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Looking for Decent Speakers for Apartment. Suggestions?

S

stangmmx

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 30, 2008
38
0
Yo,

Just got my ATV2. Love it.

I was looking to get some decent speakers. I'd want these speakers to provide audio for my TV, ATV2, my PS3, and my computer. I'm assuming I'd probably have to use wireless speakers..? I dunno. I know next to nothing about home theater systems so, let me know your thoughts.

Thanks
 
j3yq said:
How much you looking to spend?
Click to expand...

Good question, forgot to mention that.

I'm a graduate student, and thus I'm generally going hand to mouth every wee so, I'm looking for best bang for the buck. I nearly pulled the trigger on just a sound bar for my TV a while back, but I'd like to cover more square footage.
 
Bye Bye Baby said:
Do you want surround?

Are you using a receiver or an amp?

Speakers aren't much without some sort of decoding.

How big is your room?

Money?
Click to expand...

apartment is 1100 sq ft total so it's not that big. I'd like surround.

I do not have an amp or receiver. :(

Money? Less than a grand for sure.
 
Dunno if you've got them in the states, but there's a lot of love in the UK for the Onkyo HT-22HDX setup. It comes in two parts:

The main part is a sub/decoder and stereo speakers. It has 3 HDMI 1.4 in and one out (allows audio return from the TV if you have one that supports it) and several optical/coaxial/RCA inputs for legacy devices). It decodes everything including DTS-MA and Dolby TruHD.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Onkyo-HT-X2...NHXI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1293739671&sr=8-3

The second part is the speaker add-ons which add a centre and surround speakers which add in to form a complete 5.1 system

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Onkyo-Surro...6CFI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293739671&sr=8-1

This would also allow you to buy the stereo setup first and add the surround speakers when money permits.
 
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For $1000 you could piece together a really good home theater system.

Onkyo TX-SR508 receiver $300
BIC Acoustech PL-200 subwoofer $350-400
Pioneer SP-C21 center channel speaker $80
Pioneer SP-B21-LR bookshelf speakers (pair) $80 x2

That setup would totally transform your home theater experience. It would cost just under $900 and would allow you to purchase all your HDMI, toslink, and speaker cables under your $1000 budget. If you want to save $100 i would recommend the Acoustech H-100 subwoofer. But don't cheap out on the subwoofer or center channel speaker too much. IMO those are the two most important speakers in your home theater.
 
I'd get some AudioEngine A5's and be done with it. They will easily fill that area with nice sound and you don't need anything fancy, it seems.
 
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The Bose 321 GS is a great system. Awesome sound with only 3 speakers total. It's under a grand too.
 
I've been a graduate student living in random apartments and I certainly wasn't looking to spend a grand when I was living week to week, paycheck to paycheck.

It seems like $1k is a good bit beyond budget under such circumstances if all you need to do is fill a small apartment with sound.

The nice thing about investing $200-350 on some good powered bookshelf speakers now is that they'll still be handy down the road when you have a real income and a home. They can be re-purposed easily when the budget will allow for a real home theater system.
 
brentsg said:
i'd get some audioengine a5's and be done with it. They will easily fill that area with nice sound and you don't need anything fancy, it seems.
Click to expand...

x2

Or you could get a decent AVR with some Mirage speakers an add on later. Most AVR's now have a good amount of sound processing to account for the missing speakers. My old Onkyo has a preset (Theater Dimensional) that I used for quite awhile when I had no center or surrounds.
 
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brentsg said:
The nice thing about investing $200-350 on some good powered bookshelf speakers now is that they'll still be handy down the road when you have a real income and a home. They can be re-purposed easily when the budget will allow for a real home theater system.
Click to expand...

don't the book shelf speakers need a decent receiver?

If I can get decent sound for 200-350, then I'm game.

A5's don't need anything other than the speaker itself?
 
bowlerman625 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

The Bose 321 GS is a great system. Awesome sound with only 3 speakers total. It's under a grand too.
Click to expand...

I had this system. Got it for my 21st bday. When I moved home for a few months, my dad took said system and it "disappeared".

Found it a few weeks ago in his office.
:mad:
 
brentsg said:
I'd get some AudioEngine A5's and be done with it. They will easily fill that area with nice sound and you don't need anything fancy, it seems.
Click to expand...

I'd second this......for sure!

I have the A5's in Bamboo and they are very nice! At $450/pr. they are a steal. The black and white ones are $350. With these powered speakers you don't need a receiver or amp.

I just added the AudioEngine S8 subwoofer and now I am complete. They sounded sweet without a subwoofer but they really rock now. The S8 is $350.

So for $700 you can have a great sounding "quality" system with a small footprint. Look for 10% off coupons on the coupon websites.....I found one 10 days ago and got the subwoofer for $315.

AudioEngine gives 30-day auditions for all there products so you can't go wrong.

http://audioengineusa.com/
 
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stangmmx said:
don't the book shelf speakers need a decent receiver?

If I can get decent sound for 200-350, then I'm game.

A5's don't need anything other than the speaker itself?
Click to expand...

They are self powered, so that's all you need. Like someone above said, find a coupon someplace online and they'll do a 30 day money back period. I bought mine for PC use and they were great but ultimately too large. I moved them to a plasma I just use for gaming and the occasional movie and they rock. I've not felt a need for a sub with them, though I'm sure it's a nice add-on.
 
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