Help on Speakers

[Keim]

I worked my way through undergraduate and graduate school as a radio and TV station engineer and did some recording for musical groups. So my comments come from a sort of audio purist viewpoint. For rock music and ordinary TV, anything goes. Sound accuracy is not a concern. For serious music:

People frequently try to turn audio into a numbers game. It is not. In the first place most of the manufacturers' numbers are bogus anyway. Secondly, the only way you can evaluate speakers is by listening to them.

Find a compilation audo CD that has music you like. It does not have to be the best recording ever made, but it should feature a range of music. Something like this maybe: https://www.amazon.com/Orchestral-Spectaculars-Kunzel-Cincinnati-Pops/dp/B000003CTO This is your comparison standard. I especially like triangle for the highs, and organ for bass. Or, for a one piece standard try the Toccata from the Fifth Organ Symphony in F, Op 42 #1, by Charles-Marie Widor You can audition it on your terrible computer speakers via a google search.

Drag your CD around to all of the high-end audio shops in your area and spend at least 10 minutes listening to each of the speakers in your price range. Don't overlook any used speakers that they might have. Skip the store's demos; you need a reference standard that is the same for every speaker you audition. You can try the big box stores if you like but my experience is that the speakers are usually garbage, the salespeople are completely ignorant, and the listening room (if any) is noisy.

Let your ears and your checkbook balance pick your speakers. Forget all the numbers.

For the record, I have Klipsch Fortes at home and Klipsch LaScalas at our lake place where my wife will permit the bigger boxes.

I just had to comment:
1. Good auditioning advice.
2. Sweet speakers! Would love to hear more about your system. I made a kit Bottlehead amp system with large (low Wife Acceptance Factor) homemade speakers some years ago. Sounds great. I love it.

 

[CardsFan]

quick google came up with this, which seems like good info, based on my experience:

How to EQ Speech for Maximum Intelligibility - Behind The Mixer



So you can see, the "frequency response of 175-20kHZ" has little to do with voice clarity. In fact, those speakers may drop out in the 1-5KHz range, but the freq response quasi-spec may only be telling you about the extremes, and not much if it also does not include the db SPL limits used.


-ERD50

I have been having my own issues with hearing conversations on TV. My TV was set on the Voice Clarity mode. I changed it to Standard and boosted the 1-5KHz range as suggested.

I have already noticed an improvement, even at much lower volume settings.

 

[soupcxan]

Given that your receiver is not that new, does it know how to decode 5.1 channel sound? If it's not routing the right sound (the dialog) to the center channel, then it's not going to do much good.


How is the sound getting to the receiver? Your receiver doesn't have HDMI which is the standard now and will send all the audio channels.


Depending on how much you want to invest in this, what I would do is:


Yamaha RX-V383BL ($250)
Yamaha NS-6490 bookshelf speakers ($130/pair)
Yamaha NS-C444 center channel speaker ($190)


You could substitute other brands just as well. If that doesn't get you good dialog then I don't know what will.


If you have a Frys near you they always put audio equipment on sale.

 

[jimbee]

I would attempt to optimize what you have before you spend a bunch of money on new equipment. The first things I would check are:

1. How is your TV audio connected to your 5.1 receiver?
2. Verify the speakers are connected with the proper polarity and output channel to your 5.1 receiver.

Then investigate audio settings. Ideally, you also want to consider room layout and furnishings, but those are often restricted by other members of the household.

 

[Nature Lover]

I have been having my own issues with hearing conversations on TV. My TV was set on the Voice Clarity mode. I changed it to Standard and boosted the 1-5KHz range as suggested.

I have already noticed an improvement, even at much lower volume settings.

I would attempt to optimize what you have before you spend a bunch of money on new equipment.

+1 to both of these. I have used the built-in EQ in my TVs to improve clarity, and my viewing/listening pleasure increased substantially.

