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Speakers for Onkyo TX-SR608, suggestions.

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  • Jul 15th, 2010 10:17 am
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Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2007
567 posts
9 upvotes
Canada

Speakers for Onkyo TX-SR608, suggestions.

I want to go try some speakers, but there's so many, where to start. any recommendations on what to purchase.

budget is 500.. maybe i can add fronts, center for now and and rears later???

Only doing 5.1 setup for now

thanks.
12 replies
Sr. Member
Jul 6, 2009
828 posts
522 upvotes
In that price range monitors will likely be your best bet. If need be, I'd suggest starting with just 2 decent mains and add more speakers as you can afford. Wharfedale's Diamond 10 series, Energy RC10's or used Quad 11L or 12L would make good choices in your price range. As always though, it's best to get out and listen for yourself.
Banned
May 17, 2005
4845 posts
661 upvotes
^ +1
try canuckaudiomart for used speakers, with $500 you should be ok to get a "good" 2 bookshelfs + center
Deal Addict
Nov 21, 2007
1213 posts
91 upvotes
Kitchener
+1 to Canuck Audio Mart and +1 to just buying 2 speakers for now. You'll get a way better quality speaker than trying to stretch that over more speakers.

A quick look on CAM turned up two very nice bookshelf speakers for $500. I saw a pair of B&W CDM 1SE and a pair of Epos M5i within the first page. Either will sound nice.
Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2007
567 posts
9 upvotes
Canada
can bookshelf speakers be mounted? or do they need a platform to sit on?

my connection for from speaker wire is low about a few inches off the floor. dont want to run/see any wire from floor to where ever they have to sit.

i was thinking tower speakers for fronts, will towers give better sound? any recommendations for tower from speakers?
Deal Guru
User avatar
Mar 12, 2005
11677 posts
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Victoria
I have last years version of the onkyo reciever you have.

I use Energy Take Classic 5.1 speaker set.

I think I got it for 299ish when FS cleared them out earlier in the year. I live in apt. so I didn't really need full on standup speakers or anything. They sound pretty good with the reciever.
Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2007
567 posts
9 upvotes
Canada
Citizen Bmac wrote: In that price range monitors will likely be your best bet. If need be, I'd suggest starting with just 2 decent mains and add more speakers as you can afford. Wharfedale's Diamond 10 series, Energy RC10's or used Quad 11L or 12L would make good choices in your price range. As always though, it's best to get out and listen for yourself.
where can i purchase / test good quality speakers in store? does future shop or BB sell good quality speakers?
Deal Addict
Nov 21, 2007
1213 posts
91 upvotes
Kitchener
akyyyy wrote: can bookshelf speakers be mounted? or do they need a platform to sit on?

my connection for from speaker wire is low about a few inches off the floor. dont want to run/see any wire from floor to where ever they have to sit.

i was thinking tower speakers for fronts, will towers give better sound? any recommendations for tower from speakers?
Bookshelf speakers work best on stands. Cables can be run up the inside of the stand, to the back of the speaker. All you would see in this case is the cable run from the back of the stand to whatever your amp is in.

I would say at your budget, towers will not give you better sound. In my experience, budget priced towers will give you muddy, boomy bass. At the $500 price point, I personally would steer clear of towers. That's just me though. I'm picky when it comes to audio.

To test speakers, go to boutique audio stores. There's lots of them, but to listen to a variety of brands, you'll need to go to a few. Take along music you are familiar with, and listen to the same songs at every store. Remember that they are being driven with different electronics, so that will have some bearing as well. Futureshop/BB does not carry good speakers in my opinion, but again, I'm picky.
Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2007
567 posts
9 upvotes
Canada
Still no speakers. Reciever just sitting in the box for the past month.

Budget is now around 1100-1200. Any other ideas in this range. Read about the energy take classics. Are these any good?
Sr. Member
Jul 6, 2009
828 posts
522 upvotes
With that budget you open things up quite a bit. At that point, you need to decide what your priority is. You can get a good quality HTIB speaker system that will be very good for movies, and good but not great for music. If that suits you then something like this would be a good choice:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=39548&vpn ... F%20Canada

It's small and discrete, but sounds a lot bigger than it looks. It's on sale all the time for that price, so don't feel you need to jump on it.

If you want something that will be equally adept at music as movies, you'll want bigger speakers with either monitors or towers for front speakers. You can either go piece by piece or try to find a whole set used. Where do you live? Check your classifieds and Canuck Audio Mart.

Something like this for the front and centre at $850:

http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/ ... _speakers/

With these for $400 for the rears:

http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/ ... od_finish/

Add a sub as money permits and you'll have an excellent system for the money for both movies and music. Those speakers also happen to look really nice too in person which is always a bonus. It's more work piecing something like that together, so you have to decide if the reward is worth it. I think if you go that way though you'll agree it is. :)
Sr. Member
Oct 31, 2007
567 posts
9 upvotes
Canada
went into future shop and listened to Klipsch RF62s, sounded pretty good, are these considered lower end towers?

do i also need to check wattage of the speakers im looking at? The sales person asked how many watts per ch is my receiver. i told him its the onkyo 608 and he showed me speakers accordingly
Sr. Member
Jul 6, 2009
828 posts
522 upvotes
The Klipsch's are a lower end tower. At the sale price they are not a bad value, at full price I think there are better values even new. At the end of the day though if you like the way they sound that is what matters most. Buying new you also get a warranty which is nice. Audioholics did a shootout with them and 3 other similarly priced speakers recently and in blind listening the Klipsch came out on top by a small margin:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/spea ... 1k-faceoff

The wattage rating of the speakers means absolutely nothing; it's pure marketing garbage so people can say "My speakers are 250 watts!" or whatever, which actually doesn't mean anything at all because speakers don't put out watts, they put out sound energy and they only take whatever watts you feed into them which I would hope in the case of these Klipsch's for example it isn't the 125 watts RMS that is recommended on the FS website, unless you want to blow them or make yourself deaf in a real hurry.

The two things you do need to consider when looking at a speaker load are sensitivity (efficiency) and the impedance in ohms. As long as the sensitivity of whatever speaker you choose is greater than about 87 db and the impedance doesn't go below about 4 ohms you will be fine with the Onkyo. The Klipsch's are particularly efficient and easy to drive because of the horn tweeter.

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