House Party £300

[admin_exported]

So sorry to bring up a similar thread yet again BUT ive got a friend who wants to do house parties similar to ours and wanted to buy my old stuff but i'd already sold it, and he has £300 to spend. He liked the sound of my old system (valdus 500's front speakers, athena B2 rears, and sw 150 sub and arcam alpha 9 amp for fronts, tangents amp 50 for rears) and wants emulate/improve on it. Seeing as you've helped me reach audio nirvana i was hoping you could do the same for my friend.

I got all my stuff for under £300, what would you recommend he gets for his budget, he likes a warm sound at a high spl. Also likes oodles of deep bass. He's not as adverse to pa stuff as me but dislikes shrill horns. Thanks for any help.

 

[Frank Harvey]

If he likes a warm sound id say the same system - Valdus with the Alpha 9.

 

[Anonymous]

are the xarus 5000's worth the extra money over the valdus? supposedly the "new and improved" valdus. They themselves were then "upgraded" to vardus but they sounded flat to my ears and dont have nearly the same extension or slam. Never heard the xarus though. Could probably get 6 valdus speakers for £150...Only get 2 xarus'.

Both are in his budget but he could get 4 valdus 500's with money th spare over the xarus.

Thanks

 

[Frank Harvey]

The Vardus was more a replacement for the Modus rather than Valdus. I would say that the Xarus is worth the extra over the Valdus as the Xarus use a proper soft dome tweeter, whereas the Valdus used to use the bullet type tweeter which can be found in many cheap speakers that come with mini systems - the dome tweeter is more refined.
Would your friend need six speakers?!

 

[Anonymous]

6 valdus...that would be some serious midbass , but no with a alpha 9 you could only run 4 anyway without daisy chaining a pair which i cant see the arcam driving happily. He doesnt really have the budget for 2 amps (especially good ones).

I'll advise he goes for the xarus then (although he may well go for the option of having twice as many woofers).

On the point of the tweeter, I actually prefered the sound of the valdus' on most music to my parents cm1's which are clearly a much more refined speaker. Piano music does however sound almost lifelike on them, but on trance and drum and bass etc I like the sound of the cheap tweeters, seems to give a kind of airyness to the sound which I really liked, (probably just an uneven response peak). As someone said its all about the sound you are looking for. I may well just be accustomed to the sound of the valdus.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I know what you mean. There would be a roughness and edge to the cheaper tweeter that would actually be preferable to some with certain music.

Let your friend know that it doesn't matter how many speakers he runs off the amp, the amp will still give out the same power - if he adds two pairs, it's not double the power!

 

[Anonymous]

given their sensitivity i think they would reach xmax at low freqs (even with 4) before the arcam runs out of power (if he doesnt use a crossover which i dont think he can be bothered with). Going t0 use cooling fans anyway. Given their (stupid) design these speakers reach excursion limits long before power handling, after i got my new setup i really blasted the valdus' to see what they could do, turned the amp to 4 o' clock (never turned it past 1 before), (only goes to 5 lol), played 7 nation army with a 36db octave crossover at 65hz and the high bass was incredible, almost like being punched in the chest...(eq'd the highs down so i didnt hit the tweeter protection, knew it was probably clipping). Easily outdid my sw 150 at midbass, (out gunned it until 50hz).

Back on topic I'll convince him to get the xarus' as mains for their better tweeter and ill flog him my tangent amp and get a cheap pair of bookshelves from ebay for when he wants to do a party. He'll want a sub eventually anyway so he wont miss the extra bass...

Thanks for your help.