I started out my day today by visiting numerous pawn shops as I was looking for a cheap headunit to put in my Escalade since I sold the Navigation system out of it a while back (never used it much) and I plan to get rid of it soon.

Unfortunately I didn't have much luck with a decent headunit I actually liked, but while I was at Cash America Pawn I found these puppies:

http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/userpics/10001/normal_100_4390.JPG

http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/userpics/10001/normal_100_4392.JPG

Pair of mid '90s vintage HEAVY Cerwin Vega! RE-30 floorstanders. They had them marked at 150 bucks for the pair, but I did a quick look-see on Craigslist from my iphone and found someone was selling just ONE of them in Orlando for 50 bucks. So I offered 100, we met in the middle at 120. I later went home and read the reviews which were astonishingly positive. Original MSRP was $690.00 in 1995/6.

So I hooked them up and while they may not be up there with Bowers and Wilkins, they are POWERFUL. Even hooked up to my old Pioneer receiver that can't have more than 60w/pc they are WELL driven and put out some tremendous sound. You can tell immediately that the construction plays a large part in that. The black box that you see underneath the receiver(s) (one is dedicated as a subwoofer amp) is my subwoofer. After I put these CVs in I can no longer use the sub as it is just WAAY too much bass.

Seeing as how I was using a pair of Acoustic Research surround speakers as my mains for a while this upgrade was LONG overdue. Nice find.

Nice, Amazing what you can find when you are not looking.

also, why so much touchup paint under your tv lol.

http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/userpics/10001/normal_100_4392.JPG
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/1.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/2.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/3.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/4.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/5.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/6.jpg
http://www.q45.org/cpg/albums/wpw-20090411/normal_7.jpg

Cool! Is that like the Nakamichi of home audio?

Nice, Amazing what you can find when you are not looking.

also, why so much touchup paint under your tv lol.

Man no kidding, I had no business spending my headunit money on speakers. I set aside those funds along time ago for this project but oh well... I'll work on that some other time.

I use my touch-up paints alot since I go through so many cars, if I put them anywhere else I promise you I will lose them.

Cool! Is that like the Nakamichi of home audio?

Not quite, Nakamichi is some pretty precision audio-phile quality stuff. Cerwin Vegas are known for being a versatile, and most of all POWERful speaker. Definitely not cheap stuff, but not precise like BW or some of the others.

Unfortunately Nakamichi is owned by the chinese now, but their equipment from the 1970s and 1980s goes for ALOT on the used market. It's funny you mention Nak because there was a Nak CR-1A cassette deck at this same pawn shop for 20 bucks!

Who makes the best, clearest, most powerful speaker? Harmon-Kardon? Cerwin-Vega? Teac? Technics?

I know nothing of high end home audio but I'm very curious.

Who makes the best, clearest, most powerful speaker? Harmon-Kardon? Cerwin-Vega? Teac? Technics?

I know nothing of high end home audio but I'm very curious.

I'll probably leave that question for Rick to answer, but my personal favorites are Bowers and Wilkins. Fantastic sounding stuff.

Keep in mind when you get into the world of audio there is no ceiling for how much you can spend. Even WATCHES don't have the ridiculousness audio does. There are 30, 75, 100k speakers out there. Amps that cost just as much.

Believe me when I say that you can easily spend a half million dollars on a sound system.

I thought Jesda was zooming in to make fun of him watching HGTV, but then it went all "Ring" on me. 7 days?

I should add that this worked out pretty nicely especially considering that my sound system serves triple duty the way I have it setup. In addition to being hooked up to the TV, DVR and the amp's internal FM tuner, I also have my laptop hooked up wirelessly with an Airport Express and a software product called Airfoil. It allows me to hijack the Airtunes component of the Airport and broadcast sound from *any* Windows application, not just iTunes (which I don't like). I'm usually broadcasting from Winamp and the quality is phenomenal. I used to use the Motorola Bluetooth receiver you see sitting on top of the amp, but the difference in quality between the loss-less Airport and the VERY lossy Bluetooth is astonishing.

Who makes the best, clearest, most powerful speaker? Harmon-Kardon? Cerwin-Vega? Teac? Technics?

