I've been in high end audio for years, I've owned very, very expensive speakers, many have been considered class A by stereophile(and have received rave reviews by many on this forum.) I own a pair of the CLS-215 speakers in my upstairs kides movie room(loft). I must say I have to
laugh everytime someone says all CV's are just party speakers.
Yes, the CV's need some adjustments to sound great(the grill has to come off or its very stuffy and harsh sounding)(I had to back off the bass off with internal EQ).
However if you set them up right, I personally wouldn't buy a speaker under 2k to replace them.
I think too many people over look what a true full range speaker of this calibur is capable of, even if the drivers and cabinet are not absolute top quality. I've owned better speakers, but only the 5k+stuff has offered many of the qualitys I get out of the cls-215. |
i want at least 200 wpc, would like 3 channel but not a must, i like power meters ar at least a reliable clipping indicator. i have been looking at adcom, rotel, nad, proton d1200. all used. you can see my price range is limited to around $600. my pre-amp is avr20ii, but will be hk avr230 in the future. will use tfm-15 for rear channels, but i dont think i want any more carver amps. 5 channel would be perfect if i could use 2 ch for each main and 1 for center. power is important to me, the more the better. thanks and happy new year. |
i've been looking for either a 3 or 5 channel amp. 2 or 4 channels to the nht's, 1 for the center, and will use the carver for rear ch. i want 200 or more watts to the mains. i like the way the carver sounds over the amp in the hk avr20II, seems to be a little more on the bright side, which i guess i prefer. i have a klipsch ksw12 for the lows, hooked to sub out, i'm assuming that is the same as the LFE. it is of questionable quality, but i'll live with it for now. so far i have been pricing nad, rotel, adcom, and mac. i like power meters so i can leave 20% of the power in headroom. a reliable clipping indicator would be ok. it seems to me that 2 channels monoed would power the sp better than one channel to the top and 1 to the bottom. mabey that is a topic for a new post. |
The Citation four channel 5.1 100x4 and 7.1 150x4 amps (designed, made, serviced side-by-side Proceed amps) are great too, hugely discounted (selling for less the 1/3 of original $1850 and $2800 retail prices), with under-rated power. Use 3 channels for the 2.5i & AC1, and the 4th to drive a passive sub (ie, NHT 10inch SW2P, 12inch SW3P, or an SVS). |
thanks, Ender. i've been looking for a good used amp to power those 2.5's. also i've been wondering what center to use. |
You can get a used HK Signature 2.1 110x5 amp for ~ $400 ---- use four channels to passively biamp the 2.5i mains (to get more juice and SPL) and the 5th channel to drive an NHT Audiocenter1 center.
You should still get a powered subwoofer for the dedicated LFE channel. Lots of good choices. For under $300 new, this 10inch Dayton (only $125) gets alot of praise:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=300-632&DID=7 |
cerwin vega are musical (forgiving of front end) you can listen to all day long and are inexpensive. |
i scraped the bi-amp set-up. made the hk avr20ii the pre amp, used a good cable to connect it to carver tfm15. sounds a lot better. seems to have more power. hearing highs at a level i am happy with. |
new cords in place between cd and reciever. what a difference a few dollers can make. black sabbath, jimi hendrix, and rock and roll in general all sound better. they get loud. not like the vegas but every part of the nht seams to be superior so i hope with the right amp i can get close to the same spl.
u cant go wrong with nht if u live in an apartment, they sound so good at low levels. ideal speaker in my opinion would be similar to the infinity iris or what ever thoes giant speakers ar with a dozen 12s and more mids and tweets than the grateful dead had. couppled with nhts new xd crossover technology. a few thousand watts of power and your set. |
gmarcotte,
glad it worked out better. and having pre-outs on your receiver will help immensely. i typically would not recommend bi-ampimg until you have sufficient funds to have first tried a single good quality amp/cable - you'll have to spend more to get equivalent sound. the one exception is that you *might* be able to get a deal on a good-quality multi-channel amp, and use that to bi-amp. |
subs now getting full-range signal as inscrutable suggested. sounds better and im glad. ive been looking to upgrade to hk avr230 which has mono sub-out. but has all the pre amp out-puts i want for future power upgrade. ive been told the avr230 has a better sound than their more expenseve models. and i know from exp hk does not exagerate their power output.
