The last thread was locked but I wanted to give my perspective on it as someone who has gone from a £20 5.1 set to owning some stuff which cant really be bettered without huge outlay within 2 years.
First set of speakers were terrible, and I mean really bad. When the "subwoofer" of the set was 3 inches I think this gives your some idea...
After that I got a pair of wharfedale valdus 500's and a tangent amp 50. Whole new class of sound, the difference was a bit like the graphical difference between gameboy colour vs a ps3. Upgraded the tangent to an arcam alpha 9, difference was again massive, forget tiny discrepincies you need a computer to measure...you could physically see the difference the amp had on tracks like bass I love you, the tangent seemed to jerk the cones around whereas the arcam smoothly moved them from one position to another. I am a believer that amps make a difference. Can't comment on higher end amps than the alpha 9 though.
Then I got a pair of active studio monitors which retailed for £2000 for £600, big difference, but wouldnt describe it as night and day. Apart from bass they did crank a fair bit louder though.
When I said I had some stuff which couldn't be bettered easily I was referring to the subs I built. Bought 2 fi q 18's for £50 each from a friend. Power them with a 1500w rms a side pro amp (8 ohms) from ebay (£120). They retail at £300 for each cone and are the sound quality reference line of the company. With a peak to peak of 3 inches they are monsters. Originally installed them in sealed encloures but was tempted to install pr's after a week or so. intalled 2 18inc pr's in each sub, excursion is slightly greater than the fi's. The bass is monsterous, at the time I auditioned a friends a svs ultra but the output wasn't even close. To say the subs outgun a £8000 jl gotham would be a bit like saying blu ray is better than black and white.
After using a graphic equiliser I get a flat response (within 2db) from 10-150hz at 115db. If im doing a party I eq down to 20hz and run everything on max. Can easily get well over 130 db in room from 25hz and up.
So my point is for subs at the difference (for me at least) between budget (warfedale sw 150, sounded like a fart box to be honest, port noise constrains it and it makes so much noise not related to bass I struggle to see how it got 5 stars, but who am I to judge?) and what I have now is huge. I would even say the difference is as big as between the computer 5.1 set and the first seperates set I owned. However between the valdus speakers which generally considered low end boom boxes and the active monitors the difference wasn't nearly as great. The difference was however still significant, and to me worth the money.
Having heard a b and w 802 while my parents were at a hifi shop I can safely say I won't be spending £30000 on a hifi system any time soon.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading, I would disagree with regards to bass at least (I cerainly don't feel that I have enough experience to comment on other frquencies) that a £600 setup (+ say £200 for a sub) will get to 90% of a higher end setup...PS my hearing is fine (for the moment at least) can hear to 21khz (in my right ear), 17 in my left...I blame the ipod, will never use headphones again...
First set of speakers were terrible, and I mean really bad. When the "subwoofer" of the set was 3 inches I think this gives your some idea...
After that I got a pair of wharfedale valdus 500's and a tangent amp 50. Whole new class of sound, the difference was a bit like the graphical difference between gameboy colour vs a ps3. Upgraded the tangent to an arcam alpha 9, difference was again massive, forget tiny discrepincies you need a computer to measure...you could physically see the difference the amp had on tracks like bass I love you, the tangent seemed to jerk the cones around whereas the arcam smoothly moved them from one position to another. I am a believer that amps make a difference. Can't comment on higher end amps than the alpha 9 though.
Then I got a pair of active studio monitors which retailed for £2000 for £600, big difference, but wouldnt describe it as night and day. Apart from bass they did crank a fair bit louder though.
When I said I had some stuff which couldn't be bettered easily I was referring to the subs I built. Bought 2 fi q 18's for £50 each from a friend. Power them with a 1500w rms a side pro amp (8 ohms) from ebay (£120). They retail at £300 for each cone and are the sound quality reference line of the company. With a peak to peak of 3 inches they are monsters. Originally installed them in sealed encloures but was tempted to install pr's after a week or so. intalled 2 18inc pr's in each sub, excursion is slightly greater than the fi's. The bass is monsterous, at the time I auditioned a friends a svs ultra but the output wasn't even close. To say the subs outgun a £8000 jl gotham would be a bit like saying blu ray is better than black and white.
After using a graphic equiliser I get a flat response (within 2db) from 10-150hz at 115db. If im doing a party I eq down to 20hz and run everything on max. Can easily get well over 130 db in room from 25hz and up.
So my point is for subs at the difference (for me at least) between budget (warfedale sw 150, sounded like a fart box to be honest, port noise constrains it and it makes so much noise not related to bass I struggle to see how it got 5 stars, but who am I to judge?) and what I have now is huge. I would even say the difference is as big as between the computer 5.1 set and the first seperates set I owned. However between the valdus speakers which generally considered low end boom boxes and the active monitors the difference wasn't nearly as great. The difference was however still significant, and to me worth the money.
Having heard a b and w 802 while my parents were at a hifi shop I can safely say I won't be spending £30000 on a hifi system any time soon.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading, I would disagree with regards to bass at least (I cerainly don't feel that I have enough experience to comment on other frquencies) that a £600 setup (+ say £200 for a sub) will get to 90% of a higher end setup...PS my hearing is fine (for the moment at least) can hear to 21khz (in my right ear), 17 in my left...I blame the ipod, will never use headphones again...
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