NL

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Pages 30 and forward from the STR-DE598 manual. Have you tried various sound fields?

Thanks for checking this out. I have tried so many things on this that I just don't remember this specific thing. Instead of picking one of the pre-sets, we have individually selected settings without success. I suspect this is after doing what you said. But it don't cost me nothing to retry it. Thanks.

Based on some comments, I decided to grab my 1979 Technics JB-L100s and hook them up to the receiver. Wow! Did I say Wow! Maybe before I replace I can grab this pair and my Altec Laureates and plug them in as a test.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Given that your receiver is not that new, does it know how to decode 5.1 channel sound? If it's not routing the right sound (the dialog) to the center channel, then it's not going to do much good.


How is the sound getting to the receiver? Your receiver doesn't have HDMI which is the standard now and will send all the audio channels.


Depending on how much you want to invest in this, what I would do is:


Yamaha RX-V383BL ($250)
Yamaha NS-6490 bookshelf speakers ($130/pair)
Yamaha NS-C444 center channel speaker ($190)


You could substitute other brands just as well. If that doesn't get you good dialog then I don't know what will.


If you have a Frys near you they always put audio equipment on sale.

The receiver does 5.1 even though it is 12 years old. Really, it does. Cable is from TV is optical. I know everyone is going HDMI, but from what I have read, optical is great.

I have always thought well of Yamaha speakers. From what people are saying on here and what I am testing, my store brand speakers are my weakest link. Thanks for the recommendation. They may be in my future.

 

[donheff]

Much too complicated. You need to be a sound aficionado to implement most of these solutions. DW and I just turn on closed captioning.

But I think ERD's quoted source has the real answer. TV manufacturers should incorporate a simple control in setting to allow you to "Boost in the 1KHz to 5KHz range for improving intelligibility and clarity." This should be no more complicated than brightness adjustments and would address the age related hearing loss that almost everybody experiences.

I see from the last couple of comments that this is already available in some TVs. I will check mine.

Edit: On my new Vizio I found an equalizer setting. It doesn't permit custom adjustment of the bands but has various programmed setting. I selected "center" which slightly reduces low Hz and boosts 1K and to a lesser degree 3K.

 

[MichaelB]

Much too complicated. You need to be a sound aficionado to implement most of these solutions. DW and I just turn on closed captioning.

But I think ERD's quoted source has the real answer. TV manufacturers should incorporate a simple control in setting to allow you to "Boost in the 1KHz to 5KHz range for improving intelligibility and clarity." This should be no more complicated than brightness adjustments and would address the age related hearing loss that almost everybody experiences.

Or is this already present in some models?

+1
We also use captioning, and it helps. Either my hearing in the 1KHz to 5KHz range has declined more than the rest, or content providers are over-emphasizing lower and higher range sound, which we hear just fine.

Another solution is to use an amplifier that goes to 11.

 

[CardsFan]

Edit: On my new Vizio I found an equalizer setting. It doesn't permit custom adjustment of the bands but has various programmed setting. I selected "center" which slightly reduces low Hz and boosts 1K and to a lesser degree 3K.

On my Samsung you could only customize the equalizer when set to Standard Mode. You may check to see if the is a similar mode on yours that then allows custom settings.

 

[target2019]

Thanks for checking this out. I have tried so many things on this that I just don't remember this specific thing. Instead of picking one of the pre-sets, we have individually selected settings without success. I suspect this is after doing what you said. But it don't cost me nothing to retry it. Thanks.

I am glad I grabbed a soundbar and attached to my TV, instead of going for more expense. Of course you have a long history with your sound gear.

I believe your setup has presets (sound fields) analogous to what most have in recent and older systems. Depending on the remote, pressing a certain button will rotate through the presets. Of course you can customize, but I have found that just using the presets makes a big difference when I go from Music to Theater, for example. Some presets add thunder (Sports), some make voices clearer, etc.

Good luck with your search.

