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[hypercentric]

Just ordered one of these for $399 no tax/free shipping for a relatively small game/movie room. I have seen these at my local Costco going for less but I missed out on it. I have read nothing but good things about them.

http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-speaker-s...l?tag=mncol;lst

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speaker...-classic-review

System includes an Energy 8'' 200 watt subwoofer, but the place I ordered it from is upgrading the sub at no additional charge to a 12'' 500 watt. Sweet. Will be pairing this with the Pio VSX1019.

Not sure yet when I want to splurge on Elemental Design speakers.

Lastly, any recommended speaker wirse/subwoofer cables? Am eyeing some fancy looking Bell'O 14 gauge, oxygen free, copper wires to hook up the system. Any good? Or can I just go to my local Wal-Mart and pick up a spool of some joe schmoe 14gauge's for half the price?

[hypercentric]

Think I'll save some money and grab the joe schmoe 14 gauge wires during my lunch break or something. Noticed they were oxygen free as well which is probably the most important factor for getting the most outta my setup. I assume?

[d2_s]

I am not a cable expert by any means, but I used to purchase from a few audio/video specialists online and he used to stock a brand called Canare (which are a good brand).

Last speaker cable I bought was stuff that professionals in the audio industry have access to (no idea what the brand is) a friend who used to work for a company that deals with installations for large sites and high end setups sold me a few reels wholesale, wasn't cheap, but was cheaper than buying the brand name cable that gets sold in most stores.

Comparing it to a reel of left-over Monster audio cable I had from a few years ago, it was a more substantial looking cable too. I just cut, stripped and tinned the wires myself...I bought a set of bannana plugs I was going to use, but bought the wrong darn size!!! Will look at getting around to that at some stage as it really makes hooking up cables to your reciever much less a pain in the butt, if you could be bothered I recommend you make the effort to do that, will save you much pain and make you less hessitant to hook/unhook cables to your receiver the in the future :)

[hypercentric]

Thanks, I'll look into that Canare, I tend to avoid anything with Monster or Bose on the name when it comes to shopping for HT gear.

The speaker system I ordered, while rated pretty much best in its class, is not high end. Friend of mine who knows more than I do about this sort of stuff tells me am already overdoing it by going with the 14 gauge wires for this setup. Apparently, I should be fine with thinner 16gauge wires but am known for overkill. We'll see.

[Mr Awesomer]

That looks like a great 5.1 setup, but something looks fishy to me.

The 5.1 setup includes Energy's 8" sub. A seller on Amazon has it for $629. However, Amazon themselves has the 5.0 set for $199 and the matching 8" sub for $199. Basically the $400 you're spending.

Yet another seller on Amazon has a $399 special mentioning the "free upgrade to a 12" sub." Maybe this is the very place you ordered from. I'd be really curious to know if it's an Energy sub or not... or if they're just selling the 5.0 set with a inferior 12" sub.

Let me know when you get this. This set is looking like a perfect addition to the bedroom.

[hypercentric]

Yep, got it on amazon. At the time, I saw no option for $630. Got it from the acoustic sound design experts w/the upgraded sub for $399. Order already shipped for free via UPS ground. Sweet. I should get it early next week.

The upgraded sub am getting doesn't sound inferior and looks quite decent(but what do I know):

http://www.amazon.com/Acoustech-H-100-Fron...7129&sr=8-1

I have read some more detailed specs. I focuesd on the watts and max frequency range--assuming those are the two most important factors to look at? The Energy sub has a peak power output of 200 watts, with 60watts of continuous RMS, and a low of 33hz. The Acoustech H100 has a peak power of 500/150 continuous RMS and a low of 24hz. For max frequency range, am assuming the lower the better? Have read lots of positive user feedback for the H100 but have only found one expert review talking about it briefly:

http://www.audaud.co...nent/comp1.html

I won't be able to get set up until the Pio VSX1019 I ordered arrives--it is still currently temporarily out of stock, have no idea when Amazon will get it back. Good news is when I ordered that sucker for $440, noticed a few hours later the price jumped back to$499. Feels good saving $60 and I don't mind waiting for it to go back in stock.

Anyway, yeah, my thoughts exactly, this system looks like the ideal small room speaker setup at a great price. Will let you know how it sounds once I get it all hooked up. However, am not a picky audiophile, and am no sound expert by any means and, I can tell you right now, I'll most likely be happy with what I hear.

[d2_s]

hypercentric, on Jul 24 2009, 12:01 AM, said:

Thanks, I'll look into that Canare, I tend to avoid anything with Monster or Bose on the name when it comes to shopping for HT gear.

The speaker system I ordered, while rated pretty much best in its class, is not high end. Friend of mine who knows more than I do about this sort of stuff tells me am already overdoing it by going with the 14 gauge wires for this setup. Apparently, I should be fine with thinner 16gauge wires but am known for overkill. We'll see.

Definately overdoing it...I overdid it myself, way I see it is I don't have to worry about recabling for a while and it's just a matter of upgrading the gear in between and better having decent cable in there rather than something that doesn't give you the best your system has to offer :)

[hypercentric]

Yeah, same way I look at it, I like being prepared..and then some. Am definitely going for the thicker 14gauges, just not sure which brand yet.

[MrEastSide]

Absolutely nothing wrong with Monster Cable branded stuff. It's high quality. It's just insanely overpriced. If you can find it for cheap, then jump at it for sure. But, certainly don't pay $100 dollars for a cable. Nothing wrong with the brand though.

[hypercentric]

I do have a Monster PS2 Componenet cable I got back in the day that am happy with. But yeah, mostly avoid them when I can get same quality cables for a fraction of the price.

