If you had £****

If you had around £4,500 to spend on front, centre, surround and rears speakers, what would you spend it on?

Edit: This would be for a 50/05 split system music/AV

 

If M&K weren't overpriced- then probably M&K 150 for front three, M&K dipoles or tripoles for sides (not sure which will be better) and 150's or tripoles for rears.

Take it for a 100% AV system?

Or I'll keep what I've already got- not far off M&K's anyway and spend the rest on beer, fast women and holidays.

 

Leema Xen all round and £2,000 still in the bank.

 

It would depend on the size of the room, you should also look into room acoustics before spending that sort of money on speakers.

 

Thanks guys for your replies, Nathan I like the the bit about beer and women

The room I have is 6m x 8m and is a dedicated HC.

I have shortlisted certain speakers but want to make certain that I've not missed any and Ian's reply shows I have

 

B&W Nautilus 803s and an HTM1 centre.

 

Hmm, big room. Was going to recommend ATC Active 10s, but they'd probably be a little insufficient for a room like that. In that case, can you stretch to a cool £5 grand? That'd get you three ATC Active 20s across the front and a pair of Active 10s in surround. Of course, this setup would have your power amplification sorted as well, so that would save you a pretty penny on big, expensive power amps. You could even go for Active 20s all around for just over £6000, which would still be less than equivalent speakers plus appropriate power amps, I reckon.

Alternatively, if you've already got yourself some heavy duty power amps and you need some quality passive speakers, you could get the new ATC SCM-35 floorstanders. Say, three of those for the front soundstage (£1000 each) plus a pair of SCM-12s in the rear. That would give you one MEAN ASS MUTHER of a home cinema system that doubles as an absolute world-class hifi system for £4 grand. The £500 could go towards a quality sub, like a Velodyne HGS, SVS, or maybe one of ATC's own big, bad scary-ass subwoofers.

www.atc.gb.net

Cheers,

Dunc

 

I'd go for:

Leema Xaviers front L/R
Leema Xyps Centre, surround and rears.

Should just scrape that for £4.5k

That or M&Ks if your priority is more AV oriented.

 

Talk about a quirk of fate Dunkboy.

We had a demo today of exactly that system, ATC SCM 35 (£2K), SCM 12 (£1K) at the rear, C2 (£750) (I think) and a Velodyne (£1K) sub.

To be blunt, absolutely bloody fantastic.

It was truely first class. We just couldn't fault it at all.

It was that good I am actually thinking of selling all our KEF Ref kit to go ATC passive. Marvellous kit.

My dealer has a couple of spare drivers on show to impress customers with. One thing is for sure, ATC engineer very impressive internals indeed. It makes your average every day 'HiFi' speakers look just ordinary.

The ATC SCM 35 was also played on a stereo rig with Naim kit and that was again out of this world. The AV kit was a Parasound Halo amp and a Lexicon proc.

If you've got the cash, definately look at ATC. But note, I prefer the passive kit over the active ones. Heard the 10 - Actives and though good, not a patch on the 35's. You'd need to go way upscale active wise to hear a return on your money imho of course.

The Velodyne sub was a shocker. It was absolutely tiny. I thought it was just a little budget one to help add a bit of bass. I turned it off just to hear 5.0 to see how the ATC kit on without a sub. It did miss it. It wasn't until my dealer told me it was a £1K! sub with a 8" cone (I think) being driven by a 1500w amp that the penny dropped. Awesome little monster for sure. Made me think twice about keeping my CHT 15. It did put it to shame.

Overall, I've just spent £4750 in my mind.

Now to convince the wife it's a good idea.

 

Blue sky system one
http://www.bayviewproaudio.com/bluesky_sys_51system.html

going to demo this week and by all accounts they rock....M&K flowing thru their viens

 

I like Spendor. S8 fronts, C9 centre is sublime and the SR5 rears are very discrete on the walls.

 

Come on you active lovers

Adz

 

I have just replaced my front speakers with an all Naim Audio set-up and it sounds awesome. I now use:

Front L/R: Naim Allae (£2000)
Centre: Naim Axess (£1250)

I use these with a Tag AV32r processor and all Naim pre/power amplifiers (and CD Player).

Can't recommend it highly enough!

Cheers, Roman

 

Ian,
would buy?
I thought you must have bought them by now