 

[donheff]

I am glad I grabbed a soundbar and attached to my TV, instead of going for more expense. Of course you have a long history with your sound gear.

I believe your setup has presets (sound fields) analogous to what most have in recent and older systems. Depending on the remote, pressing a certain button will rotate through the presets. Of course you can customize, but I have found that just using the presets makes a big difference when I go from Music to Theater, for example. Some presets add thunder (Sports), some make voices clearer, etc.

Good luck with your search.

Thanks. This prompted me to take another look. I didn't need to set it to standard but I discovered that I could arrow down to the individual sliders and reset them as I saw fit so I boosted 1K and 3K to the max and a bit less on 10K. There is no 5K slider. It will be interesting to see if this helps. Still using CC, especially for British stuff

Edit: My older Vizio in the basement has an equalizer with 1.5K and 5K sliders so I set them up too. We shall see.

 

[pj.mask]

Wow lots of tangential advice. Receiver is probably ok - don’t need anything fancy here. You can buy the Polk floor speakers ($150 each) and center (went for mid range version - maybe $150) and a bass (I put down $300 because anything under $200 is going to be underpowered).

Check out the AV forums. Biggest upgrade is to just get the center speaker. But before all that cycle through the audio modes on the receiver - some emphasize frequency range for voice and others make it sound muddy.

A 5.1 speaker setup for $200 or less is going to be junk unless it’s for computer gaming and you’re a few feet away.

 

[Music Lover]

I worked my way through undergraduate and graduate school as a radio and TV station engineer and did some recording for musical groups. So my comments come from a sort of audio purist viewpoint. For rock music and ordinary TV, anything goes. Sound accuracy is not a concern.

Listen to Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" and you'll find that "anything goes" is not good enough.

 

[OldShooter]

Listen to Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" and you'll find that "anything goes" is not good enough.

Funny. My thesis is this: The sound you hear from pop music mixes bears little relationship to the sound actually produced by the musicians. So if it is changed further by a stereo system that is not particularly important to me. I have no way of knowing what the original music was supposed to sound like anyway. Obviously YMMV.

Further, as a former recording engineer, I could also argue the other side of that one. What I created is what I want the listener to hear, not some adulterated version.

 

[donheff]

Listen to Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" and you'll find that "anything goes" is not good enough.

love the original and the Metallica version but they seem fine on my mp3s through phone speakers.

 

[ERD50]

love the original and the Metallica version but they seem fine on my mp3s through phone speakers.

I'm not sure, but I think you must have violated some forum rule with that post!

Listening to music through phone speakers is torture for me. I have to ask people to turn it off if they do that around me. I've offered the cable to plug their phone/laptop into my sound system if they really want people to hear that music.

In my house, the rule is "no music through tinny speakers".

-ERD50

 

[Music Lover]

I'm not sure, but I think you must have violated some forum rule with that post!

Listening to music through phone speakers is torture for me. I have to ask people to turn it off if they do that around me. I've offered the cable to plug their phone/laptop into my sound system if they really want people to hear that music.

In my house, the rule is "no music through tinny speakers".

-ERD50

I have good quality tower speakers...I refuse to listen to music through ear buds. All my TV audio also goes through the speakers. Far superior sound that the TV or a cheap soundbar.

 

[ERD50]

Funny. My thesis is this: The sound you hear from pop music mixes bears little relationship to the sound actually produced by the musicians. So if it is changed further by a stereo system that is not particularly important to me. I have no way of knowing what the original music was supposed to sound like anyway. Obviously YMMV.

Further, as a former recording engineer, I could also argue the other side of that one. What I created is what I want the listener to hear, not some adulterated version.

That's somewhat true, depending on the source music. If something very electronic/processed at the source, then yes, the end listener really has little reference for what it is "supposed to" sound like.

But many pop records will still have voice and instruments that are not so processed, and you have an idea.

