New Speakers for Surround Sound / Music System.....

[ukgthor]

I am in the market for some new speakers. I have recently purchased a Pioneer SC-LX81 Receiver and Pioneer BDP-LX71 Bluray player and I want to complement these with a decent pair of fronts, centre, satellite rears and a sub.

After doing some research and reading some reviews, I had the B&W 705 (senior management won't let me have floor standers) in mind, however when I went to my local specialist and he completely dismissed B&W as an option from both a quality and VFM perspective and he went onto recommended some monitor audios and a n other brand that I can't remember.

So the questions that I have are twofold:

1. Are the 705's good speakers, will they compliment the SC-LX81 and if I continue down this route, what centre, rear satellites and sub would you recommend

2. If you agree with my local specialist and avoid the 705's, what would be a good replacement to audition and what centre, rear satellites and sub would you recommend to compliment.

Within reason, the budget isn't really a problem, as long as I get the right setup that will last me a few years.

Ta.

 

[Sorreltiger]

You need to decide how much you want to spend, really. ÿThe B&W 685 Theatre package would give you great pleasure at £1200 (better thought-of than the 705s), but your Pioneer receiver would support speaker sets costing much more. ÿAt £1600, the Monitor Audio Silvers would be a good buy.

 

[ukgthor]

Thanks for the quick reply. In regard to budget, I am prepared to go upto £4k for the fronts, centre, sub and rears.

My thinking is to obey senior management and go for the stand speakers for the front, with a view to bringing her round to my way of thinking and move the stand speakers to the rear and buy some new floorstanders in the medium term.

Any more opinions out there ?

 

[Frank Harvey]

There are plenty of alternatives to the 705, which are in dire need of updating as they're about 5 years old now. There are some great choices like the Dali Mentor 1, KEF XQ30's, Dynaudio Excite X16's, Monitor Audio GS10's, and Proac Studio 110's. All can be nurtured into a nice 5.1/7.1 system eventually, and will all perform well with music as well as movies. All these manufacturers will have matching centres and subs for these ranges, but you could also look at differnt manufacturers for the sub as matching these is less important. You could look at the likes of Sunfire if you want something fairly small, or M&K.

Hopefully B&W will anounce something soon and get back in the action.

Regards

David