Speakers

[climbingjonah]

I have a onkyo 606 amp with b&w m1 rear andcentre speakers the fronts are old mission 780 on stands!
I would like some now floor standing fronts any ideas!!!
Budget £300-£500

 

[Badger0-0]

It'd make sense to stick to B&W.
You'd have to go second hand though.

 

[climbingjonah]

It'd make sense to stick to B&W.
You'd have to go second hand though.

I understand that in most cases it's better to stick with the same brand, but would I get away with Dali zensor's or monitor audio bronze 5

 

[Badger0-0]

I really couldn't answer that.
But the M1 and the speakers you mention are massively different, so a total guess would say that'd be a bad move.

You could of course make that move temporarily, but I'd want a more appropriate match asap, myself.

 

[climbingjonah]

The reason I want to have a set of floor-standers up front is so i don't have all the surround speakers on when I'm playing music music

 

[Badger0-0]

Well, in that case it'd be a good move.
If they didn't work well with the centre you could always turn it off and run it in phantom mode for films and telly etc.

 

[climbingjonah]

The amp has a pure audio mode which only uses the front( stereo ) two speakers so maybe it will be ok!
Thanks for your help!

 

[BlueWizard]

As Badger0-0 points out, the Center is the key. Having a reasonable tonal match across the front is pretty important, though how well you will personally tolerate a mismatch is something only you can determine.

However, moving up to floorstanding in front for now, then adding the matching Center at a later date would be a reasonable path to folllow for upgrading. While Center speakers aren't free, neither are they excessive in price.

The Dali Zensor Center is about £229 and the Monitor Audio Bronze BX Center is about £150. Those should be attainable within a reasonable period of time.

Again, you can determine for yourself how much the mismatch bothers you. If you are OK with it, then fine, and if not, you do have options available to you.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[climbingjonah]

That sounds like the way to go for me!
It's taken a while to persuade the wife to let me have floorstanding speakers so I'll have to brake it slowly about getting a new centre
Thanks again for the advice!