2. speakers
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im searching for a budget 2 channel setup

as all people living in SF homes there is always a problem for speaker placement weird areas in victorians and arts and craft homes need app;y here. i have only one place in the kitchen area to setup an immaculate budget system not costing more than 4000 to do this. the problem is the area its going to situated in the speakers have to be placed next to a wall and beside an old victorian couch , the amps and cd player below the couch as not to be seen but heard, remote is a must. music played will be from my wifes iphone and ipod, if you have any great ideas at all and know these kind of constraints it will be much appreciated i have been an audiophile for nearly 25 years and this is the biggest challenge i have ever faced. any suggestions ?
sionlim
jrinkerptdnet
430 posts
 
well one difficult thing will be finding something with a radio frequency remote vs an infrared remote (for the amp and CD player since both will be hidden) ... if your gear is obscured from view it will also be out of line of sight for an infrared remote signal
grinnell
1,094 posts
 
Consider tubes if you are going to use an Ipod. I think you will find the sound much richer.
martykl
3,578 posts
 
I'll offer one approach:

Small omnis or "near omnis" with little to no bass like those from Ohm, Mirage, Gallo. or even Sunfire (the CRM is dipole, but maybe worth thinking about, anyway). The wide dispersion should help mitigate the irregular placement and the lack of bass will mitigate any undesireable low frequency room effects attendent to the odd positioning. Add a small sub to fill out the bandwidth.

Good luck

Marty
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,172 posts
 
Good approach from Marty.

Ipod is OK as a source but limited to lossy compressed file formats usually in that higher res files require more digital storage/disk space.

If you have a suitable computer already, going the music server route with a Logitech Squeezebox wireless network player would be an effective way to get good sound and flexibility without having to keep a CD or other player in close proximity to the amp.

Using a powered sub with the speakers mentioned will also open up a lot of possibilities in regards to using smaller or less powerful tube or SS amplifiers and still getting good results.
manoterror
216 posts
 
The Apple Airport Express runs on wifi, so you should be able to connect to it, even under a couch. You can then stream from your Mac, iTouch, iPad or iPhone through it, to the amplifier. I have all my music in Apple Lossless, and it sounds every bit as good as CD.
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/features/airtunes.html

The Peachtree Nova would make a good amp, with a built-in quality DAC, and tube pre-amp stage to warm up the digital content. Make sure there is plenty of ventilation with any amp under a couch. That kind of scares me.

As for speakers, I would look at the Anthony Gallo Reference Stradas. Great write-up in 6moons, and they are designed to work well on, or very near a wall. Paradigm Signature S1 v3, or Mirage OMD-5s would also be a good bet. I would mate with a sub of course. There are some that fit under a couch. Soundmatters makes one, Sunfire does and I’m sure others do as well.

Good luck!
Mot
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