Hi everyone, I need some upgrade advice please. Attached is a rough layout of the room. It is a large area (approx 86m squared) and I also listen to music when in the garden by opening up one or two of the bifold doors (opposite end of the speakers).
I listen to music approx 80% of the time and 20% for Netflix and movies. I have a 3.1 setup with the following equipment:
denon AVR X2300
Dali Opticon 8 MK1
Dali Zensor vokal (will upgrade to opticon vokal eventually)
REL T9i subwoofer (10in + 10in passive, 300 watt)
this forum has helped me out with previous issues and so I’m hoping for some more useful advice.
the bass is really lacking when watching movies and even with music there is no sofa shaking bass. If I concentrate real hard then I get a tickle from the sofa but nothing more. Also, when I do crank the volume up on occasions (when the kids aren’t home or when listening to music from the garden) the subwoofer tends to struggle to give more output. I do like the sound of the bass from the REL but I don’t think it is powerful enough to pressurise the room. Therefore I am looking to upgrade my sub. I’m mindful that my AVR isn’t great (no pre outs) and so happy for someone to sway my decision and put money towards a new AVR instead (but I can’t see how that will fix the bass issue). Further down the line I would probably look for a new AVR and a separate stereo amp for the fronts. Surrounds are out of the question at the moment as my kids are young and will likely knock anything over that is on a stand and wall mounting isn’t going to be easy.
budget is around £2800 but I don’t necessarily want to spend it all as the AVR etc will need upgrading soon.
Options I’m thinking of and rough prices:
1. Arendal 1723 2V £2,300
2. Dual Arendal 1723 1V £2,800
3. SVS PB 4000 £2,250
4. Dual SVS PB 3000 £3,100
5. SVS PB16 Ultra £3,000
6. Dual BK Monolith plus £1,200 which leaves money for new AVR (say Denon X4500 second hand)
on the subject of the dual options above with SVS and Arendal (not BK), I do think dual would be better than a more premium single subwoofer. However, I am slightly leaning towards getting the more premium single subwoofer in the hope that I would be able to go dual in the near future rather than going dual now with a lower bracket subwoofer and then wanting to upgrade them both in the future.
I would love to know whether people think dual BKs are powerful enough to pressurise the room and how they sound with music. I have heard great things about BK on the value for money front. Just wondering if the extra money for Arendal/SVS is worth it (I’m aware doubling the price doesn’t mean double the performance).
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers
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