Urgent Speaker Recommendations for the sales please!

[Alsone]

Hi,

I'm taking the plunge with the onset of the sales.

My room is 14ft x 12ft approx with seat to screen at approx 10ft.

Screen will be 42" Plasma.

I've determined these are what i can afford. What are the best value / sounding speakers with movie / music. I'm planning an Onkyo 605 or 705 Receiver as the driving unit:

Quality and especially vocal presence are essential as sometimes I find vocals (but not other centre sounds) a little difficult to distinguish with my current all in one (old Panasonic SA-HT80) and I want to get away from that situation to more forcefully projected clarity. However, this shouldn't be at the expense of bass or surround sound:

1. Q ACOUSTICS 1010 5.1 SPEAKER PACKAGE £299

2. Q ACOUSTICS 1010 5.1 SPEAKER PACKAGE with 1030 FRONTS £399

3. WHARFEDALE DIAMOND 9 HCP HOME CINEMA SPEAKER SYSTEM £329

4. MISSION CINEMA M33i HOME CINEMA SPEAKER PACKAGE (M33i + M3C2i + M30i) £379.95

5. QUAD L-ITE 5.1 SPEAKER SYSTEM £599.95

6. MISSION M-CUBE 5.1 SPEAKER SYSTEM £599.95

7. KEF KHT3005 5.1 SPEAKER SYSTEM £599.95

My budget is really £500 and to spend less would be great but it could be stretched to £599 if there's something that really justifies the difference.

The prices are from the one place so I might even find cheaper but those are my current options.

 

[Clare Newsome]

At that budget, i'd go with the 'i' version of the Q Acoustics 1010 5.1 package - that's the 1010i. Will give you the best sound-per-pound out of all of those suggestions, with the dedicated centre channel delivering far more of that clarity you're after than the 'style' packages would.

Right, i'm off here before anyone notices i've broken my promise not to post on Christmas Day

 

[Alsone]

Another question for anyone around, if I could restrict my speakers to a £300 budget, then I might just be able to afford an Onkyo 875 amp in the sales. Would the better amp be a better partnership with cheaper speakers or would the better sound come from the mid range amp with better speakers?

 

[Anonymous]

Stick with the 605 and 1010i's if you got the 875 you would be looking at a different class/price of speaker altogether.I doubt any other posters have an 875 paired with anything less than 1000 pound worth of speaker.Good luck in the sales im gonna myself a buy pair of Monitor Audio BR5's

 

[Alsone]

PS Merry Christmas Claire / Marvins..

 

[Alsone]

Just to confuse matters further, I've just found an offer for:

1. Onkyo Sr605

2. KEF 3005SE's

3. £300 QED cables of your choice

for £1,300 the lot!!

Are the 3005SE's worth getting over the Q Acoustics 1010i's with the Sr605 if I manage to successfuly rework my budget around this?

Also, can the KEF's be wallmounted as standard or do they need seperate stands / brackets (important budget consideration) ?

To throw another spanner in the works there's a deal with Onkyo SR605 + Tannoy F1 Custom (doesn't say mercury but presume it is the same as states F1) for £1099.99. Lists the speakers as 2 pair of F1 custom book shelf speakers, 1 FC Centre speaker, 1 TS12 active sub woofer.

Recommendations?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Either offer package would be very good: the Tannoys will give a bigger, more powerful sound, while the KEFs will sound great and have cuteness on their side.

 

[Qwalme]

Mind if I ask where you found the deal with the KEF's?

Thats the setup I'm considering and it would be nice to get some cables for free

ty

 

[Anonymous]

What about the EPOS ELS3 5.1 SPEAKER SYSTEM at £699?

Is it better than the 1010i package? And the Kef KHT3005 package?

I'm after the Onkyo 605 too and I'm looking for good partners. I'm not too keen on the bulkiness of the 1010is.

Anyone now how good the ELS package is? WhatHifi gave it an only a year ago and at this price it seems cheap?

 

[Alsone]

A1 Sound Sheffield - http://www.a1-sound.co.uk

The offer is for QED cables but it does say subject to negotiation so there may be some restriction as to the model of cable they're prepared to include as a part of the deal.

 

[Anonymous]

I am a new comer, My budget is only £800 for receiver and 5.1 speakers. I am wondering whether I should go for Q acoustics 1010 or 2000. My thought is Q 2000, but there are bad experiences about the Sub. Totally confusing now, any suggestion will be very appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Always cut the red wire!]

Hi,

I bought the Tannoys from superfi. You can get the Tannoy Mercury custom F1 5.1 for £370 or the same setup with a pair of F3 (floorstanders) for £410.

This was over £1000 new and got lots of 5* awards.

I've got it married to an Onkyo amp. Arrived yesterday so can't comment yet on the sound. But it was a STEAL!!!

 

[Steve Reichert PR Manager ArmourHome]

Hi dtuan and everyone,

I think it's about time I came
back onto the forums to point out some facts regarding reliability of the Q
Acoustics 2070S subwoofer. I have to reiterate we genuinely haven't had a
'major problem'. Yes, a number of our customers have experienced failures with
the subwoofer, which is extremely disappointing for them and therefore very bad
news for us. We sincerely apologise to those customers for the obvious inconvenience this must
have caused.

However,
whereas the number of failures has been higher than we would have wished (we
aim for zero) it is still extremely low as a percentage of the numbers sold and
well within what is regarded as 'normal' for consumer electronics.

This doesn't mean we viewed the situation as acceptable. As previously alluded
to on the forums, we have never been able make a Q2070S subwoofer fail. We have
tried to induce/reproduce the fault in dozens of units. We have overdriven
them, over heated them, fast cooled them and switched them on and off rapidly
thousands of times. We have also carried out these tests at the correct, and
then over and under voltage mains currents. In all these tests not a single
unit has failed. We did manage to trip out the protection circuits on a handful
of units, all of which worked perfectly again after a minute or so.

So what is our conclusion? Well, because we have been unable to reproduce the
problem we cannot be absolutely sure, but we believe that a small number of
substandard components, that appeared to be perfect and carried the correct
markings, were somehow used in a production batch earlier in 2010.

Despite not discovering any definite cause, we have made production changes to
the 2070S power supply by introducing both more stringent component testing and
a number of higher rated components to the circuit.

Our 'returns rate' for the 2070S has been steadily improving since the summer,
but whether that is the result of improvements we have made to the power supply
or simply that we have now replaced all the units the may have contained suspect
components is impossible to tell.

Very best regards,

Steve Reichert - PR Manager, Armour Home (Q Acoustics)