I would like advice for a beginner.
Speakers are more of a personal preference and room acoustics type of selection than any other component that you will deal with. There are obviously hordes of people that like B&W's and their "house sound", but they must all be on vacation for the Holiday. Otherwise, they'd be making suggestions in this thread like the rest of us "sheltered" people still dwelling at home : ) Sean > |
Teac Reference 350 receiver is $200 at: J & R Music and try these on the 600's. Then put the $150 you saved over the B&W 601's towards an Adire Audio Rava subwoofer. The point is an amp upgrade can do more than a speaker upgrade. Yamaha is a good brand but just bring in your Yamaha reciever and compare to a Bryston B60 or Creek 4330 on B&W. Other speakers to look at are KRK ST6 (sold at Guitar Center), Monitor Audio Bronze II, and Epos has a new <$300 speaker. |
Baileyje, Those that do not prefer B&W find their tweeters too bright, (which is the current "audiophile voicing," by the way.) As a musician, I think you will find an amazing amount of innacuracy in many speakers favored by audiophiles, often coined as "detail" or some other adjective. You have to have a good accurate speaker first. Any other advice is just plain wrong. Charlie |
Charlie, I couldn't tell from your post when you said "(which is the current "audiophile voicing," by the way)" whether you meant that the tastes of audiophiles go through trends, such as clothing styles, and therefore I should trust my own ears, because the trend will change, or, that, in fact, B&W speakers are a bit too bright and so may not be as well engineered as some other speakers. (If you can get through that run-on sentence and poor punctuation I will be amazed.) At any rate, at my age, 53, people often loose a sense of the higher frequencies. Maybe a brightness in the tweeter would be a good thing for me, and possibly that's what I liked about the B&W's. At this point I'm listening to music, loving it, and enjoying this web-site, its dialogue and the different position you all take. I'm auditioning many different speakers and I'm in no hurry. I'll wait for that "Amazing" sound sometime, hopefully soon, and keep reading this web-site. |
I use a Yamaha RX596 to power outdoor speakers and a pair of inwalls in the living room. I can tell you that whatever speakers you choose, make sure they are very efficient. Although the Yamaha is rated at 150 WPC, it's not a high current design and you'll have trouble with inefficient speakers. Good Luck, Mike. |
