Bose 901 speakers and GS500

[jdanna]

Depends on what kind of music do you listen to and how much you want to spend.  If you were planning to get new 901's (~ $1500), then you have a wide range of options.  For that much, check out Boston Acoustics.  Klipsch is also good, and much cheaper.  Check out crutchfield for recommendations based on price range.

+1 on the bostons - ive always loved them. bose in general is overpriced rubbish.

BUT, if you are thinking of spending some money on good speakers, some to look at:

http://www.mksound.com/
http://www.genelec.com/

both make professional speakers, but they have a consumerish line too. If you can find some used cheap, i would say go for it, but new they are expensive as hell.
but we use them in all our edit rooms and studios.

most important thing is what sounds good to you. listen to anything before you buy it.

[Jenya]

HIFI is actually my hobby. I am not very brand name literate, as make all the gear myself. Making a yet another vacuum tube amplifier at the moment.

One thing I notice, is that when audiophiles search for the harshest insult about somebody's setup, they inevitably compare it to Bose.

I would suggest you post your question on this board. State your budget and you will get heaps of advice with brand names you had never heard.
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/bbs.html

There is alot to a quality sound reproduction and an amplifier to speaker matching is important. But as a general rule, you would achieve better results ( dynamics in particular) with speakers that have higher sensitivity, above 90db/m/w

A higher number of ways of a speaker doesn't neccesserelly translates into a better quality. In fact, there is a school of thought that single driver speakers result in the best sound, but those speakers, as a rule, are huge. However, I wouldn't turn away from a nice 2-way speaker that does its job well within a reasonalbe frequency range. Such speaker may not exactly make your prostate gland resonate every time there is an explosion in the movie, but it may do everything else very well. I'll take a speaker with realistic, well defined mid-bass, mids and trebble to the one that is only capable of producing a bloated low rumble, as often heard from subwoofers and car trunks, any day.


Jenya

[sanjay]

+1 on the bostons - ive always loved them. bose in general is overpriced rubbish.

BUT, if you are thinking of spending some money on good speakers, some to look at:

http://www.mksound.com/
http://www.genelec.com/

both make professional speakers, but they have a consumerish line too. If you can find some used cheap, i would say go for it, but new they are expensive as hell.
but we use them in all our edit rooms and studios.

most important thing is what sounds good to you. listen to anything before you buy it.

Yeah my dad has some VR3's, and they're wonderful.  Also, jdanna's absolutely right about listening to what sounds good to you.  It also depends on what you can and can't hear - my dad can pick things out that I can't.   

But for needing speakers for TV and classic rock, I don't think fidelity is too high on the list.  Just know that you can do better than Bose for the money.

[The Buddha]

I saw some Klipsch pretty cheap. Now they have like 5 channel or just 2 or what ... like a sub woofer ... satellite tweeters
Yea ... I am that clue less.
Cool.
Srinath.

[Yankee Punker]

 A 5 channel is the 2 main speakers left and right, 1 center speaker, and 2 surround speaker left and right.

[The Buddha]

Oh yea ... OK them Klipsch people selling just 2 ... so now what ... can it cover all the frequencies or am I going to be short again ...
BTW I only have 2 right now. But these are like sony straight stereo crap ... not wanna be home theater.
Cool.
Srinath.

[yamahonkawazuki]

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=1710590&cid=99669&fp=F

http://www.nextag.com/klipsch-home-theater-system/search-html

[Yankee Punker]

 I would say just start with replacing the two Sony speakers, I'm sure those Klipsch ones will sound better, and then if you dont get enough of the low end bass from them you can find a small sub-woofer to add at a later date, thats what I did.

[yamahonkawazuki]

HIFI is actually my hobby. I am not very brand name literate, as make all the gear myself. Making a yet another vacuum tube amplifier at the moment.

One thing I notice, is that when audiophiles search for the harshest insult about somebody's setup, they inevitably compare it to Bose.

I would suggest you post your question on this board. State your budget and you will get heaps of advice with brand names you had never heard.
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/bbs.html

There is alot to a quality sound reproduction and an amplifier to speaker matching is important. But as a general rule, you would achieve better results ( dynamics in particular) with speakers that have higher sensitivity, above 90db/m/w

A higher number of ways of a speaker doesn't neccesserelly translates into a better quality. In fact, there is a school of thought that single driver speakers result in the best sound, but those speakers, as a rule, are huge. However, I wouldn't turn away from a nice 2-way speaker that does its job well within a reasonalbe frequency range. Such speaker may not exactly make your prostate gland resonate every time there is an explosion in the movie, but it may do everything else very well. I'll take a speaker with realistic, well defined mid-bass, mids and trebble to the one that is only capable of producing a bloated low rumble, as often heard from subwoofers and car trunks, any day.


