit that few have the courage to undertake on thier own, with their own ears and their own intuition.
look, sorry to confuse, insult, etc. i am not contradicting myself. i am talking at another level than some of y'all are not able to comprehend at. unfortunately, i know how patronizing that must sound. oh well. its kinda the truth though. i happily read your opinions, and i learn from them, and i tip my hat to those who read and learn from mine. i would like to point out, however, that i design and build audio devices and systems from the ground up of all types and applications. i frequently find myself on a daily basis tuning hifi systems by ear, by soldering iron, by tacky glue, and felt. etc. taking apart and repairing (and sometimes hotrodding) everything from cell phones to blenders. I have helped maintain pipe organs, repaired a few electronic organs, PAed rock groups, big bands etc. the list goes on and on. i am not saying that i am a better individual than any of you here. it is just that musical pursuits are my life in its entirety. so I take a little bit of ownership, thats all. i think that occationally, i deserve to.
concepts beyond the straight and narrow just won't work with people who will be checkbook audiophiles their whole lives. the only audio system that i advocate is the type that the owner puts real input into other than from a simple checking account. that means that i advocate many technologies, as long as they are well implimented by their owners. hence, i am not just a single driver nut. i have encouraged many of my freinds to strike out and find their own course in their audio lives and that they reach their OWN great happiness and success. i have been happy to be the spark, but they were the ones who put in the effort, and i have found myself surprised with the creativity of most people, given the tools and motivation. what i preach is that of listening to all types of systems and appreciating all music in order to find your own niche. course i am going to support the niche that i have found for myself. I like what i do. doen't everyone? or maybe that is the problem. i respect alot of other types of speakers than single drivers. just not most monkey coffins (which 98 percent of the market consists of). i have been into this stuff since i was a small child, these listening processes are pretty well developed in me, and i am happy where i am now. so no more debating. i don't have to justify myself. I know who i am, and i found out who a few people on this forum are really made of - preconceived notions, gobs of cash, and some pretty crappy dogmatic advice. there are also alot of gracious, wonderful individuals, not that people fall into either category based on wether or not they agree with me, i just find that alot of people try to shut down conversation, discussion, and explaination, and turn it into argument. i find generalizations and lack of specificity to person or company (instead of quoting them directly, or taking things out of context) to be frequently less offensive, and sometimes far more communicative. oh well, it takes all types... and people are just going to do what they know best.
Clark
