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Suggestion for speaker/amp pairings and turntable

W

Wax4Daze

New Member
Hello, I am new to this community, and am hoping to receive some advice and recommendations for upgrading my speakers, receiver and turntable.

First off, I wanted to provide you with some background information on my current equipment and room dimensions.

Speakers- Paradigm Performance Series- Model 5SE- MK II- Over 30 years old, and one of the speakers is blown
Canton- Fonum CM 30 Center Channel
Receiver- Denon- AVR- 2700- 80 w/per channel
Turntable- Pioneer PL 514 Automatic Return
CD Player- Yamaha CDC-615 RS
Blu-Ray Player- Sony BDP-S5100
Dimensions of room- 15x14
I currently sit about 8.5 ft from speakers in my current setup

All of this equipment is still in working condition aside from the blown Paradigm speaker, but I have been overdue for an upgrade for quite awhile. I currently live in an apartment on the ground floor, so I need to keep the noise level within the confines of my apartment. Considering this, I am trying to avoid subwoofers to keep the bass from shaking the walls, while still having enough bass to satisfy my needs.

Since we are in the middle of a pandemic, I haven't been able to audition many speakers, but here are a list of the ones I was able to audition:

Focal Chora 826- $2200/pr- decent on bass, but very good soundstage/dynamics
Focal Chora 806 bookshelf- $2000/pr- very light on bass, but better soundstage and clarity than the 826
Paradigm SE 8000F- $1598/pr- Pretty good bass, but not very detailed
Klipsch RP 8000F- $1380/pr- Louder and more efficient, bass is decent, but the tweeters border on shrill
Monitor Audio Bronze 500- $1145/pr- bass is deep and satisfying, clarity is good, but more neutral than the SVS and Focal Chora's
SVS Prime Pinnacle Tower- $1800/pr- Bass is decent, but not as good as the Monitor Audio Bronze 500's, clarity on most music, gets a little shrill with some of the rock I played.

Out of these, my favorites are the Monitor Audio Bronze 500, SVS Prime Pinnacle and the Focal Chora 826.

Other speakers I've been interested in, but which there are no stores who have them available to audition are

Zu Dirty Weekend- $1000/pr
KLH Model Five- $2000/pr
SVS Ultra Tower- $2000/pr
DynAudio Emit M30- $1995/pr

The max price range to purchase speakers is $2500, but I'd like to keep this cheaper to be able to also upgrade my turntable and receiver. I'm hoping to do all of this with $3000.If it's not possible, then I would probably wait on upgrading the turntable.

I would like to have speakers that work well with both music and movies, but I think I'm going to need to upgrade my amplifier to push most of these speakers.

I am hoping to get some suggestions for upgrades, as well as thoughts on the speakers I have listed here.
 
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Wow, really? I posted the same thing to the AVS Forum yesterday and received 20 replies. I don't know if it's because my post is too long, or if this forum is just not every active, but I expected to receive some suggestions.
 
There are a lot of variables here. You want for music and movies. You already have a center channel speaker that you may want to blend with new mains. Maybe you pick a priority. Match your center for AV use. Or prioritize best stereo mains and accept how your center plays with them. Or shop for mains and matching center.
Highly unlikely anyone here has heard all the speakers on your lists. Especially for AV use.
Have you heard your center speaker with any on this list?

I'm not experienced with newer premium AV receivers. I assume most AV receivers stereo sound quality don't equal same $ stereo amplifiers. AV receivers aren't usually aimed at customers picky about sound quality. But, want all the bells an whistles.
Just my 2 cents. My AV listening priority is just to improve crappy TV speakers.

10 hours, over night in USA may not render a lot of responses. Many in this thread aren't into AV listening. Hence I'm first poster.
 
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Old Guy8 said:
There are a lot of variables here. You want for music and movies. You already have a center channel speaker that you may want to blend with new mains. Maybe you pick a priority. Match your center for AV use. Or prioritize best stereo mains and accept how your center plays with them. Or shop for mains and matching center.
Highly unlikely anyone here has heard all the speakers on your lists. Especially for AV use.
Have you heard your center speaker with any on this list?

I'm not experienced with newer premium AV receivers. I assume most AV receivers stereo sound quality don't equal same $ stereo amplifiers. AV receivers aren't usually aimed at customers picky about sound quality. But, want all the bells an whistles.
Just my 2 cents. My AV listening priority is just to improve crappy TV speakers.