[Todd]

Hyper- I'm still sans a sound system for my main 42" Vizio and Yammy RXV363 500W. It's a small room. I'm looking similar to you BUT the downward firing 12" sub would likely not be appropriate. Wonder if you came across any contenders but with a front firing 8". Maybe I can leech off your research

Anxious to hear how you like the new setup.

I confess I have a Monster 360 component cable, and Monster 14g wire on my $200 BA bookshelf speakers which are serving as my HT with said yammy above at the moment :blush2:

[hypercentric]

Will post feedback soon as I get everything in order. The speaker system already shipped so I should get those in no time. It's the Pioneer receiver that could take some time to get delivered. Have no idea how long it will take for Ama to get them back in stock. They're supposed to send me an email. Shortly, I hope.

Todd not sure how much power you need, or what your price range is but for a small room I'd recommend this front firing, 8'' sub from Energy:

http://www.amazon.com/Energy-ESW-V8-Subwoo...9947&sr=8-4

And as for Monster, only if they'd msrp their cables for a bit less, have nothing against them but even when they go on sale, prices are still kinda high. But I have seen some pretty good deals for Monster stuff to be fair. What's the word on Bose? From what I hear, they are not only overpriced, but are pieces of crap as well.

[d2_s]

Todd, on Jul 24 2009, 03:31 PM, said:

I confess I have a Monster 360 component cable, and Monster 14g wire on my $200 BA bookshelf speakers which are serving as my HT with said yammy above at the moment :blush2:

It's not so bad, I had Monster component cables for both PS2 and Xbox and used Monster Component cables on the 350 before switching to VGA and then finally HDMI...

[MrEastSide]

hypercentric, on Jul 24 2009, 02:30 AM, said:

And as for Monster, only if they'd msrp their cables for a bit less, have nothing against them but even when they go on sale, prices are still kinda high. But I have seen some pretty good deals for Monster stuff to be fair. What's the word on Bose? From what I hear, they are not only overpriced, but are pieces of crap as well.

Bose speakers sound above average in my opinion, but like Monster, are insanely overpriced. And as you mentioned; it's been proven the materials they use are nothing special and some components they use are downright on the cheap side. If I found a good deal on something Bose I probably wouldn't hesitate to buy, but it would have to be an insane deal. Like, 70% or more off whatever the MSRP is on the particular item.

[hypercentric]

Thanks East, good to know.

Little update:

I got word that Amazon won't be able to ship my order for the VSX1019 till late August. I know I said I could wait, but not that long, lol. I have since cancelled that order, and went ahead and put an order in for the VSX919 for $350. It still has all the key feature am looking for and the ones missing--minus one hdmi port and some video scaling--I will not be missing. Comparison chart of the new Pioneer VSX receivers for those interested:

http://www.audioholi...er-VSX-1019AH-K

And my speakeres arrived today. Woo, hecka quick, will post pics later.

[hypercentric]

Put some pics up in the setup pic thread http://www.hdtvarcad...ndpost&p=169334 :)

Another little update; finally decided on speaker cables.

Found a great little site that sold them: kongcable.com

They had some Velocity, 12 gauge, oxygen free cables that were already terminated, and had banana plugs already attached for a great looking price. $11.29 new: http://www.kongcable...ucts/13190.html

[hypercentric]

Cables I ordered from kongcable arrived today and got everything hooked up.

Cables are awesome and were very simple to connect. The bananas plugged flawlessly into the back of the Pioneer receiver and Energy speakers. Subwoofer cable was a perfect fit too.

Setting up the receiver, speakers, and sub was also quite simple. Thanks mostly to Pioneer's MCACC tech. It pretty much fine tuned everything for me from speaker distance to reverb.

I only had to manually adjust the speaker size and crossover freq. It was set to Large and 80hz. Speak system I own recommends Small and 100-120hz. Changed it to Small and 100hz (unable to set it to 120hz, the next step up on the Pio after 100hz was 150hz) using the easy to navigate GUI.

Also, the Pioneer receiver was set to default at Auto Surround with Phase Control on, on my setup I noticed that this muffled the sound a little bit. I don't think the MCACC had any control over this. It was pretty easy changing it to output PURE DIRECT (there's a button on the remote control to change the parameters), and the results were pretty awesome. Pure Direct brought out the best sound for my setup.

Used the Pio51FD Blu-ray player to test out a variety of action scenes from Iron Man, Dark Knight and King Kong. The Dolby TrueHD, and DTS Master HD audio sounded great. Would have to say all the reviews I read were spot on when it said that awesome sound would be blastin out of these little speakers. The Acoustech H100 sub paired up perfectly with the Energy speaks as well delivering powerful, yet natural sounding bass that, even my audio nerd buddy approved of it.

All in all am pretty happy with the sound I paid for; under $900 (receiver + speakers + cables) for everything, and would highly recommend them to anyone else looking to get a high quality, inexpensive sound system for a small room.

[d2_s]

Glad too see you received everything ok :) Yeah, I was really surprised at the sound considering the price range and very nice feature set.

[hypercentric]

Thanks d2.

Semi-quick story about my kongcable shopping exp. Placed the order with them last Monday, received an email next day saying my cables would ship within 24hours, the website updated my order as well to reflect that email. After that, no further correspondence. Even my order on their website didn't update. I emailed them about it and received no response. I thought they took my money and ran with it. I was ready to file a complaint with the BBB but when I got home from work today, the cables were on my porch waiting to be taken out of the UPS box.

Although I was happy to get my my stuff relatively quick and for a good price, the communication was horrible. Perhaps I should have been more patient, but I'm not sure I can recommend kongcable to others for the stomach ache that lack of communication caused. Checking my status order now and it still says: 'will ship within 24 hours' on their website. lol :suicide:

[Todd]

So have you run any games through this setup yet?
I'm finding I have lost some love for for my headphones, and may purchase a budget sound system for gaming only.