Topic: busted speaker: time for upgrade???

[plucks]

So my 4yr old onkyo speaker has a busted lower cone (i think thats what it is)...I have no idea when it happened.
So now it seems like its time for a change?
Are bookshelves on stands, like I have now, generally bettee or worse than self standing sets?

Thoughts on replacements?

What's also appropriate for a reciever that can handle 5.1 & 24 bit playback?

[Tim]

do you have room down there for floor standers?

that's the first question - you can get nice speakers of either size, neither is really better or worse.

whats your budget? Looking for some B&W's?

[plucks]

lets hook your floorstanders up for a day and see what happens
i'll even do the moving.

[Tim]

we could do that. It would take two of us to drag them over but it's doable

[Nick's Picks]

check out the Epos line.
I had the 12.2 monitors, and was VERY impressed.  I like them better than the VSA VR1s even.  best bass i've ever heard out of a monitor that sized.

their floor standers can't suck, based on what I heard.  Id buy them again in a heartbeat.
as for an amp...., i'm mutli-channel clueless.
but for two chans, and a reasonable price, the Music Hall MAMBO or MAVEN are awesome, and smoke the Sony receivers in 2ch mode.

[nickgregory]

if you are looking for multichannel, I got a used Arcam AVR300, which run from $1400-$1600 used and love it.  I was looking for something that would allow me to ride that line of quality two channel playback and quality Home Theater and this is it.  Not feature rich, but that is a good thing...it does what it is supposed to do.  Plenty of inputs, and heavy as hell. 

Best thing is it is a 7.1 channel receiver and you can program it to be a 5.1 receiver with 4 channels setup for the front speakers so you can bi-amp them running 200W per to them.

The AVR350 is the newer version and I think the key differentiator is some video switching capabilities...though you may want to research that...

[nickgregory]

also forgot to mention...I dont know the budget you are looking at, but Von Schweikert has their VR-2 B stock for $1349 ($1500 shipped) and I recently took advantage of the deal as did Skalinder.  What makes them B stock is some finish irregularities...you can see them, but they were pretty minor imo.  And getting them new at this price, with the full 10 year warranty is a sick deal as that is cheaper than alot of used sets go for...

http://www.vonschweikert.com/_specials.htm

[noahbickart]

Why don't you just replace the foam surround on the woofer that blew. It will cost you about $10.

-Noah

[Javier Cinakowski]

Damn, I have been checking my account to see if I can come up with $1500 for those VR-2's.  I am short.   

[plucks]

tim...realized floor speakers will not work with that setup i have.

[Nick's Picks]

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/srch_fs.pl
just missed some cheap M5s.

[Tim]

whats your budget phil?

[som]

I have a pair of Ascend Acoustics CBM170's for sale.....$225, shipping included. Not uber high end by any means, but a damn nice bookshelf speaker with a good reputation.

Also have an HSU VTF1 powered sub that pairs up nicely. $400 for the whole shooting match, shipped. Excellent condition.

http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/cbm170/cbm170tech.html
http://www.audioreview.com/cat/speakers/floorstanding-speakers/ascend-acoustics/PRD_125308_1594crx.aspx
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-01,GGLD:en&q=cbm+170

http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-1.html

[plucks]

whats your budget phil?

i have no idea!
part of me thinks i should just get new speakers, and then there's the evil little guy on the other shoulder telling me to get all new everything.  not so sure i could get away with that right now.