10 hours, over night in USA may not render a lot of responses. Many in this thread aren't into AV listening. Hence I'm first poster.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your reply. I understand that the situation is more complicated because I don't have room for two speaker setups. This has always been the case though, and I had been able to run the Paradigm speakers, and Canton center channel with my old Denon AVR 2700 receiver with pretty good results. Recently, I noticed that my Paradign speakers just weren't doing it for me, and I am way overdue for an upgrade. I have heard of cases where two amps are run at the same time, in that I could use the Denon AV receiver when watching movies and then use the more powerful amp/receiver when listening to music. I want to get these primarily for music, but I do watch movies with the speakers I currently have, and want the sound to be good for home theater as well. I have also gone down the line of considering a sound bar setup so that I can use that separately for movies and TV. Then, I can buy a good amp meant primarily for music and use this with new speakers with my center channel. Do you know anything about the quality of soundbars? Most of the people I have talked to said that I don't want to go that route as the sound of soundbars is inferior to the sound of a full 3, 5 or 7 channel home theater setup.
Regarding the center channel, I haven't heard it with any of the speakers on my list, because the stereo stores on my area won't allow their speakers to be loaned out for this purpose. I would love to audition them in my apartment, but I don't know how to do this aside from buying them from Crutchfield and then eating the cost for shipping them back as well as a restocking fee. This could get expensive if I audition 3-5 different sets of speakers. Do you have any other thoughts on how I would go about doing this?
 
You have written down good comparative descriptions of the sound of the ones you have listened to. You have a currently functioning home theater system that you seem to like despite a blown speaker. I would reduce the seemingly endless variety of choices you are facing, buy the Monitor 500s, and spend a month listening. Either you'll be just as stumped as you are now, or you'll have a nice improvement, and some new perspective.
 
sqlsavior said:
You have written down good comparative descriptions of the sound of the ones you have listened to. You have a currently functioning home theater system that you seem to like despite a blown speaker. I would reduce the seemingly endless variety of choices you are facing, buy the Monitor 500s, and spend a month listening. Either you'll be just as stumped as you are now, or you'll have a nice improvement, and some new perspective.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your message sqlsavior! My current home theater system is decent, but am mostly looking to improve my system for music, as well as making the dialogue clearer for movies. I sent an e-mail to the stereo store where I auditioned the Monitor 500's to see if they are willing to let me audition them in my listening environment if I put down a security deposit which can be returned when I return the speakers to them. If they aren't willing to do this, then I may just order them through Crutchfield to audition them. My other question is what amp would be a good pairing for these speakers, as I don't think my old Denon will be sufficient enough?

The following are the specs for the Monitor Audio Bronze 500 speakers:

Power Range 60-200W
Frequency Response 32-30k Hz
Sensitivity 90 dB
Impedance (Ohms) 8
 
Does Monitor Audio make a matching 500 bronze center speaker? If you wanted to later add one.
 
Update: That store said that they wouldn't be able to allow me to audition the Monitor Audio speakers at my apartment due to the liability of transporting, the process of unboxing, and having them in a house for any period of time being very difficult.
 
Wax4Daze said:
I don't think my old Denon will be sufficient enough?
Click to expand...

I think you should give the Denon a try before buying a replacement...

Per your listening distance and the specs of the speaker, 1 watt will give you peaks of 87.7 dB at the listening position and you should be able to get peaks of 103 dB from the full 80 watts if you ever push it hard.

There's a fun calculator here: https://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

Wonder if the store would be willing to let you bring the Denon to them so you could at least get a sense of how well they play with the Monitor Audio speakers.
 
Even in the vinyl realm, where doing so is more difficult sometimes, I try really hard not to change more than one thing at a time, and to get well used to it before making another change. In that spirit, I'd run the new speakers with your old amp first. With a blown driver in your old pair, and without the 500s being a 'blind date', they should provide a satisfying improvement that you will need to become accustomed to, in order to properly evaluate new amplifiers. You may even find you have no need.

If you are going to optimize for music going forward, which the intervening posts make me doubt, IMO separates are the way to go, although many modern integrateds are attractive, too. Not sure how much of a downgrade simple stereo would be for your AV situation, as I'm not sure how much of your AV capability you are using. The center speaker, I get. You might try configuring your AVR without a center, to see if two-channel would satisfy you when watching. Don't let me talk you out of multichannel - AVR systems can sound great.
 
My main concern is that I don't want the speakers to blow, but it would be great if I could be running them with an amp that could also help them reach their fullest potential. That's a good idea to see if the store will allow me to bring my own amp in.
 
sqlsavior said:
Even in the vinyl realm, where doing so is more difficult sometimes, I try really hard not to change more than one thing at a time, and to get well used to it before making another change. In that spirit, I'd run the new speakers with your old amp first. With a blown driver in your old pair, and without the 500s being a 'blind date', they should provide a satisfying improvement that you will need to become accustomed to, in order to properly evaluate new amplifiers. You may even find you have no need.

