Battle of the bookshelves; M&K vs B&W

[admin_exported]

Hi.

I've got a moderately sized room, about 4m x 4m, which has a 46" Sony LCD on the wall. I'm looking for a satellite/bookshelf-based home theatre system; I have a 2 year old who loves riding his bike into things, and peeling the labels / stickers off speaker grilles.

An additional complicating factor is that the rear of the room is open plan on one side, and the combination presented by two dealers was 1) M&K mounted speakers on the ceiling, firing down or 2) "angled" arms from the walls for the rear speakers (sounds aesthetically horrible).

I am being presented with an Integra / M&K 750 home theatre setup, or a Denon / B&W combination. I will have to hear the M&K combination, but information on their recent packages is rather scarce. Does anyone have any information ?

The B&W combination makes almost no sense to me, and sounds like the dealer trying to jack up his margin; the suggestion is 4 x XT2 speakers, with a XTC and PV-1. Surely the XT2's are fine as rear's, but as a pair of primary front's ? I asked about the 685's, which have gotten excellent reviews, and he seemed to be against that option (don't think it hurts that its half the price).

Any suggestions / thoughts ?

 

[Frank Harvey]

Rear MK speakers shouldn't be pointed to fire at the seating position - the nature of the speaker is for it to be mounted to the side wall firing at each other across the room over the seating position. If this isn't possible, direct firing speakers will be better for this purpose.

I can't really argue with the Denon/XT package as it will gel together pretty well. It wouldn't be my first choice as far as music is concerned, but then something that produces better music is going to be a lot bigger and bulkier! A package based around the KEF XQ30's would be worth looking at - at the bristol show, KEF usually use Denon to demonstrate their Reference products, so it's a tried and tested pairing.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your opinion!

Would you say that the M&K package is a good comprehensive one ? From what I've read, its far more orientated toward home theatre than music, but is passable in an all-purpose room (which this will be). As per the arrangement, does it matter that side mounting at ear level is not possible, but it can go on the ceiling over the listening position ?

And as for the B&W's, in your opinion there is no issue with using 4 x XT2's, rather than the conventional 2 x XT8's and 2 x XT2's for moderate home theatre use ?

KEF is hard to come by in South Africa :-(

 

[Frank Harvey]

They are more geared to films than being an all rounder.

I wouldn't ceiling mount them. They can be mounted above the listening position, but stick to walls, and stick to keeping them flush against the wall, no angling or pointing in other directions.

As the sub takes care of frequencies below 80-100Hz (generally), using a smaller speaker for the front isn't much of an issue. In some ways it'll actually be better, as the XT2's are closer in size to the XT centre than the floorstanders are, so should produce a more identical sound than using the XT8's.

 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, wall mounting will be difficult; there is only a wall on one side (to the right of the listening position); no wall on the left.

View from the TV directly at the listening position;

 

[Anonymous]

Here is left of the listening position;

 

[Anonymous]

The only wall suitable for mounting a rear speaker; right of the listening position

 

[Anonymous]

And the nice, bare ceiling;

 

[Anonymous]

Can you make a suggestion as to how to mount the rears ? It sounds like it'll be an issue, irrespective of brand. Installers here in South Africa are kind of limited in their thinking, so any input is appreciated