Jenya

hey jenya, when you get thaT amp finished, post a pic or 2 of it will ya?, tube amps have always been my weakness, that and or mcintosh as well

[jdanna]

hey jenya, when you get thaT amp finished, post a pic or 2 of it will ya?, tube amps have always been my weakness, that and or mcintosh as well

i have an old scottkit tube amp from late 50s/early 60s
its a bit rough looking, but it sounds GREAT.

[Wrecent_Wryder]

I4

[Jenya]

I don't have any pictures of my speaker amp, but here are some of the pictures of the headphone amplifier project.

This was one version that was based on the Russian military tubes from Russian jet fighters.
http://culbertfamily.com/jenya/hifi/SE%206C45.jpg
http://culbertfamily.com/jenya/hifi/6C45PE.JPG


I then made a headphone amplifier based on a different circuit topology. It didn't go beyond the prototype stage and looked like this
http://culbertfamily.com/jenya/hifi/6c45-12b4/12b4-1.JPG
http://culbertfamily.com/jenya/hifi/12b4-12b4/DSC00148.JPG

Currently, I am using an amp that evolved from the mess on the picutre above to an even larger mess. It sounds real good, but I will be waiting with making a pretty box for it before I try a yet another completely different circuit and then compare the sounds. The next amp will be based, again, on the Russian military tube that is used in ballitic missiles.


I focus mainly on designing a headphone amplifier at this point, because, firstly, I work as a progreammer and listen to headphones all day long, and, secondly, it is easier and cheaper to flush out a design on a small power amplifier before making a speaker amp.


Jenya

[yamahonkawazuki]

impressive. i might have to have you build me one of these, heh ive been a tube afficionado for quite a long time

[makenzie71]

$400 = too much for 901 V's.  IV ~ VI they're pretty much the same, and I sold my IV's for $250...and that was with a spare box and set of drivers.

The 901's sound really good but no...not a lot of bass.  They're mostly mid-range speakers but they handle treble decently.  The systems are made using eight 4" speakers in a reflex box.  The biggest problem you'll see with the 901's is that the diaphrams around the speakers are almost always rotted.  Don't worry about that, though...I would actually look for it because you can get a badass deal on them that way.  Whether the diaphrams are damaged or not, IMMEDIATELY buy a cloth repair kit (ebay or any audio shop) and replace the diaphrams.  The cloth diaphrams give better sound and will last forever.

I used two 901 IV's, two Bose 50w satalites, and a 200w powered subwoofer with an old kenwood reciever for my audio...it was a little underpowered but it made decent noise in my small room.

If you want to do something badass, and do it cheap, though:

Old school Dolby 4.0 Kenwood reciever
Two Sony MHG-110F shelf system speakers (or any of the MHG speakers...they're all basically the same)
Two Jensen 8" Subwoofer tubes (used to sell at wal-mart...now can only find them on ebay...they're badass)

I don't remember the model of my reciever, but they go for about $20 on Ebay.  The whole system cost me about $100 to assemble and I run the speakers off the left/right channels.  I can hook satalites up but I've not needed to.  This thing, as is, produces more sound than anything else I've tinkered with and it's amazing sound.  Max volume and shaZam! starts falling off the fridge.  Bonus is that it has about a dozen inputs so I run everything to it from the dvd and tv to the ps2 and PC.  It also has A and B primary channels so if I'm not watching a movie I can put it on the B channels and power six 6X9's throughout my house for a global system.

[Jenya]

impressive. i might have to have you build me one of these, heh ive been a tube afficionado for quite a long time

What kind of tube gear do you like? tuners? Amps? What type of circuits? Single Ended? Push-Pull? Do tell...

My previous experiences mainly dealt with Single Ended triode circuits, which are great, but have one problem - the need for the expensive output transformer. There is a handfull of people in the World who still posses the black art of winding quality output transformers and they are in the highest demand, which translates into $$$$. My next amplifier will be of, what they call, "Output Transformer-Less" design, or shortly "OTL". As the name implies, the circuit doesn't call for the expensive output transformer, which is good for two reasons: 1) no need to wait for months for the custom tranformer to be wound and shell out a heap of money for it and 2) it has the potential of sounding better as the tranformers, event the best ones, add lots of nasty effects and the sound may become clearer, more transparent and have a better resoluton when the signal is taken from the amp directly and not via an output transformer.

But as everything in life, nothing comes for free and there is always some trade off. It is important to understand the compromises that come with every solution to a problem.

Jenya

Jenya

[97gs500e]

installing a stereo on the old GS?