How much do you think needs to be put into Speakers of a Stereo system?

Neglect the room at your peril.

 

Sorry to disappoint you. This is sort of a niche thing, for example, my wife could care less about matching amps etc. Most people do not know anything about it. Don't assume that everyone that has a stereo knows this, they don't. People is this forum might but n0t the average Joe with a stereo. Most just like to listen to music and are not into the tech end of things. My wife likes to watch TV with me but she really could care less that I have a plasma vs LCD.

Well I guess I have done some kind of amp matching. Having some 4 and 6 ohm speakers I had to make sure the amplifier could handle a 4 ohm load. But thats about the extent of it.

 

So how much would you recommend spending on the room? (for that matter, how exactly would you recommend buying a room?)

 

Funny...that is kind of what my head saw too...funny stuff! Silly to spend that much out of proportion for a vinyl rig....he will never hear the difference. A good amp and speakers is really quite important, and to say there is not a lot of difference in carts over $100...huh? You really need to do a whole lot more research....this is a good place to start though!

I am old school...I really do think awesome speakers are really important or everything else is a bit pointless. I love vinyl but I would rather see you invest in a modest vinyl set up and get better speakers and a good amp...it is easy to upgrade your vinyl rig later. It will still sound better overall than getting a $2500 table and....well, kinda like the picture above painfully points out.

 

Few mentions of rooms effects not being factored in.... Fair point and worth qualifying –

Music system in the main living area and further to varying speaker position and angles heavily influencing the sound/acoustics, so has moving the furniture around. Definitely worth significant time and effort investment to do the best with what you’ve got, and for no financial cost. Ended up with a plenty of space around the speakers and they effectively dominate the area!

(I rationalise never having added specific room treatments, quite probably naïvely, as there are curtains to one side of the room, a sofa to the other, another sofa in front of the speakers, and a carpeted floor. Current speakers are also base-ported and away from any walls (clear element of boominess when placed nearer walls), and no apparent evidence of other strange acoustic effects. There’s also the aesthetics of it being the main living area… Writing this makes me think there’d be no harm in trying some discreet base traps out … hmm...)

 

It only matters if you have a bad room.
I have one terrible room and one good room.I decided it was better to use the good sounding one although it was originally not going to be used for my system.
The alternative was to spend a lot of money on ugly room treatments that may have only resulted in a marginal improvement.

 

Hi STBob, Someone mentioned synergy. The 50% investment on speakers is the classic spending ratio. I think it's still the right place to start, but there are a few cheap speakers that sound awesome, and many that don't. But, synergy is so critical in a system. A system as you know performs as a system. When components "like" each other we get a little magic going, a more exciting, engaging listening experience. Small audible differences in amplifier sound, as tested on the same set of speakers, can become more audible as different amplifiers are matched to different speakers. The tough part is finding synergy, or magic!

Always, the practical approach is to start by matching fine components. Ideally, the best place would be a stereo retail store with listening rooms, and try various amp/ speaker combinations. Your subjective impressions are all that matters. Otherwise, I'd open an ebay acct, or buy from a retailer who offers a 30 day exchange for anything that isn't complementing the system.

All high fidelity systems have their Achilles heel. The idea is to try to recreate an original event, such as live vocal, or a piano concerto, or a freight train (haha) which can closely approximate the original performance, but never exactly the same. All stereo hi fi components impose their own sonic signatures, just as microphones and studio consoles do. (although their designers try to minimize that the best they can, and make claims of how "transparent" their products are, because that's the idea) Don't overlook speaker placement and treating your room. In every system there will be strengths and weaknesses. In any case, the right system is the system that delivers the strengths we are looking for.

 

Bad rooms are small, and square, have low ceilings, worst case! Such rooms need to become walk in closets haha! Next best solution would be headphones, or near field listening, shag carpeting on the walls! (jk)

Seriously, a very useful test for room acoustics is to simply clap your hands. This test can be done to consider the best room, best room dimensions and acoustics to set up a high fidelity system, before setting it up. If there is any discrete echo, that's bad. There should be no flanging effect, such as a small square room produces. (flanging is a rapid discrete echo, or sometimes the echo too short to hear discretely, just a harsh treble, annoying effect) The hand clap should sound sharp with a short, smooth decay.

 

Somewhere between 20% and 30% - they are the least important part of the chain.
Source first.

 

In my opinion people tend to obsess too much about this. Yes your amp needs to be able to drive the speakers without clipping. But if you pick speakers that are a relatively easy load to drive then this is pretty much a nonissue. If you listen at louder volumes just make sure you have enough watts to avoid clipping. These days most budget receivers and integrated amps are pretty transparent. The differences between them are mostly in there clipping behavior but if you avoid this you don't have to worry about it it's a nonissue.

