Looking for help on small room surround sounds.

[Undecite]

I am looking for recommendations on speakers for a surround setup in a small room. 

Requirements: Easy setup, low latency, all hardware based (no wifi dependencies), good full sound with the option for some spicy bass (for when the boys wanna shake the house with some crab rave), and preferably on the not-so-expensive side (sub 2,000 usd preferably around a grand).

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Undecite said:

I am looking for recommendations on speakers for a surround setup in a small room. 

Requirements: Easy setup, low latency, all hardware based (no wifi dependencies), good full sound with the option for some spicy bass (for when the boys wanna shake the house with some crab rave), and preferably on the not-so-expensive side (sub 2,000 usd preferably around a grand).

Surround sound or positional audio?  Surround sound is only somewhat positional.  Positional audio is highly positional and needed for things like fps PvP games (which direction behind me are those footsteps coming from?!”) full on positional audio can be difficult.  In one respect it’s really easy: just wear some correctly set up positional audio headphones.  Doing it to a whole room though can be quite complex.  The whole deafness without distortion thing is much easier.  Basically anything more than 30w a channel with reasonable response will be enough to have the neighbors calling the cops in a residential neigborhood.  A 30w system often doesn’t have reasonable response at louder volumes though which is a reason you see things like 1000w home audio speakers that have never been turned above “2”.  DJ P.A. Is a bit different.  Mobility and ruggedness are factors because the stuff is moved around in a vehicle.  It also is often played much much louder.   Because of this the base wattage numbers are higher.  I had a not-quite brother-in-law who had a DJ system who had a rave in his basement.  He wound up using two subs (his and mine from home) because the furnace absorbed so much base.  With two subwoofers he just powered through it.  The side panels on the furnace were flexing a good 3 inches. About 4 cm in each direction maybe)   They blurred in the air.  Only time that sub ever got a real workout.

 

he was careful to invite all the neighbors so they were either there or had trouble complaining.  You could hear it across the street.

[johnt]

You should probably looked for use equipment. Most audio people baby their gear. I suggest you purchase a Denon X3200 or X4200 or newer receivers to do your processing and amplifier. Make sure the seller has the original microphone for your room corrections. Anything older than the X?200 has poor bass corrections, and anything newer is going to be really expensive. But that model also supports 4k60 HDR. Your budget is really limiting if you need more hertz.

 

Look for Klipsch speakers, USED, from ebay or Craigslist or whatever service you have available. NEVER purchase new Klipsch speakers... that is a terrible way to spend money. Make sure all the speakers are passive.

 

And your sub is going to be an issue within that price range. Consider buying your speakers and receivers and possibly save around $1k to $1.5k for the sub alone. I doubt you're going to find any used ones, but look for Hsu Research, SVS, Power Sound Audio, JTR. All these folks make great speakers too, so if you can find those used in your budget, buy them. Do not buy a subwoofer from a recognizable brand, like Klipsch or Sonos or Bose or anything sold by Best Buy.

 

Get yourself a decent bulk speaker cable of around 14 gauge. It's overkill but you will have enough strands in case you lose some. Also some banana plugs from mono price should serve you well.

 

I can provide links to some of these products if you like. I would buy the speaker wire and banana plugs new.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, johnt said:

You should probably looked for use equipment. Most audio people baby their gear. I suggest you purchase a Denon X3200 or X4200 or newer receivers to do your processing and amplifier. Make sure the seller has the original microphone for your room corrections. Anything older than the X?200 has poor bass corrections, and anything newer is going to be really expensive. But that model also supports 4k60 HDR. Your budget is really limiting if you need more hertz.

 

Look for Klipsch speakers, USED, from ebay or Craigslist or whatever service you have available. NEVER purchase new Klipsch speakers... that is a terrible way to spend money. Make sure all the speakers are passive.

 

And your sub is going to be an issue within that price range. Consider buying your speakers and receivers and possibly save around $1k to $1.5k for the sub alone. I doubt you're going to find any used ones, but look for Hsu Research, SVS, Power Sound Audio, JTR. All these folks make great speakers too, so if you can find those used in your budget, buy them. Do not buy a subwoofer from a recognizable brand, like Klipsch or Sonos or Bose or anything sold by Best Buy.

 

Get yourself a decent bulk speaker cable of around 14 gauge. It's overkill but you will have enough strands in case you lose some. Also some banana plugs from mono price should serve you well.

 

I can provide links to some of these products if you like. I would buy the speaker wire and banana plugs new.

I like the stuff they sell in hardware stores myself.  It’s not low oxygen or even virgin copper.  It’s cheap though and you don’t need that last .03%.  There are times that one does, but home audio really isn’t it. If you really want virgin copper stranded THHN is available.  Individual strands are bigger so it’s not as flexible.  It will be in the electrical section.  It’s the stuff they put in EMT pipe.

