I need help setting up my living room with good sound.
For years I have been using and enjoying sound coming from my 4 cabinet-type 3-way speakers (12" woofer, approx. 5" midrange, tweeter) purchased in the early 90s, powered by a vintage Marantz model 2235B (IIRC) I inherited from my parents. My speakers were stacked 2 high like this:
L R
L R
The sound coming from this arrangement, especially the bass and volume, was "fantastically spectacular". The bass was very clear and would rock me in my living room. The bass tone control would allow a very high gain, and I would never ever run it at a high gain because just a little over zero was enough. I had become very spoiled by it, that is until the sound began popping and cutting out from L & R channels. I cleaned the inside of the receiver but that didn't help. Over time I grew frustrated with it and eventually threw it out. The one thing I had a small hard time with this Marantz was that I could not vary the volume using a remote control since it was pre-remote-control era. So whatever I had driving the Marantz, beit the TV audio or sound input from my laptop, I always varied the volume by varying the input's driver volume.
In the Marantz's place I put an 90s Onkyo I had laying around (still, no remote control), with fairly decent tone gain controls (bass & treble). The bass was not as full as the Marantz, but it was right on the edge of acceptable for me. Recently I purchased a Vizio 55" TV model E552VL, and of course I am piping the audio out of the TV to my Onkyo's input. When I did this I also changed the arrangement of my speakers; now they are 4 across on the floor in a row:
LLRR
I discovered that when the TV's audio is set to "variable output", the quality of the sound suffers; that is, the bass is seriously attenuated. Not good for this bass lover. This is obviously a flaw within the TV. I determined that the only suitable output from the TV would be "fixed output", as that setting seems to allow the full audio spectrum to pass through. But with a fixed output, I can no longer control the volume.
So then I decided to get a new receiver that has a remote control. I purchased a Pioneer VSX-820 (owner's manual) for about $230 thinking it would solve my problems. First of all, this has all of the features of a modern day receiver, and is quite complex and complicated to understand for a guy like me who simply wants a L and R channel! After several hours of fooling around with the settings, I finally was able to get it to work like a standard 2 channel stereo, putting the bass up to the max of +6. And although the product literature indicates the freq response is 20hz to 20,000hz, I am once again NOT impressed with the bass response. In fact, there is too much midrange, and there is no control to allow me to reduce it. Also, the features on this device are way overkill. I don't even need a tuner because if I wanted to listen to FM I could simply connect an MP3 player with built-in tuner. I can still return this Pioneer.
So then I considered perhaps purchasing a line-level multi-band equalizer so that I can hook it to the Pioneer to trim the sound just the way I like it. But this receiver apparently has no loop-type input/output where I could connect an eq. One option is that I could connect the eq. to the input but then my FM wouldn't go through the eq. You might say I am going in circles here, but if I have a receiver that does indeed pickup FM and have the capability of switching through a bunch of different line level inputs, I would like to utilize that functionality. But like I said the external eq wouldn't work with FM and I wouldn't be able to select different line level inputs if I had an eq. on the input because the other inputs would bypass the eq. I would want the eq. to be applied to any and ALL inputs!
I am really frustrated now. I don't want to have to go buy a subwoofer as I know my speakers can reproduce the bass. I figured out that all I really need is a high quality amp with a built-in equalizer and a remote control to control the volume, about 100 watts per channel for 2 channels. If it doesn't have a built-in eq then I could purchase such separately. I considered buying another vintage Marantz but I am still without volume control for my fixed input TV. It seems that I shouldn't have to spend a grand to accomplish this. $300-$400 seems reasonable.
I am not open to getting one of those "canned" surround sound receiver & speaker systems with subwoofer. They just don't sound full enough to me.
Any suggestions, please & thank you very much.
For years I have been using and enjoying sound coming from my 4 cabinet-type 3-way speakers (12" woofer, approx. 5" midrange, tweeter) purchased in the early 90s, powered by a vintage Marantz model 2235B (IIRC) I inherited from my parents. My speakers were stacked 2 high like this:
L R
L R
The sound coming from this arrangement, especially the bass and volume, was "fantastically spectacular". The bass was very clear and would rock me in my living room. The bass tone control would allow a very high gain, and I would never ever run it at a high gain because just a little over zero was enough. I had become very spoiled by it, that is until the sound began popping and cutting out from L & R channels. I cleaned the inside of the receiver but that didn't help. Over time I grew frustrated with it and eventually threw it out. The one thing I had a small hard time with this Marantz was that I could not vary the volume using a remote control since it was pre-remote-control era. So whatever I had driving the Marantz, beit the TV audio or sound input from my laptop, I always varied the volume by varying the input's driver volume.
In the Marantz's place I put an 90s Onkyo I had laying around (still, no remote control), with fairly decent tone gain controls (bass & treble). The bass was not as full as the Marantz, but it was right on the edge of acceptable for me. Recently I purchased a Vizio 55" TV model E552VL, and of course I am piping the audio out of the TV to my Onkyo's input. When I did this I also changed the arrangement of my speakers; now they are 4 across on the floor in a row:
LLRR
I discovered that when the TV's audio is set to "variable output", the quality of the sound suffers; that is, the bass is seriously attenuated. Not good for this bass lover. This is obviously a flaw within the TV. I determined that the only suitable output from the TV would be "fixed output", as that setting seems to allow the full audio spectrum to pass through. But with a fixed output, I can no longer control the volume.
So then I decided to get a new receiver that has a remote control. I purchased a Pioneer VSX-820 (owner's manual) for about $230 thinking it would solve my problems. First of all, this has all of the features of a modern day receiver, and is quite complex and complicated to understand for a guy like me who simply wants a L and R channel! After several hours of fooling around with the settings, I finally was able to get it to work like a standard 2 channel stereo, putting the bass up to the max of +6. And although the product literature indicates the freq response is 20hz to 20,000hz, I am once again NOT impressed with the bass response. In fact, there is too much midrange, and there is no control to allow me to reduce it. Also, the features on this device are way overkill. I don't even need a tuner because if I wanted to listen to FM I could simply connect an MP3 player with built-in tuner. I can still return this Pioneer.
So then I considered perhaps purchasing a line-level multi-band equalizer so that I can hook it to the Pioneer to trim the sound just the way I like it. But this receiver apparently has no loop-type input/output where I could connect an eq. One option is that I could connect the eq. to the input but then my FM wouldn't go through the eq. You might say I am going in circles here, but if I have a receiver that does indeed pickup FM and have the capability of switching through a bunch of different line level inputs, I would like to utilize that functionality. But like I said the external eq wouldn't work with FM and I wouldn't be able to select different line level inputs if I had an eq. on the input because the other inputs would bypass the eq. I would want the eq. to be applied to any and ALL inputs!
I am really frustrated now. I don't want to have to go buy a subwoofer as I know my speakers can reproduce the bass. I figured out that all I really need is a high quality amp with a built-in equalizer and a remote control to control the volume, about 100 watts per channel for 2 channels. If it doesn't have a built-in eq then I could purchase such separately. I considered buying another vintage Marantz but I am still without volume control for my fixed input TV. It seems that I shouldn't have to spend a grand to accomplish this. $300-$400 seems reasonable.
I am not open to getting one of those "canned" surround sound receiver & speaker systems with subwoofer. They just don't sound full enough to me.
Any suggestions, please & thank you very much.
I guess the measurement was taken at 50% distortion to reach this level 
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