Speakers Thread: The Other headphone.

I haven't seen a thread on loudspeakers on here yet so I figured I'd make one. I'm sure there is quite a bit of cross hobbyists on this forum and I love to see your setups. So I'll kick things off with my 2.2 multi purpose system.







Speakers: B&W DM3000, Big rare 1980s B&W that sat right below the 8XX line, 2.5 ways with passive radiator and a pentagonal cabinet. They love power, sound is pretty similar to the Series II 802s I've heard, I think they look wonderfully modern for a speaker that was built a month after I was born. They image better the more I pull them into the room, but my new listening space is pretty placement limited by she who must be obeyed. The best couple hundred bucks I've ever spent in audio, love the piano black finish, except that I have to constantly clean kitty paw prints off it.

Subs: PartsExpress 4.3cft boxes with a Stereo Integrity HT-18 and a Dayton RSS460HO, they model so close that the driver mismatch isn't a big deal to me. Cheap rock solid bottom end, not really needed for most music, but makes a world of difference in come genres and is wonderful for movies. Ugly and I need to finish them in some Duratex black to match the rest of my gear, most likely a winter project.

Amps:
Mains: Anthem i225, an ugly Canadian black metal box, but boy does she make good power wonderful laid back sound with the B&W less bright than my Crown and Emotiva gear I had previously, I also appreciate the remote, preamp outs, and the XLR inputs, a pretty damn good deal for an integrated amp for they sell for used.

Subs: Berhinger iNuke NU-6000DSP, do you need 1500+(4ohm) watts per channel for sub duty, and DSP, and less than $400 to spend then this is what you buy, easy to use, light as feather, grips the lowest frequencies with ease. Not the kind of amp I'd use on a pair of speakers but for it's job there is no substitute in it's price range. I may defeat the lights and paint it black eventually.

Sources:
Digital: PS3, hey it's a good BD player and a cheap media server rolled into one, I had it laying around after selling my Marantz UD5005 and I rarely lsiten to CDs or SACDs which was the only area I felt the Marantz bested it.

Tape: Nakamichi BX300: The best midrange 3 head deck Nak ever made IMHO, I had a ZX-9 for a time and in terms of recording it destroyed the BX300, but in terms of playback they where close enough that I sold the ZX9 one and kept it's little brother. I love tape, I know it's not hi-fi, but there's a certain enjoyable sound to it, and on a good deck the loss in fidelity is not readily apparent , at least to my ears.

TV: Samsung 60" F5300, the last of the Plasmas got it on close out for peanuts, wonderful PQ, and I have no desire to chase the 4k Dragon for a while until it all settles down.

Power: Belkin PureAV pf60: No frills line conditioning and protector, also has timed banks and a can be triggered, nice for automation and peace of mind. I don't think it makes an audible difference.

Not Pictured: Due to having a sub-optimal seating position against the long wall, I have 4 2x2' acoustic panels using 2" of recycled denim batting inside 4" deep frames, covered in a pattern fabric of her decorative choosing, tames the high frequency wall bounce nicely.

I look forward to seeing all of your setups!

 

I don't have a current picture, but my setup is really simple these days. I use to do the whole home theater thing with 5.1 and all that, but I found that I didn't really use it that much and many of the Bluray and DVD surround sound mixes don't add that much to the movie experience for me (everyone is different though). I also did a lot of testing in my main listening area (complete acoustical analysis), and I found my room does a lot to change the sound. Since, I didn't plan to make my room look like a spaceship with all of the acoustical treatments required to make it sound better, I have just a modest 2.0 setup (not even a separate subwoofer). It is simply a Denon 3808CI (roughly 7 years old now) driven by a Violectric V800 DAC to improve the sound significantly over the internal DAC, and I only use the amp portion of the Denon to power even older Polk Audio RT1000p speakers. Even with all of the issues with my main listening room and ancient equipment, it sounds pretty good. If I require/desire higher fidelity, I put on a pair of headphones where I can take the room out of the equation. Although, I do enjoy listening to my speakers too, and my cat likes to sing along too. Go figure.

 

My speakers - Dunlavy SC-IV - have somewhat unusual setup requirements. They have to sit on the long wall, spread as far apart as possible (given the working limitations) almost completely toe'd into the listening seat that's situated exactly 10' from each baffle. 10' is where the speakers become time-aligned. As such, I don't have a camera with a wide-angle lens to capture the setup. One speaker can be seen in my avatar, the other is 12' away. The effect isn't all that dissimilar to headphones, but with an actual soundstage that allows for pin-point identification of spatial relationships and an ability to pressurize the room with the resolution to match. Krell electronics, VPI/Oppo front end.

Our HT system is 2-channel, as well. Klipsch Heresy 1.5 driven by an older Panasonic digital receiver - anyone remember those? - in conjunction with a 2x18" subwoofer (using a MLTL alignment) that's built into the house. We estimate its sensitivity at +100dB/meter @ 4 Ohm. It's driven by a Samson pro amp and will take the garage door off its hinges. Seriously. Compared to the music system, it's nothing terribly fancy, really. The bass is, well, incredible and great for movies, but lacks the refinement for musical reproduction.

 

My speaker setup is a pair of B&W 685 S2s on stands hooked up to a cheap Marantz receiver. This mainly gets used for turntable and TV/movies. Sometimes I want a sub, but it always sounds like too much of a hassle once I start looking into it. I'm considering building a pair of power amps just for the hell of it.