I know nothing of high end home audio but I'm very curious.

those are all garbage. Most high end stuff starts at about 10K/pr and up. There are speakers that are 100K/pr. I have some PSBs that are 4.5K/pr and they sound great for my setup....gotta be a real audiophile above that marker to notice the differences. Even my set at that range are considered low to midrange in sound quality and pricing.....

F

those are all garbage. Most high end stuff starts at about 10K/pr and up. There are speakers that are 100K/pr. I have some PSBs that are 4.5K/pr and they sound great for my setup....gotta be a real audiophile above that marker to notice the differences. Even my set at that range are considered low to midrange in sound quality and pricing.....

F

Actually, anyone who automatically equates cost with speaker performance is already coming into the hobby as an idiot and a n00b. If you have the time and are willing to learn the technique, you can actually fabricate some of the best sounding speakers in the world by pulling together cabinets of differing materials, drivers, tweeters, crossovers etc. yourself.

Sony for example is probably among the worst speaker producers on the planet, but they did have a shining moment in the mid '90s with the SS-M series that actually made the cover of Stereophile magazine. This could be considered Sony's "W140" if you will. They spent millions on the R&D of these things and from everything I've heard they sound phenomenal. They don't compare with the real high end stuff, but you could do alot worse for a 5-800.00 used pair of speakers. Another bargain are used Dynaudio speakers. Any B&W Nautilus will also frequently destroy speakers far above its pay grade.

There comes a price where you get what you pay for of course, but never start out equating cost with speaker performance... it automatically makes you a laughing stock among real audiophiles. If you want to enter the mid to high end audio world, the best thing you can do is visit your local HiFi shop and audition various sets of speakers yourSELF, and a GOOD hifi shop will have the ability to switch the sources coming IN to the speakers so you can see the effect different grades of cable/pre-amp/amp etc. will have on the sound quality of each speaker. Be wary of gimmicks too... If you can believe this, there is actually such a thing as ceramic CABLE ELEVATORS, literally pucks that hold your cables off the ground. These pucks run about 300.00 for a set and some of the hilarious reviews say things like "they really opened up the soundstage". Again, if you believe that bullshit, you are a f a g of the highest order.

http://geektechnique.org/images/595t.jpg

:histeric:

We have a family friend that is a professional sound technician for concerts and his home theater system is to die for. His has such sensitive hearing he can pick out even the slightest things wrong with a sound system. He will explain what he hears to me but I rarely hear what he hears. I don't have any pictures of it but it is a 62" TV with two towers about 6 ft. tall on either side just filled with audio stuff. He has something like 10 speakers hooked into the system and it sounds amazing.

On another note we have two big, old Sony speakers hooked into a Sony system that my parents bought back in 1986 when they got married. It sounds great, even so many years later. There is just no way you can ever get the newer, small satellite speakers to sound like these things anymore.

Audiophiles are suckers. Price is meaningless.

Price and quality do generally go together, just remember that when you pay a premium price you're not necessarily paying for high quality speakers.....for example Bose is generally considered crap by most audio people as using crappy cheap drivers and lots of tuning, but you're paying that premium for the name and their marketing....if you don't believe that ask most people on the street to name a top end audio manufacturer they'll say Bose....yet the line in audio circles is "No Highs, No lows, must be B(l)ose." Their marketing/ad group is top end....too bad they didn't put that much money in their R&D.

And PlayDrv4me is right that with the right knowledge and time you can often build your own enclosures that will rival most of your friends 5k systems with some know how and research. I've got a set of custom horn enclosures being finished for me by another member of this forum who may chime in here, but they sound amazing, look great and will out perform most speakers costing 10 times as much.

Yeah, Bose has gone waaayyy down hill. Their stupid shit now is just for yuppies who couldn't give a damn and want something easy. Those CVs are good. I've always fancied Koss speakers myself.

for the sound system on our main T.V., we have my dads original (circa 196X) Bose 901's. They sound pretty good to me, but then again, I'm no audiophile. Bose speakers nowadays suckzor though, my friend has a pair of Bose computer speakers that he thinks are the best things since sliced bread, and my crappy little Altec Lansing 2.1's sound better :p

Yeah, Bose has gone waaayyy down hill. Their stupid shit now is just for yuppies who couldn't give a damn and want something easy. Those CVs are good. I've always fancied Koss speakers myself.

