Does anyone have any suggestions for a cheap-ish set of bookshelf speakers?

Does anyone have any suggestions for a cheap-ish set of bookshelf speakers?

The Debut B5's are supposedly amazing at about 320USD, but I've seen some criticisms recently that are putting me off.

Other urls found in this thread:

amazon.co.uk/SA-50-TDA7492-Stereo-Amplifier-Adapter/dp/B008Y7S1GG
arqen.com/acoustics-101/room-setup-acoustic-treatment/
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since cheapish hifi speakers usually don't really follow any standards in terms of linearity, directivity, distortion and the measurements (if they exist) are usually incomplete as fuck the main criteria when buying should be: do you like them
so go to a store, compare different stuff, and take home the ones you like best

jbl lsr305, can't be beaten for the price

I brought those recently
sound very nice

Check out the Pioneer Andrew jones lineup

What is your budget and do you have things like an amp etc already?

I have an amp already, I'll get a sub at a later date - my budget is £200/$250 for the pair. The JBL lsr305's seem very well recieved if not over my budget slightly.

Are there any places around where you live that let you do demos or even better take the speakers back to your place to try out?

Really what it comes down to is what this poster said just get what sounds best to you in your price range and call it good.

If you plan on adding a sub later does your amp allow for sub outs?

Hijacking the thread. Currently own HD600 and I love them, especially their forward midrange/vocals and extended but nonraping treble. So, I am looking for a pair of speakers with good and forward midrange, specifically for female vocals, good and non fatiguing treble and more intimate sound akin to headphones, also imaging>soundstage. Don't care about bass as long as it is tight. Budget 300-400£, maybe more if it's something that really hits the spot, Location Europe.

Please excuse the old photo, I have since set them up properly in my study. I use Monitor Audio Bronze 1's with a Denon M40. They give a very pleasant response but where they really shine is in stereo separation. They also come with port bungs if you're in a smaller room that take the boom out of the bass. As an added bonus, if you find the bass lacking (I have no problems) you can add an active sub straight to the amp.

go try out some stuff
as sais there's no huge review community because there's no hoarders as with midrange headphones and speakers are much harder to measure reliably as a hobbyist (reflection free room, calibrated measurement mics) so there's practically no data to base any recommendations on other than what you actually experience yourself

As someone who is obviously just entering into the audio technology world, I was quite surprised at the lack of reviews/consensus on budget speakers. Audiophiles have quite a reputation of being... thorough... so I thought there would be some help out there. The JBL lsr305 seems to be the most agreed upon speaker so far. I'm also finding it pretty hard to avoid putting aesthetics quite high on priority, because they'll be on my PC desk.

>lack of reviews/consensus on budget speakers
How does that surprise you? It is the same for any hobby with a high price ceiling on one end and a very low price ceiling on the other end.

Buy once cry once.

Sad, speakers measurements do look apeshit tho. I know that room and placement influence speaker sound a lot, but how susceptible it to EQ?

what version model are these? how much did you pay for em? can you compare it to your previous listening experiences ond how you'd evaluate them?

I personally would not spend more than 200USD on speakers if you are not going to do some kind of acoustic treatment on the room.

proper speaker measurements of proper gear looks fantastic.

you can eq speakers to taste just as you want, the same principles of phase distortion apply as with headphones
but room acoustic problems are a bitch and can only be fixed by eq to some degree: for example boosting a dip being a result of destructive interference won't work because you're boosting the reflection as well

Debating whether to blow out my budget on the JBLs, which are expensive in the UK. 300USD, or go for these Klipsch R-14Ms, which are 200 USD.

The JBLs are 350USD, rather.

What's your usage scenario?

8010
500eur

Casual music listening on a desktop with PC, casual gaming. Medium sized room

do you have an amp or receiver?
if not you need to factor that on top of the klipsch

I recently bought a pair of Tannoy Mercury V1i they sound pretty good imo at least, don't know so much about speakers though. They are around $220, but I got them and a pair of speaker stands for $90 used.
If anyone know much about speakers here, did I do good?

I have the following:

amazon.co.uk/SA-50-TDA7492-Stereo-Amplifier-Adapter/dp/B008Y7S1GG

>500eur
Dear god.

What sort of response are you looking for? I'd still highly recommend my Monitors. Richer Sounds are doing a deal at the moment for the Bronze 2's with the Denon for £350 (which is a bit galling as that's what they charged me a year ago for the same bundle with Bronze 1's).

Edifier R1700BT. You can get them for about 130-150€, USD price should be similar.
They are nice bookshelf and dekstop speakers with bluetooth and come with a handy remote. The treble and bass controls don't do that much, but they are useful for some fine tuning.
The sound is rather bassy and a little bloated, but you can easily get rid of the bloat by turning down the bass. A cool thing is that they don't care about position that much.

but those are active. not need amp.
just usb dac with balanced outputs

Even a pair of shitty miccas would be better than that.

>active speakers for 500 euros
>a good thing
Nope.

not that guy
but the tiny genelecs are absolutely worth it if you need something as mobile as possible
they are basically indestructible, are small and light as fuck and are really versatile to place with the feet and microphone thread mount on the bottom
and by the way they sound just like every other 2-way genelec minus 1-2 octaves of bass extension
obviously you can get something much cheaper to just sit on your desk if you don't want all that portability, but saying they're overpriced for what they are is really wrong, I take my 8020s on every single job

Not OP, but looking at the jbls, they are self powered monitors so I need a DAC or soundcard right? Can anyone recommend a good DAC that isn't stupidly priced?

