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home theater audio

Entry posted by EricBall April 22, 2013

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I've just ordered the Andrew Jones designed Pioneer 5.1 speaker package to go with the Yamaha RX-V573 receiver / amplifier I just bought.

Last week I visited a hifi dealer to do a receiver listening test. I concluded there were minor differences between the various (similar price & quality) receivers, but not significant compared to the expected differences caused by the speakers and the listening environment. So I went by features, specs & prices instead. The Yamaha had the features I wanted (AirPlay), good specs (4 ohm ratings, good power), and I got it on sale (last year's model).

Speakers are a little trickier. Although I could have done listening tests, any test is going to be flawed because it won't be in my listening environment and is easily tricked by slight differences in volume and music. In addition, I was trying to keep my spending down. The Pioneer SP-FS52 floorstanding speakers are getting excellent reviews and have a flat SPL graph. (I originally was looking at the Fluance XL7F, but they have a big dip in the midrange.) Plus, they are inexpensive: C$600+tax for the full 5.1 set.

Of course I sold the speaker stands at last year's garage sale....

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EricBall 239

Posted April 29, 2013

I've used the front speaker boxes as temporary stands for the surround speakers and the packing foam to raise the front speakers up so the tweeters are more in line with the center of the screen. I'll build something out of plywood and 2x2s later. For the moment I'm not using the center speaker (and I really hadn't planned to), although I did connect the powered subwoofer. I guess I could have skipped buying the center, but I figured if I did then Murphy would make sure I'd regret the decision at some point in the future.

I had fun watching Tron Legacy last night (3-D and surround sound, woo-hoo!).