I live in an apartment and it's about 235 in the morning on the east coast right now. I was pretty happy with the HIGH volume output of these speakers earlier, but the LOW volume detail took me completely by surprise for such a cheap speaker. I've never enjoyed music this much, this late at night, on this system.

for the sound system on our main T.V., we have my dads original (circa 196X) Bose 901's. They sound pretty good to me, but then again, I'm no audiophile. Bose speakers nowadays suckzor though, my friend has a pair of Bose computer speakers that he thinks are the best things since sliced bread, and my crappy little Altec Lansing 2.1's sound better :p

The only good thing that has ever come out of Bose are in-fact the vintage 901s and some of their car audio engineering. The rest is forgettable or downright highway robbery in some cases.

Bose became a household name by perverting sound into doing what they want it to do via aesthetically pleasing devices.

EDIT: I stand corrected, I forgot about that trick magnetic suspension they developed. Too bad they have yet to implement it on anything.

The 901's were ruined when they switched to a ported enclosure in Series III. They got a hell of a lot louder, but audio quality was just murdered. Build quality suffered too, while Series I and II were solid wood, Series III was veneered particle board, and the drivers have problems with foam rot.


Its interesting what you learn in a 5 minute convo with your dad. :cool2:

Audiophiles are suckers. Price is meaningless.

Amen. I bought a pair of towers for $30 at a garage sale three summers ago, along with two massive satellite speakers that the guy threw in for an extra 10-spot. I had neighbors in my old apartment building knocking on my door and asking me where I got my awesome sound system - clear as a bell, no distortion at all until you got to the unreasonably loud volume levels (so high you couldn't stay indoors type loud). They managed smooth bass transition when I put rock music on, and whenever my girl threw some booty-shaking stuff on at parties, the bass thumped like a thunderstorm. Nobody ever believed I got them for $30. Sadly, they got destroyed in a fire and I had to toss them, but they were great. If I could remember who made them, I'd be online looking for the exact same set right now.

Nice find indeed. I used to have a set of 15" CV front speakers when I was in college. When I got married the wife forced me to sell them because they just took up too much room. I think I let go of them for $300 for the set. They were incredibly loud. I barely touched them with a Pioneer 150 WPC amp/receiver. All the pictures on the wall would jump, and once a glass even vibrated out of the kitchen cabinet to broke on the floor. :cool2:

I have a pair of Klipsch chorus II speakers made in the 90's loud and clean and great low volume detail, but the best speakers I have heard (my opinion) are Martin and Logan Electrostatics, Utter clarity but they do not do loud very well, but loud is not everything

High fidelity in stereo equipment is sort of like searching for the perfect car: There are a very few gems in the mass-produced foreign equipment, but if you want true music and satisfaction, you will have to spend quite a bit of money after doing a lot of listening and comparison. Cerwin-Vega, Teac, Sony, and the like are the sonic Circuit City or AutoZone of the speaker world.

The speaker system is the window into the music and will reflect faults in your source components. Real music sounds absolutely nothing like car audio or boombox thumping. Real music sounds like the everyday sound in the air, the small jazz trio in a quiet basement, or a symphony orchestra in full crescendo, and your system should be able to reproduce everything from the breath behind the clarinet reed to anything Steely Dan or Dire Straits could put on vinyl.

As Eric just posted, take a look at www.martinlogan.com. Electrostatics are absolutely spine-tingling in their reproduction accuracy. I use pairs of Epos, Dynaudio, and Martin Logan speakers in my systems.

I thought Jesda was zooming in to make fun of him watching HGTV, but then it went all "Ring" on me. 7 days?

i thought he was showing the irony of such nice speakers next to ANYTHING made by DAEWOO..............

As Eric just posted, take a look at www.martinlogan.com. Electrostatics are absolutely spine-tingling in their reproduction accuracy. I use pairs of Epos, Dynaudio, and Martin Logan speakers in my systems.

