amp and speakers

pete.g

i need help
i am looking for an av receiver and speakers. have about 2k to spend
pioneer VSX2016 and Marantz SR6001 have been recomended for the av
was looking at speaker packages (satelites) but have been told not to.
told to check out B&W speakers
any ideas out there?

shayser

I'm new to AV and putting together a system at the moment.

The Onkyo range is worth a look. I'm close to getting this. Has all the features. Only appearing in the shops (US) now though, UK next week. I finally decide when I see some professional reviews.

Good threads here and here.

I'm forced to go with "lifestyle" sat/sub speakers, so this is my choice. And here. Can be got cheaper. The SVS 5.1 get rave reviews. Big and no beauties. For me everything is based on reviews/opinion/much reading. Can't get to demo anything.

What do you need the receiver to do? Upscale video, upconvert video? Audio only? What will you be feeding it? What will you by outputting to?

I'm sure mossym, moe, 8T8 would have some good info for you! Helped me.

Slaphead07

pete.g wrote:

i need help
i am looking for an av receiver and speakers. have about 2k to spend
pioneer VSX2016 and Marantz SR6001 have been recomended for the av
was looking at speaker packages (satelites) but have been told not to.
told to check out B&W speakers
any ideas out there?

B&W are nice but €2k isn't a big enough budget to include them. I know B&W do a cinema pack which works well for some people so call Cloney Audio (the B&W agents) and talk to them.
Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with speaker packages, spend money on the amp you want, I lean more towards Marantz than Pioneer myself but that's just taste, and see what money is left for speakers. You should consider secondhand speakers too and remember you can always upgrade them in a few years. Try and get "proper" size speakers from the start though, those small satellite speakers sound small and that's not good for cinema.

mossym

2k won't get you far with b&w, i've got the 6 series as speakers, and spent nearly that on the front LR speakers alone. they do have that new cinema package(i gues same one slaphead referred to) that gets some goods reviews, but cloney have taken the price list from their site, and i can't remember what price it was in the review i read. the cinema package has the advantage of being smaller aspeakers, as opposed to big floorstanders. for me though i wanted the visual impression of the big fronts, as well as the better sound you can't get from a bookshelf speaker

mossym

that onkyo amp is a serious bit of kit. I'm not usually a fan of onkyo, but they are after including all the newst surround formats, i.e. the HD ones, in a very reasonable price...kudos to them...well worth looking at.

pete.g

thanks all for the input. i eventually bought a yamaha amp RXV861. good piece of kit! i have just ordered the new B+W 684 floorstanders and the HTM62 centre speaker from LRG in Belfast for 1400euro - over 350eu cheaper than Cloney in Blackrock