 

If someone thinks room treatment isn't important try this experiment- if you have the typical "system and television between your speakers" set up, throw a towel over your tv and notice if you hear an improvement in sound. If you don't, then don't worry about treatments. But I'll bet money you do.

As for the speaker percentage rule, info is all over the place. Right now for me, if you factor in cables, conditioner etc, my speakers are probably around 25-30% of my system and I'm pretty damn happy.

 

You asked the Forum so don't expect an average Joe answer. And if you have been paying attention [and judging from your responses, you haven't] you would notice, time and again, the same speaker sounding radically different depending on the amp it's hooked up to.

 

Speakers 12%
Amp 12%
Cables and Power 14%
CD/DAC 34%
Rack 14%
Room Treatments 12%
Equaliser (including microphone etc.) 2%

Biggest influence on sound? Room Treatment, positioning (no cost!), equaliser.

There was no plan in these percentages - it just happened that way. I would say I probably spent too much on the CD/DAC and perhaps racks, but I still haven't spent enough on isolation, probably not enough on electrical isolation, and I could spend more on room treatment.

How much on music? Well what have I got left to spend? My two CDs sound good!

 

I agree with tim185 and others that the room/speaker interaction has the largest impact on what you ultimately hear out of your setup. However, if I were trying to help someone put together a stereo system I'm not sure I'd start with addressing room acoustics too much depending on the room. If it were your average living room with furnishings and flooring I'd focus on speaker and listener placement and then get into gear. If it were a bare space with lots of hard reflective surfaces then I'd put a little more emphasis on it.

That said, when it comes to entry level starter systems I would agree to spend nearly half your budget on speakers as they'll have more influence on the sound (other than the room) than any well designed component in the chain.

I would allocate my money in this order:
Speakers
Integrated Amp/Receiver
Sources

I wouldn't spend significant money on cables or tweaks until the room was addressed fully.

Bill

 

Is that considered good or bad ?

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I think it all depends on the budget. Beyond 3000$, it all starts to become much more subjective to branding and/or design preferences. Below that line though, I think a half-decent pair of 3-way speakers can be had for 700~800 dollars, and the rest can be modulated according to taste. Percentages vary with the amount you can put down. It will also vary if some/ all of it can be purchased used.

Some swear the cartridge and stylus is key, others the amp, others swear they NEED multi-thousand dollars speakers hooked to outrageously priced tube amps because without it, everything sounds like post-digestive refuse.

...The key point is that your system is only as good as it's weakest point, and the budget to attain your audio nirvana is only limited by your own personal material and specs ambitions.

I believe once you have decent speakers that match you preference of tonality (Boomy, neutral or clear), most turntables with a 200$ cartridge/stylus combo on most receivers can sound quite satisfying. My reasoning is that speakers are your most important link to the content, and the cartridge and stylus is the first contact of the amplification chain with the content.

 

I would consider these ratios for a $15k system
1/3 on amplification
1/3 on speakers
1/4 on source if analog, 1/10 if digital and put more $$ toward amps and speakers
The balance on cables and room treatments

For a $3k system
$1200 amp
$1200 speakers
$400 digital source
Balance on basic cables and basic room treatment.
I would also go used for speakers and amp to extend the reach of my $$.

 

Just an additional thought, Perhaps some emphasis on source, since a back up file will be made from the source. If upgrades to amplification and speakers are done later on, the quality of the source backed up, will be more greatly appreciated.

 

This sounds about right to me. I neglected to say in my earlier post that while I think speakers are, by far, the most important part of sound in any set-up, that I have more into my amps than my speakers on all three systems. That's partly because I use NHT SuperOnes on two of them and got my Celestion DL-8 II's at cost many years ago. And on everything else, I never pay retail so the above formula didn't actually work in my case. But by and large, I agree with it as a good starting point. I might adjust the $3k system to spend a bit more on the speakers and a bit less on the amp (assuming one is not paying MSRP).

 

It can be done cheap if you can DIY.

 

Agreed. Watch your impedance, output of amp and speaker rating, and your good to go. This amp matching, whatever it actually is, wouldnt be high on my list.

 

I used to do this in our old house where I didn't have a dedicated audio room. I used a small blanket to cover the plasma tv and it made a huge difference! The first time my wife came home to see the tv covered, she thought I must have broken the screen. I now have my own audio room with various room treatments and the same system sounds miles better than it used to. Best upgrade in sound I have ever made!

 

If anyone can get their screen actually behind the front of their monitors you should be ok.

 

On my HT I have all my speakers ahead of my plasma and sounds pretty good. I tried that blanket and it did not sound any better plus my wife said it made a little harder to watch movies.

I have my two stereo set ups in other rooms.

 

But how cheap? Cheap to me is probably a lot less than cheap to a millionaire. Can you suggest an approximate dollar amount?

 

I reckon you could do a good job for well under a thousand dollars. And that will give you an improvement no $5000 piece of gear could give you, thats for sure .