after doing some more listening i noticed fm stereo got loud. i had been doing most of my listening with cd player. sat signal got loud. though i ussaly dont crank up the raido or sat signal up too loud cuz u never know what u are going to get. so i took a look behind my system and low and behold the cheepest patch cords u can get. i remember thinking to my self "where did all my good ones go". new ones will be in place tomorrow. |
if it was just a question of ht, cw imho is a good choice due to low power amps in av recievers. no need to buy lots of amps and the subs are built in. if cw in not up to your standerds, klipsch should have something in their ref line that will need no more than 50 good watts. its what that first watt does that is important. for big sound in big rooms. ive been told the older cw with the 15 mated with 5 1000 wt mac monoblocks mades a pretty impreseve system. my wife did jump once when we were watching hero the other night, but when i had my re30 hooked to the front durring private ryan she was actually taking cover. just couldnt help but to think what it would be like with 5 of them. im shure 5 2.5i would sound good too just might need those mac mono blocks to do it |
Bigjoe-While I would like to make fun of a lot of equipment on Audiogon, I never do. Especially when it involves huge megabuck systems some of which in my experience sound like crap.
It was not clear from the original post that he owned this equipment. I thought he was contemplating a purchasing decision. It appears from his follow up post that he agrees that nht is a vastly superior speaker to cerwin vega for a hi-fi two channel system.
Furthermore saying that a speaker is designed for boom and sizzle is not necessarily an insult. An examination of how cerwin vega is marketed and where it is sold indictes it is directed toward the pop music market. It is no secret that recording engineers producing pop music bump up the bass and the high end. Thus for those who like this sound Cerwin Vega might be the preferred choice. Before dvd it was my experience that vhs hi-fi also followed this practice. Again making cerwin vega a good if not ideal choice. I had a boom and sizzle system when I was in college. |
inscrutable, i suspected i may be loosing something in the mid bass region, i will go back to bi-amping with fullrange signal. at that point i could swap the sp wire at the speakers to give a full 100 watts to the mid-highs. ive been a little weary af just turning it up with no cliping indicater on the hk. i think i will also run the sp with just one amp like gregm suggested, both with the hk and then the carver only. thanks everybody for the comments! |
gmarcotte:
As Bigjow suggests, work with what you have. E-mail the people at Cerwin and ASK them about x-over modification to tame the sizzle.
As you suspect, the sound "imbalance" is x-over related and designed to be so.
Alternatively, check out a recent thread at AA -- "remember when CW were audiophile" or s/thing along those lines. Cheers |
gregadd, thats a pretty lousey response, the guy didnt ask for us to evaluate his gear, he wants help makin the best of what he has & you run his gear in the dirt, way to go dude.
ill tell ya what, i can remember when i would of loved a pair of cerwin vega .
GMARCOTTE,work with what you have before thinking about lascalas, ive owned a ton of klipsch speakers & they too can be harsh.
if im reading your description correctly you are biamping the nht's with a tfm 15 on bottom & the rest of your power is supplied from the hk reciever & the mids & highs are too low to compete with the bass .
try turning down the gain on the carver & turn the volume up on the hk, you can also try just the power from the hk to run the nht's & see if that puts your sound more in sync.
experiment with what you have before doing any upgrades. |
If you are using the sub output to feed the 8-inchers, then you are only givng them signal below the sub xover (maybe 80hz), when their internal crossover is probably designed at more like 250 Hz. Your lower mids and upper bass are probably non-existent. That would certainly keep it from 'getting loud' ;-)
Feed both sets of binding posts a full-range signal, or just jumper them and use one good 150-200 wpc stereo amp, and you'll be fine. |
100 watts is to the 8 in subs in the 2.5i. would probbly sound better with twice that. amp is carver tfm15. used sub output for the signal. im not shure if that is correct. i do have a klipsch ksw12 cut off above 70 hz. mainly for movies. |
bass is not the problem with nhts. in the small room they are located, almost too much bass. too close to corners and back wall, ill live with it. i do know when you hear loud subs what u hear is distortion. its the mid-highs that seem "not as loud". do i just need to throw more watts at them to get the high spl? they are rated to 200 watts max, does that mean use 400? |
Are you running a passive sub or are you talking about the 8" woofers in the 2.5i? What part of the volume are you unhappy with, bass or overall? |
look the cerwin vega is designed for boom and sizzle. I don't think that's what you want if you are listening to nht.
subs can eat power. not ucommon to find audiophile woofer amps at 300-600 watts. ou should not hear subs. Bass is non-directional.so yuo should not "hear" subs. |
my mistake, nht is better for 2 ch every day of the week. i have owned the re30 for 15 ys and am currently using them as rear ch for ht. thay mate well with the lean 20 watt rear amp in the hk avr20ii. i have had the nht 2.5i for a month now 65 watts to the mid/highs and a seperate 100 wpc amp to the subs. they just dont get loud. is the cerwin vega problem x-over related. they can sound harsh at high levels. can they be up graded or should i look at la scala for the fronts at twice the cost? |
you're kidding right? Cerwin Vega is for college students playing hip hop or rock and roll. |