Speak for yourself, i like them much and the bt feature is great.

Why is there no audio general on Sup Forums?

asus xonar essence one

the audience is too mixed
sometimes the threads are acceptable like that one is so far, but mostly it's a really retarded shitfest full of badly informed people and plain made up shit
condensing that into a general would just make another /hpg/

I use car stuff, subwoofer and speakers with makeshift stand I made, car stereo receiver hooked by aux to my PC, wiring was the devil but they work now.

If you have a need for them to be like that then great, but I dont see such a thing being true of home use. That is rather a lot of money to spend on something that is designed to be portable, so if you are going to plop them on your desk or stands at home why bother paying the premium for the size?

Poverty and sour grapes.

I mainly did it because my car is wrecked to shit and I am going to scrap it, I got the hardware for cheap off a friend back in the day, Sony stuff, high quality.

I totally agree with there being much smarter choices for pure home use

>but room acoustic problems are a bitch and can only be fixed by eq to some degree: for example boosting a dip being a result of destructive interference won't work because you're boosting the reflection as well

I am trying to check some reviews online and there is SO MUCH shit with placement and room conditions, some speakers need a room, some are good with small rooms, bass changes depending on how far away they are from a wall FUCK THIS, with my autism I am gonna go insane. Anyone knows speakers stores in Munich? Worst part that I am in Moscow now and there are shit loads of HIFI stores there but I can't spend days snooping around because I have exams soon FUCK MEEEEEE.

>same principles of phase distortion apply as with headphones
For headphones, it matters little.
For loudspeakers, it would matter even less. This is good, as the use of crossovers will result in the summed response having a significant all-pass portion to it.

arqen.com/acoustics-101/room-setup-acoustic-treatment/
here some basic stuff to get you started
of course you'll find some stuff in munich, don't worry

If you want to go full autism, there's omnidirectional-ish DIY designs specifically for people who can not or will not do any room treatment

it actually matters more with speakers if you consider the low end, for example take the typical 'I want more bass' boost to compensate for small ported bookshelfs, you add another fair amount of group delay on top of the bass reflex design so you might easily push it over the critical 40-50ms

well the problem is unless your music is specifically recorded for that the huge amount of diffuse signal will actually sound less natural

The sharp low end rolloff indicates a huge amount of group delay in itself. But the very low end is so rolled off it isn't even heard.
Ameliorating the low end rolloff by EQ just piles the envelope delay to the corner frequency of the cutoff. Of course, the ability to detect group delay shifts just goes down with frequency as well.

Also, it's been some time since I cared about group delay audibility stuff.
Can you provide me with some figures for the threshold?

I just bought some speakers, and they are bi-wire. How do I single wire them, I assume I put my wires into two of the four? If so, which two? Pic related.

Thanks, surprisingly I couldn't find that many headphones/hi-fi shops in Munich when in Moscow there are plenty plus one big ass headphone store.

I would love to, but I am a student and I don't have access to soldering and all that nice DIY stuff. I would love to have my own DIY corner in house, I used to fuck around with old radios when I was young and loved to tinker around.

I only know the blauert tests, which don't even cover the very low frequencies
we did some tests at uni back then but I don't have any data of that here.
my point only being it's not really hard to create audible group delay problems with heavy handed eq

Yes, that's what the shunts are for. Put one wire into a terminal that isn't shunted to the connector you put the other wire into (if that makes sense).

Like this

So the lines indicate my cables going in, one positive, one negative, but what are the yellow lines, the "shunts?" How do I work out which ones they are? I'm a speaker virgin, sorry. Maybe the manual I get with them will tell me...

Yes, the yellow lines are the shunts. They're just bits of gold coated copper that connect the two terminals together. It doesn't matter which of the two positive or two negative connections your wires goes to because they're electrically bridged. Just make sure a negative wire goes to a negative terminal and a positive wire goes to a positive terminal.

Ok, got it, thanks!

No problem.

>I don't have access to soldering and all that nice DIY stuff.

Not with that attitude

Ive read that Elacs are not that great for desktop PC speakers, but great for tv/music

if going for desktop with $300+ budget I would recommend keeping eyes on KEF300 or KEF100

They are currently very talked about as a great buy.
I own pic related, I am happy, though I feel this constant pulling to try different things, but theres no justification for it :(
anyway, SMSL amps are fucking amazing

>KEF100
I like mine, I got them over the Q300s because I had a sub so there was no need for the larger ones.

I would suggest that the hard stopband is the worse and more audible problem there anyway.
I think people tend to have misplaced thoughts about phase. That's on a good day.

Anyone have experience with magnat, specifically the monitor supreme 202? A friend recommended them, but they're a german brand and I can find very little in the way of reviews in english.

I'm very happy with the budget audio set up that I put together

I've wanted to build a set of those for a while, but the cost of buying a pile of monoblocks has put me off

Wish I had the chance to listen to the Micca's first before buying the Pioneer 22LR's. But on the subject of cheap speakers, I'm still chucked at how good the 22LR's sound for a hundred bucks. Especially when paired up with a small sub.

Closest Sup Forums gets is "pissing on audiophiles" threads about fat snek cables and taping magic crystals to stuff.

I have a pair of B5's and they're pretty awesome at the price. Very, very comparable to my KEF Q100 which are nearly double the price.

Don't believe the hyperbole. Unless you're producing music and want really boring, accurate sound, the ELACs will be more than perfect.