-ERD50

 

[Music Lover]

Funny. My thesis is this: The sound you hear from pop music mixes bears little relationship to the sound actually produced by the musicians. So if it is changed further by a stereo system that is not particularly important to me. I have no way of knowing what the original music was supposed to sound like anyway. Obviously YMMV.

Further, as a former recording engineer, I could also argue the other side of that one. What I created is what I want the listener to hear, not some adulterated version.

Dire Straits isn't pop music and Brothers In Arms is considered to be one of the best sounding rock recordings that exists.

 

[donheff]

I'm not sure, but I think you must have violated some forum rule with that post!

Listening to music through phone speakers is torture for me. I have to ask people to turn it off if they do that around me. I've offered the cable to plug their phone/laptop into my sound system if they really want people to hear that music.

In my house, the rule is "no music through tinny speakers".

-ERD50

Actually, I mistyped. I didn't mean phone speakers I meant phone earphones. Right now I have the phone connected to the house receiver through BT and that sounds fine too. But my old receiver is periodically cutting out one channel so I need to consider whether I should get a new one to connect to my creaky old multi-room wires fished through floors and walls or whether I should be researching whether there are better wireless option I could move to.

 

[socca]

A few weeks ago I bought a LG 48" 'dumb' TV on sale @ BestBuy for $300. I wasn't happy with the sound so I bought a LG soundbar for $150. The subwoofer and forward-facing speakers make all the difference. I had to buy a $20 adapter to plug the soundbar into my Sony Blu-ray DVD player. I wasn't happy with any of the LG documentation, but got everything working. I'll be a satisfied customer if the LG reliability is good.

 

[kitesurfer2]

Amazon is your friend. read the negative comments first.

I have a surround sound receiver . I added a powered bass booster.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Still in my small (13 by 12) room while construction on big room (16 by 19) is in process. Background is that my cheap, old 5.1 system did not allow me to hear TV voices unless volume was too deafening.

Update on my TV surround sound. I purchased a $100 Polk audio CS10 center speaker. It mostly fixes the problem. Have not tried new speaker in the big room but the difference in my little room is amazing.

BTW, switching out cheap satellite speakers with my old, rockingly great Technics speakers did not help. Bottom line is the satellite speakers are not that important with my old system.

In the process, I found that a number of the surround sound speaker ports on my old, cheaper 5.1 receiver are bad. I can do workarounds by plugging satellites into non-surround sound ports, but am looking into replacing the 12 year old $200 Sony receiver.

So, I look on unnamed consumer audio company (based in Virginia) website and find mainly 7.2 receivers. I have some questions for you guys. Does anyone have 7.2 and are you happy with it? My guess is that 7.2 is going to be mostly wireless? (DW will not allow a spider web of speaker wires.) Do you use the wifi feature to connect directly with Pandora and other sources of audio?

Plan is to replace receiver next then evaluate satellites and sub-woofer.

I am treading slowly due to negative reactions from DW. So, positive suggestions from this group are good.

 

[erkevin]

I have a Yamaha 7.2 AV receiver. I have it hooked up as 7.1, however. I love my Yamaha and it has a great app to control the system from an android or I-device.
For music, the surround modes (cathedral, rock club, etc) are in 5.1. Video is 7.1. A few months ago, my son brought his Xbox home and played Battlefield1 through it. There were moments where I jumped in response to explosions....very impressive.
I was fortunate that in 2014, we completely re-did our family room and I was able to (finally) run wires through ceiling and behind trim.
My yamaha has internet radio and has access to thousands of stations. However, it is hard to determine the true genre of some stations (ambiguous names). I have several bookmarked and do listen occasionally. Pandora is also available through my Yamaha and I use that frequently. I am not an Apple guy, but the receiver has Apple Airplay.
My satellites are 25 year old crappy Kenwoods, but for the limited frequency response required by surround speakers, they are fine (IMHO). Subwoofer is a powered 12" polk and the mains are Polk also.