Pictures of your speaker system

Hi guys. I thought I would post a quick shot of my system. It's my first 2-channel system, so I'm kind of just getting my feet wet in the speaker world and learning what my preferences are. Here's a quick rundown:

Speakers: Pioneer BS-22
Stands: TransDeco 32"
Preamp: Schiit SYS
Amp: SMSL SA-50 (class D, 50 wpc)

Speakers
My speakers are the well-known Pioneer BS-22. After owning these, I have tremendous respect for Andrew Jones. The sound quality per dollar that he was able to engineer into these speakers is impressive. I bought them on Amazon for $90. Nothing that costs $90 should sound this good or provide this much enjoyment. They're not the last word in clarity, but as Jones put it, "they fail in a nice way." Surprisingly good bass for a 4" woofer (down to 70 Hz, anyway). They are rear-ported, so I've got them a little over a foot away from the rear wall. They also don't sound anywhere near as good when they're not on stands, which I'll talk about next.

Stands
The stands are the real reason I made this post. Everybody knows about the BS-22, but I have read very little about the TransDeco stands. They feature a single sturdy steel tube, 3" in diameter. The bases are solid glass, 3/4" thick. Unloaded, they provide a majority of the mass for the stands. There are rear wire-routing holes at the bottom and the top of each tube (but not the glass base). The wire-routing holes are 13/16" in diameter, which is kind of a goofy size to buy hole plugs for. I ended up buying some cork stoppers from the hardware store, which worked great. I filled the stands with black aquarium gravel, about 25 lbs of fill total. I considered playground sand, but frankly didn't want to deal with such fine particles in my apartment.

Buying stands and properly securing the speakers with BluTack is one of the biggest upgrades I've made to my system to far. Before getting the stands, the BS-22 were sitting on the console in the photo (cardinal sin, I know). The bass was boomy, muddy, and one-note (of course I didn't know it at the time). Now the bass is quite articulate, although lacking somewhat in extension. I bought the stands (also on Amazon) for $115, and they're selling for $105 at the moment. (The irony that the stands cost more than the speakers is not lost on me...) I would much rather have these stands than the lower-tier MDF options. My opinion is that you would have to go all the way up to the Pangea stands at $250 to get a better 32-incher (or go DIY).

I chose 32" stands because I have a sort of modern couch that sits pretty low. With a 32" stand, the BS-22 tweeter is almost exactly at ear level for an average-height seated listener. My speakers are spaced roughly 6.5 feet apart currently. You might be surprised how good the soundstage and imaging from the BS-22's are given their pricetag. In my experience, proper mounting and placement made all the difference. That's my whole thing - to maximize the performance of the gear I have (and can afford).

Preamp and Amp
The SYS is the star of the show here. It's a superb passive pre that just gets out of the way. My only quibble is that the fit and finish could be a little better (nitpicking at $50). At roughly $70, the SA50 is a great value too. I think the SA50 and the BS-22 make a nice combination because the BS-22's are kind of inefficient and forgiving (85 dB/watt). The characteristics of the speakers cover up some of the flaws inherent with Class D, I think. The SA50 also has enough power to properly drive the BS22, whereas a Lepai at 20 wpc might not. If you need a cheap amp for a spare bedroom or something, the SA50 doesn't suck when paired with the right speakers. Overall, I'm super happy I didn't just go out and buy a new Onkyo receiver. At the very least, I learned a lot more by selecting all of my components individually.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for the wall of text!

 

Very interesting to see and (especially) read about what you have accomplished at your budget! (And it did not read as a wall of text, @monacelli .)

 

I moved the speakers and my two channel rig into my living room. For now everything is hooked up into my Onkyo receiver, which I found out I can bi-amp from using the rear channels to power the highs. Once I get the speakers serviced I’ll set that up. For now they sound pretty good, even though I want to upgrade my amp, turntable and DAC.

 

@monacelli nicely done

I run the tower pioneers in my tv setup with a small chip amp TDA 7498E with 35 volt power supply. Works great.

 

omg merrick there's someone in the room! look at the tv reflection! get outta there!

 

Dang, you beat me to it. I was going to go with a "it's coming from inside the house!!!" approach, but I was 35 minutes too late. Well played

 

Whoa, that's creepy as hell

 

@Merrick babes! How we doin??

 

Finally got my Orcas, so far they are great for acoustic and blues, but definitely lacking some low end. Resisted posting an update until I got these and the Eddie Current Transcription phono amp, gen1 of course. It sounds great paired with the 103r and my 445 amp. I’ll be very happy with this set up for a long time.

Edit: I should add, these have the Fe83SOL drivers installed. The updates compared to the Fe83EN include a new magnet, corrugated damper, and two layer paper cone. These changes are supposed to decrease distortion and increase resolution. I hadn’t heard the fe83en so I can’t really speak to any improvements on those, but I can say they have plenty of detail and sound pretty clean for such a small speaker, even when pushed quite hard. I can imagine this will only improve once they’ve been broken in some. End edit.

Treble isn’t too rolled for my taste in speakers and I’m pretty happy in that regard. Loads of mids, but I’ll definitely be adding a subwoofer that will work with these but also for something else in the future. Thinking the REL T/9i.

 

@bxh...

Beautiful table.

 

Significant upgrades since my last photo: Rearranged the rack. Saga preamp. Nighthawk phono. Dedicated netbook for digital music. EITR. Dampened CD player. CD rack (not pictured). Returned to headphones again lol.

Think I maxed out my 2 channel feels, unless I'm willing to drop another grand or two.

 

@Pyruvate Which speakers are those again?

 

The original Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1.

I'm happy with them and might grab a subwoofer to fill out the lower end more, but honestly I won't be upgrading until I can afford something like the Philharmonic 3's like @Dr. Higgs has.

Though I will do a detour and screw with fullrangers for a bit.

 

The matching stands from Blumenstein finally arrived so figured I'd post a pic. Excuse the crappy pic quality. Or not.

https://imgur.com/a/2ZtLm

 

Any impressions of those Blumensteins somewhere?

 

I don't think so. Before them I had Adam F5 powered montors. I haven't heard anthing else so my impressions would be kinda useless I think. I can say the obvious. They dig a bit deeper and in general sound better than the f5 but duh. According to Clark they are tuned to sound like his orca design but can be played louder. Sorry I'm not much help.

 

No worries. Good to be honest about it. Enjoy 'em

 

Very, very nice. Qualifies for the speaker-porn thread!

I was going to ask... Hifi experiment? Cat adventure furniture?