Woah, woah, woah, @millercarbon, spending $1K on interconnects for a $3000 system? If so, those priorities are so messed up.
Speakers should never be less than 1/2 the total budget (unless buying used).
@kdogone, assuming $3000 is total, I would get bookshelves instead of towers, the subwoofer’s whole purpose is to handle the bass notes, so why not get an excellent bookshelf for the same price as a good tower?
Keeping with what you want though:
* Chane A5.4 towers, around $925 shipped (or more for faster shipping); search online, nothing but praise for Chane, and measurements to back it up.
* Rythmik L12 for a small room, Rythmik LV12F or HSU VT2- MK5 for a large room, between $525-$675 shipped. Don’t be mislead, ported subs from these companies are very “musical”, more so than sealed subs from a few other brands.
Leaving around $1500. Now, don’t believe what you read online, Denon and Marantz, at least now, are near identical, some minor sound/performance difference, but a Denon is more similar sounding to a Marantz than any other brand.
I would get the Denon X3500H factory refurb for $800 ($1000 new).
You’ll want to run Audyssey, but also pay the $20 for their app to edit the default curve, you’ll want to turn off Midrange compensation, and change the target curve from a mostly flat line to a slope down one, a starting point is 20Hz being 10dB louder than 20kHz; here’s an older Harman target curve, and it’s free to tweak to your liking. Most dislike you find online for Audyssey (which is not abundant) is because the default curve is not good, and this helps fix that.
With the savings, you could go dual subs, or add it into room treatment.
If you want cables that are a decent setup up from generic but aren’t flashy, Blue Jeans is always good. I would personally look at Ghent Audio for all cables, downside is wait time (2-3 weeks, as all are handmade and made to order, you can do customs lengths too, like 6ft 3in instead of just 6ft) and they usually use Canare, Belden, etc. all well respected and well measuring cable wire companies. I would not spend a lot on the subwoofer cable though.
Speakers should never be less than 1/2 the total budget (unless buying used).
@kdogone, assuming $3000 is total, I would get bookshelves instead of towers, the subwoofer’s whole purpose is to handle the bass notes, so why not get an excellent bookshelf for the same price as a good tower?
Keeping with what you want though:
* Chane A5.4 towers, around $925 shipped (or more for faster shipping); search online, nothing but praise for Chane, and measurements to back it up.
* Rythmik L12 for a small room, Rythmik LV12F or HSU VT2- MK5 for a large room, between $525-$675 shipped. Don’t be mislead, ported subs from these companies are very “musical”, more so than sealed subs from a few other brands.
Leaving around $1500. Now, don’t believe what you read online, Denon and Marantz, at least now, are near identical, some minor sound/performance difference, but a Denon is more similar sounding to a Marantz than any other brand.
I would get the Denon X3500H factory refurb for $800 ($1000 new).
You’ll want to run Audyssey, but also pay the $20 for their app to edit the default curve, you’ll want to turn off Midrange compensation, and change the target curve from a mostly flat line to a slope down one, a starting point is 20Hz being 10dB louder than 20kHz; here’s an older Harman target curve, and it’s free to tweak to your liking. Most dislike you find online for Audyssey (which is not abundant) is because the default curve is not good, and this helps fix that.
With the savings, you could go dual subs, or add it into room treatment.
If you want cables that are a decent setup up from generic but aren’t flashy, Blue Jeans is always good. I would personally look at Ghent Audio for all cables, downside is wait time (2-3 weeks, as all are handmade and made to order, you can do customs lengths too, like 6ft 3in instead of just 6ft) and they usually use Canare, Belden, etc. all well respected and well measuring cable wire companies. I would not spend a lot on the subwoofer cable though.