If you are going to optimize for music going forward, which the intervening posts make me doubt, IMO separates are the way to go, although many modern integrateds are attractive, too. Not sure how much of a downgrade simple stereo would be for your AV situation, as I'm not sure how much of your AV capability you are using. The center speaker, I get. You might try configuring your AVR without a center, to see if two-channel would satisfy you when watching. Don't let me talk you out of multichannel - AVR systems can sound great.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your insights about upgrading one thing at a time, and to give my Denon a chance. I suppose, that my best decision is going to be to purchase the speakers through Crutchfield, and then I would have to pay the return shipping cost for them if they didn't work for me.

As far as optimizing for music going forwrad, that is my main goal. I don't have enough money to get two new front and two new surround sound speakers right now. I want to focus on replacing the Paradigm speakers, and then have something to watch movies with that's better than the crappy internal speaker for the 4K television. The issue is that I don't believe there are many amplifiers that are going to connect to my HD television. Please elaborate on "separates are the way to go, although many integrateds are attractive too".
 
If your not pushing the speakers to distortion, you shouldn't blow them. Unless there's a receiver issue your hearing now.
 
Old Guy8 said:
If your not pushing the speakers to distortion, you shouldn't blow them. Unless there's a receiver issue your hearing now.
Click to expand...

No issue with the receiver as far as I can tell, but it does only have 80 watts/ channel. Someone explained this to me that the electronics in the AV receivers tend to use a lot of this wattage, so when all is said and done there is really only about 35-40 watts of clean power from an 80 watt AV receiver. But, that's a good point that if I'm not pushing them to distortion, they shouldn't blow. I'm still not really sure how I blew the Paradigm speaker, as I don't tend to listen to music extremely loud? It has a volume level that goes from 60 to 0 with 0 being the highest level. The highest that I recall playing them is 12 when playing vinyl and about 20 when playing CD's.
 
I have 6 wpc and 7.6 wpc tube amps that drive 89db and 88db speakers in different systems. They can easily play 75dbs loud at my chair, for my jazz. Not concert level, mind you. But if you use indiscretion you won't blow them. At least for music. Just have to watch bomb blasts during movies.

So if you get the Bronze 500 mains, how much does that leave you in budget, for amp and TT/cartridge in future?
Sqlsavior has something, advising do step by step. As long as you already have a working system now.
 
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Old Guy8 said:
I have 6 wpc and 7.6 wpc tube amps that drive 89db and 88db speakers in different systems. They can easily play 75dbs loud at my chair, for my jazz. Not concert level, mind you. But if you use indiscretion you won't blow them. At least for music. Just have to watch bomb blasts during movies.

So if you get the Bronze 500 mains, how much does that leave you in budget, for amp and TT/cartridge in future?
Click to expand...

That would leave me with about $1700 for a turntable and amp. There is a place in Portland that has a used Thorens TD-160 Super with a Grado black cartridge for $800. They discovered a problem with the arm where it wasn't lowering properly every single time, so they have sent it in to their service facility to have it gone through completely. I know that I can get a new Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo turntable for about $600 as well.
 
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IME you should get the two channel sound as good as you can before dealing with surround/HT. If you follow this route you'll find there is no need to have separate 2 channel and surround systems.

Get two channel right. Then add HT/surround.
 
Wax4Daze said:
That would leave me with about $1700 for a turntable and amp. There is a place in Portland that has a used Thorens TD-160 Super with a Grado black cartridge for $800. They discovered a problem with the arm where it wasn't lowering properly every single time, so they have sent it in to their service facility to have it gone through completely. Do you think $800 is a good price for this model of a Thorens turntable? I know that I can get a new Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo turntable for about $600 as well.
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I'm not very knowledgeable about Thorens TTs. With Vintage turntables, spindle bearing and tonearm bearings condition can be key. Spindle bearing should be silent. Tonearm model affects performance and value. That's a very good model TT. Just make sure tonearm floats when counterweight is balanced and anti skate is off. No sticky spots vertically or horizontally. See some Utube videos. Theres a Thorens thread within the turntables thread. Assume may have to replace the Black stylus. Just be aware, if you give location of a desirable value piece of gear here. Someone might get there before you.
Officially, questions of value are supposed to be asked in the Dollars and Sense thread.
Does your AVR have a phono stage?
 
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