Speakers. Please advise me.

[thieuster]

My son is having his b'day later this month.

During the summer he decided to start saving for a proper music system. That was after he discovered my album collection. I'm more than happy to share that with him. So he started looking for components: turntable, receiver and speakers.

Turntable is sorted: a mate is willing to donate an overhauled with an Orthophone Dual CS 505 turntable. Not high-end, but it's a start! (My first did not include a high-end turntable, I can tell you!) Now, with the table sorted, he's after a receiver (or amplifier) and speakers. Like the turntable, pre-owned is no problem. But there's soooo much to choose from. I'm probably old-fashioned and always get back to names from the past: E.g. Marantz, Denon etc. and speakers like Kef. But... is there more?

There's a budget of course: we're willing to spend (the Euro equivalent of) 150 GBP for any component he wants as his b'day gift. He has to fork out the money for the missing 'link'. Luckily, he has the money for it.

Added to this: I forgot the golden rules between 'output' of the amplifier and the speakers (not wanting to fry the speakers...)

Thanks in advance!

Menno

[Mr.D]

I decided after many years of travelling to get myself a decent hifi again , My headphones and dac are great but sometimes you want the space filled with sound.

First I looked at a little denon mini hifi and speakers for £250.

Then I went on ebay and bought an Arcam alpha 9 amp complete with rust and dings for £90 and some B&W penta bookshelf speakers ( I forget the model but about 20 years

Sounds brilliant , slapped together a raspberry pi streamer with a dac hat for £100 all in and I've got a great system that streams from anything ; bluetooth , airplay , tidal , amazon , spotify you name it .

Had great fun in the evenings listening to classic pink floyd and CCR and rediscovering my old faves like Alice Cooper.

There was tonnes of great hifi on ebay when I looked.

[Rod]

It's underpowered amplifiers that mostly toast drive units rather than overpowered.
Look at Monitor Audio Bronze 2's which are very efficient and are a good all rounder. 89 or 90db is efficient for a speaker.
Q Acoustics make some good speakers too.
Regarding volume power, 40 w per channel (8ohms 20 - 20khz) should be fine but the more power the better should the dynamics of the music demand it.
Most volume controls are at their loudest at about 11o' clock any further you may get clipping distortion.
Some amplifiers have protection against this and will switch off.
I'm saying this because youngsters will play their heavy metal music at high volumes, and in my days in the hifi business, many speakers are blown either because of excessive volume or in a party situation the temptation is to 'turn it up'.

[jcm3]

There is a trend toward powered speakers in small modern systems, and I am a fan. Its quite a bit easier to pack up and bring a powered set of speakers to a new place, and they work as a great accessory to a computer based audio system just as well as they mate to a turntable based rig. And you get pretty great bang for the buck, two pieces of gear for the price of one, matched very well at that.

My favorite budget powered speakers are the JBL Professional 305P, but there are tons of good choices. Most turntables will also need a small preamp stage, to bring the level of the phono cart up to a usable level, but there are good inexpensive choices there too. You can get a Rolls VP29 for under $50.

[martyloveswatches]

I got myself Dali Zensor. Great speakers at solid price

Poslano sa mog SM-G960F koriste?i Tapatalk

[yumma]

+1 for Q Acoustics, my home surround sound set up; and after trailing several good budget speakers I bought these, had them 9 years and I’m still blown away by the sound.

[spud767]

Go on AVforums and buy 2nd hand. There's high end equipment selling for excellent prices. Just like here if you go for a known recommended seller you'll get a great deal.

[thieuster]

First part is done: my son found a 1970's Sanyo DCX4000 receiver. A refurbished piece of old school HiFi. He bought it for (roughly) 80 GBP from a local HiFi collector + a gift... A nearly 70 y/o guy. Refurbishing was also done locally. When my son collected the receiver, he was totally swept of his feet by the gigantic record collection of the seller: > 13,000 albums!

The Sanyo was the seller's first real HiFi item and he was very happy that he was able to sell it to my son. The gift was The Beatles Sargeant Pepper's album! "I have it 5x in my collection. Time to pass it on."

So we hooked the receiver to a set of boxes and a turntable. Wow, I nearly wished I'd bought it for myself. The boxes are not A-quality. He must start looking for better ones. That's a worthwhile upgrade. But still, he's as happy as he can be!

Menno

[johnthemull]

Bought my son a pair of Dali Spektor 2s last Christmas. Superb speakers for close to your budget


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

[Toddy]

Monitor Audio Bronze 2's for me as well. Have them in my setup powered by a Denon X3500 (Denon mainly for cinema setup mind) and sound great.