[johnt]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I like the stuff they sell in hardware stores myself.  It’s not low oxygen or even virgin copper.  It’s cheap though and you don’t need that last .03%.  There are times that one does, but home audio really isn’t it. If you really want virgin copper stranded THHN is available.  Individual strands are bigger so it’s not as flexible.  It will be in the electrical section.  It’s the stuff they put in EMT pipe.

You can find decent wire at like home depot for an okay price. Here is something easy on the budget: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-102821-Access-Conductor-Speaker/dp/B001WHQ9C8

 

I agree... you don't need to shoot for the moon for your cables. Definitely don't buy single stranded cables (electrical) for speakers lol

 

I purchased a great product back in 2015 that is also rated for in wall installations. A massive 250 feet reel was only $50 back then. I still have about 60 feet left after wiring my entire theater (7 speakers), computer (2), and garage (2). It lasts forever. Sadly it's currently out of stock. Comes back from time to time: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009EA80E0 Looks like it's available in 16 gauge variants, which will also work. I just keep it in my saved items just in case

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, johnt said:

You can find decent wire at like home depot for an okay price. Here is something easy on the budget: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-102821-Access-Conductor-Speaker/dp/B001WHQ9C8

 

I agree... you don't need to shoot for the moon for your cables. Definitely don't buy single stranded cables (electrical) for speakers lol

 

I purchased a great product back in 2015 that is also rated for in wall installations. A massive 250 feet reel was only $50 back then. I still have about 60 feet left after wiring my entire theater (7 speakers), computer (2), and garage (2). It lasts forever. Sadly it's currently out of stock. Comes back from time to time: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009EA80E0 Looks like it's available in 16 gauge variants, which will also work. I just keep it in my saved items just in case

Hmmm…. $40 for a hundred feet.  Effectively 200ft since it’s got two wires. Seeing 14g thhn $65/500 ft.  So cheaper IF you want that much wire.  Seeing a spool of 100’ for the same $40 though.   So twice the price at that length.  Weird.  Dunno why.  There appears to be a big cpu IMR discount though.   I usually buy the stuff by the foot.  There are really big spools and this sort of folding bailer you use.  Copper got insane recently, though it’s been going up for years.  I suspect this is a major reason Pex got okayed.  It cuts materials price more than in half for water pipe.

[Undecite]

19 hours ago, johnt said:

You should probably looked for use equipment. Most audio people baby their gear. I suggest you purchase a Denon X3200 or X4200 or newer receivers to do your processing and amplifier. Make sure the seller has the original microphone for your room corrections. Anything older than the X?200 has poor bass corrections, and anything newer is going to be really expensive. But that model also supports 4k60 HDR. Your….

Alrighty, I’ll look into that. I’ve been wanting to get good audio for movies and music for the man cave(it’s maybe a 14ftx15ft room) for awhile now.

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, Undecite said:

Alrighty, I’ll look into that. I’ve been wanting to get good audio for movies and music for the man cave(it’s maybe a 14ftx15ft room) for awhile now.

Older stuff is totally the win for regular surround sound.  If you want positional audio it may not be though.

[johnt]

4 hours ago, Undecite said:

Alrighty, I’ll look into that. I’ve been wanting to get good audio for movies and music for the man cave(it’s maybe a 14ftx15ft room) for awhile now.

I’ve been refreshing my memory and you can also look for KEF and JBL products. They are probably going to be a bit harder to find in good used condition. But their sound quality leaves nothing lacking for a theater. 

[sm1th5]

Polk reserve r200 bookshelves are great speakers to use.

 

Make sure you position all the speakers as best as possible to the right angles! 

Make sure not too high above ear level. 

 

Good luck! 

[The Hope]

On 5/30/2023 at 7:22 AM, johnt said:

I’ve been refreshing my memory and you can also look for KEF and JBL products. They are probably going to be a bit harder to find in good used condition. But their sound quality leaves nothing lacking for a theater. 

JBL sounds very bad to me. I think Infinity has more balanced and correct sound than Klipsch, Bose, JBL and B&W.

The Infinity subwoofers also always outperformed any KEF subwoofer.

 

I have the Infinity Alpha5 HCS II and it sounds on a different level than all other speakers I've heard in terms of accuracy.

 

I don't have a good microphone (it's a terrible micro) but this is my sound demo of this speaker:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GqWSpynHsLi1CM8qKyOZwYB6Et8isty5/view

 

Infinity is one of those typical brands that was the best in its field.

But the average person is not always a specialist in his purchases.