Eh, forget 'stats, Horns and full range is where its at. :)

The fatiguing part of Electrostatic speakers is that the "sweet spot" for listening is extremely narrow. They've developed all sorts of gimmicks to get around this, but for the most part they aren't comfortable to listen to in a casual listening environment.

Also, while not high end by any means, CV does not belong lumped in with jokes such as Teac, Technics and Sony. Those brands make decent electronics and except for a few notable exceptions, shitty speakers. CV is strictly a speaker producer with the likes of Klipsch, Definitive Tech, Hsu Research etc. Two brands that have actually managed to sort-of bridge the gap between electronics and speakers are Yamaha and JBL. JBL are actually used in movie-theaters around the world. For reasons I don't even entirely understand, I also consider Polk Audio about as much of a gimmick as Bose.

Little further up the ladder you've got Paradigm, Focal JMLab, etc.

You're exactly correct on the 'stat "sweet spot", but when you get the placement correct, the holographic effect and tonal accuracy of a good pair of electrostatics is spooky real. No, electrostatics are not for the casual listener. I use a pair of MartinLogan Aeon speakers as satellites with a pair of NHT 1259 woofers in my own cabinets. The 'stats are driven by a VAC PA100/100 tube amp and the woofers are driven by a Fosgate 300 wpc transistor amp through a Marchand tube crossover set at 200 Hz. Most of my serious listening is LP's with some CD and FM for background music.

For a very accurate, easy to drive pair of satellites or small-room speakers, look at the Epos M5. Damn good speakers. Break them in for 24 hours on pink noise.

I will post a picture of the system I use for listening to music when I get home today. Its an ancient Sony system that sounds amazing for music. We have a cheepo ($250 Best Buy Special) 5.1 Surround Sound system for our TV. It sounds nowhere near as good as the older system we have upstairs but for just watching movies it works great. Now I am just trying to get my Mom to upgrade our TV (its a 27" JVC that is as old as I am).

You're exactly correct on the 'stat "sweet spot", but when you get the placement correct, the holographic effect and tonal accuracy of a good pair of electrostatics is spooky real. No, electrostatics are not for the casual listener. I use a pair of MartinLogan Aeon speakers as satellites with a pair of NHT 1259 woofers in my own cabinets. The 'stats are driven by a VAC PA100/100 tube amp and the woofers are driven by a Fosgate 300 wpc transistor amp through a Marchand tube crossover set at 200 Hz. Most of my serious listening is LP's with some CD and FM for background music.

For a very accurate, easy to drive pair of satellites or small-room speakers, look at the Epos M5. Damn good speakers. Break them in for 24 hours on pink noise.

That sounds like a "sweet" setup ;) I'd love to hear that someday.

:sneaky:............sit tight. We're headed to Overture in Lewes, DE next week: I'm lusting for a pair of MartinLogan Vistas and the shop will set up a pair with a couple of tube amps and a VPI ScoutMaster and let me fool with some LP's. The pic is with the Epos M5's because the ML Aeons are on the way out the door to a guy in Bethesda. Made an offer I couldn't refuse. The Vistas are only $4550 a pair, I get a small break and DE has no sales tax, so, what the hell......the 'table is an Oracle DELPHI III mod to IV with an SME IViv arm and a Nakatsuka MC cartridge.

Mmmm, tubes, vinyl, and old school goodness. :)

Oh my, that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I wish I could get my dads old Citation II power amp up and running, but it needs all the tubes (due to a racoon getting in a storage garage) and the Caps replaced

Needs high efficiency horns though. :D

Eric, PM me. I have a skrillion NOS and used tubes and crates of good caps.

When you bring up an old tube amp, use a Variac transformer to gradually load the caps, otherwise you stand a good chance of popping a power cap.

If you can resurrect that old HK Citation and hook it to a set of efficient speakers (horns would be ideal) you'll find that you have a wonderfully clear window to the music. Believe it or not, the Citation or any tube amp of more than 25 watts/channel will drive a pair of Klipschorns to undistorted levels that will crack plaster.

The right pic is a pair of 50 watt AES SixPacs (45 pounds each) which do double duty with the VAC PA 100/100 as the mood strikes........

Take a look at www.antiqueelectronicsupply.com and log in to Audio Asylum. (I'm TubePopper)