charbs152

thinking of upgrading audio. need some opinions
i currently have a vintage onkyo 4ohm amp with custom made towers. sounds good, but i know i can get better.


i had some questions about the speakers. i was looking at cerwin vegas.

the frequency response is 26hz-20khz . i see other speakers going up to 40khz. would i be loosing out on a lot of audio with the cerwin vegas?

i listen to mostly blues and rock. hendrix, clapton, stevie ray vaughan, pink floyd etc.....

receiver http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=...s=Receiver&p=i

speakers http://www.cerwinvega.com/VE15F.php


i already have a cd player. also i dont want to hear people tell me to get a surround receiver. im not buying surround, i want quality STEREO.

im also looking into Polk and JBL for speakers

charbs152

bump

Mikecdm

I have a feeling that your old vintage onkyo would sound better than the new one, but that's just a wild guess.

As for the vegas, I bet they can get loud and can pound out the bass, but don't know too much about sound quality. I don't think critical listening is designers intent when they made these speakers.

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lozanoa11

In case you did no know the human ear can only hear up to kHz (in most cases) and down to 20Hz. A sub should be handling the lower end anyway. Like the above poster said, they are not audiophile grade speakers but they would sound good probably and I don't think you would be missing out on any part of the spectrum.

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sccr64472

I'm going to assume that was a typo and you actually meant 20 khz. Anyways, the point in raising the higher end of the frequency response is in hopes of having it go to 20 khz flat and not have a rolloff. When you look at frequency response, pay attention to the +/- after the given frequency range. Without it, the stated range is useless. In a perfect world, a speaker is flat from 20 hz to 20 khz. If a speaker is 20 to 20khz, but with +/- 8 db, then the stated range is extremely misleading. Also, choosing a speaker from stats isn't a good way about selecting one. There are far too many variables and ones that simply aren't going to show on paper. Everybody's ears are different and what may sound harsh to you, may be perfect for the next guy with high frequency hearing damage. Also, unfortunately for a passive crossover, the better the crossover, the more power is robbed from the speaker's available power. It's a true trade off.

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charbs152

really? you think my vintage onkyo will be better than this new one?? i wish i could test it out



also, why wouldn't the cerwin Vegas sound good? my father said he had a pair long ago and he raves about them. i also had a teacher who i talked about audio with and he said he has an old pair and loves them?


thanks. i know about listening to the equipment before you buy. but there are no places around here anymore. its all home theater with p**sy speakers for surround. i remember years ago going to audio stores with my dad and they would have listening rooms filled with speakers, amps, you name it they had it. true good audio is dieing and its sad, but there isnt anywhere for me to test any of these speakers. ive been to every place withing 2 hrs of my house and its all the same home theater BS.

LukeG

Its true and not true at the same time. Drivers are now smaller and simply have better engineering. The 15inch drivers and 10-12s are not needed.

In my town there is only one store with decent speakers. The rest are htib like futureshop etc.

Personally, I like bigger drivers, in a 3way too, but you just dont see that with dedicated subs. And thats why I had to build my mains.

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charbs152

yea man its sad to see that you can get this anymore

charbs152

bump

Mikecdm

I feel that the older stereo receivers were better made than most current models. I had this old stereo thing that my neighbor gave me, no name brand, and had it connected to my insignia speakers. They sounded pretty good to me, but the stereo was lacking in the features dept and was in need of a remote. I bought a clearance denon 7.1 for $130, which originally retailed for $400. It's rated at 80w per channel and the sound pails in comparison to the old, no name antique thing.

I have friends with some of these vintage stereo's; pioneer, onkyo, marantz, and they are power houses. Easily push speakers to ear bleeding levels. [The downside is that they sometimes lack in convenience features.

As for Cerwin Vega, I think their time has passed. I remember liking some of their speakers when I was 12yrs old, about 15yrs ago, and what caught my attention was their ability to play loud and tons of bass. As I listened to more speakers I realized that the CV's weren't what I wanted. I heard speakers that had better sound, just didn't have that over emphasized bass.

Nowadays, we have tall skinny tower speakers with multiple drivers to make up for that larger driver. It probably has more to do with aesthetics than anything else. I'm sure that women don't want multiple large boxes sitting in their living room. They have a large enough top to where they can put a ton of junk on top of them, but as soon as they start playing, all that stuff is going to fall off.

Now most of the speakers in the lower end market can probably not compare in output to the CV's. I personally don't think most of the tower speakers in the $200-300 range sound any good. The first time that I was impressed with some tower speakers was when I heard some B&W 603's. They only have a 6 1/2" mid/bass and another 6 1/2 driver. These were powered off a 125w rotel amp. This was my first time listening to any B&W speakers and I couldn't beleive the sound. The bass wasn't exaggerated, but it had a nice punch and seemed pretty accurate. But then again, the pair went for $1k.

Most shops now are going towards Home theater and it's hard to find a good shop. Where I live now, I haven't seen one shop that has a dedicated listening room just for speakers. I bought my stuff when I lived in Cali and there were plenty of places that I could listen to music.

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