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Newbie - Replacing front speakers & going 5.0! Advice needed :)

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on an AV forum, so please be gentle.

I have come here to get the best from my set up, share my experiences and learn more about audio. I currently have the following which I purchased around 6-9 months ago from Richer Sounds:

  • Front Speakers - Monitor Audio Bronze 2
  • Centre Speaker - Monitor Audio Bronze Centre
  • AV Receiver - Yamaha RX-V481
  • Cable - Chord Company C-Screen
  • Banana Plugs: Cambridge Audio V2
I listened to the Bronze 6's recently and absolutely loved them, they sounded amazing compared to the Bronze 2's. I plan to move by Bronze 2's to the back and use them as my rear speakers so I can get the Bronze 6's for the front and have a 5.0 set up. I don't plan on going 5.1 as I live in a top floor flat, floor standers will provide enough bass.

I enjoy TV, movies & music. I probably care about music quality first, movie quality/experience second. 

I wouldn't mind stretching the budget a little bit and getting a floor stander from the new Monitor Audio Silver 6G range, but my OCD says to get the Bronze 6's so my set up is uniform.

I also wouldn't mind spending a little bit extra on cable/banana plugs if the extra money is worth it for floor standers.

I am fairly new to this and £699 is a fair amount of money to me so I want me make sure I won't have any issues with acoustics, sound reflections, speaker placement, bass, clarity, bottlenecks, surround sound and anything else which I need to consider!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
dan89
auxinput
2,920 posts
 

My opinions in matching front channels are really to make the PERFECT home theater.  I don't even completely have this in my system.

I was previously running B&W HTM2 D2 (with 6" midrange) for center and 805D2 bookshelves (WITHOUT midrange) for left/right.  Since I did not have the dedicated midrange in my left/right, I could definitely hear that the midrange tones in the left/right were not as strong as tones coming out of my center.  This was most prevalent when music from the left/right speakers was accompanying voices from the center channel.  I have recently upgraded to the newer HTM2D3 center channel and it has an even stronger/clearer midrange.  Still, the overall sound is really not bad at all and I am generally happy.

I recommended the Silver 300 as a minimum because of the dedicated midrange and the fact that music is your priority.  I really don't think it will be that bad matching to the Bronze center.  The Bronze center will not have as strong/solid midrange voices obviously, but I don't think it will be bad to listen to at all.  You might sometimes feel that when people talk they sound feint or far away -- this could give you the upgrade bug to get a Silver C350 center (with its dedicated midrange), but you should be fine for now since music is truly your priority.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 
Oh, one thing you could do if you match the Silver 300 with the Bronze midrange is to increase the volume of the center channel by one or two steps in your receiver configuration so that the center channel is "pushing" the vocals a little more to match up with the stronger Silver 300 left/right.
dan89 OP
5 posts
 
I'll let my ears guide me then (and my wallet), either way I'll be getting a massive upgrade so I'll be happy for a while... hopefully!

I quite like that idea of getting a pair of Silver 300/500 and then saving up for a Silver C350 as it will give me something to work towards.
auxinput
2,920 posts
 

Crutchfield has some Silver 8 and Silver 10 speakers for 15% discount plus free freight shipping. These are the previous generation.

The new generation appears to have these improvements:

"The highlight of the new Silver series is a completely new version of the company's iconic gold dome tweeter, which has been fine-tuned in the quest for clearer, smoother and distortion-free highs"

"Technical enhancements to the speakers ‘engine’ include beefed up driver magnets, higher efficiency (8 ohms) and improved voice coils that include the patented DCF (dynamic coupling filter) used in the Platinum Series, resulting in purer sound and better power handling at high (SPL) levels."

dan89 OP
5 posts
 
In the UK they are doing massive discounts on the Silver 6 & 10, but the 8's seem to have all sold out everywhere in Black Oak.

On three way speakers with a dedicated mid range unit the key selling point always seems to be the dedicated mid range unit. This makes me wonder why would anyone buy a floor stander without a dedicated mid range unit? I could understand if budget was an issue but there are 2 way speakers for thousands, am I missing something?
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