Sound System Advice

Cafe Society
1

I’m not sure if this is in the right forum. If not, mods, feel free to move it.

Here’s what I want to do:

I want a decent-sounding sound system. It will be for playing music exclusively – it will not be used for television or home theater.

There is some size limitation. The speakers should be bookshelf-sized.

The source will be almost entirely online music. Specifically Napster/Rhapsody, although iTunes and who knows what else may come into play at times.

I’d like decent sound quality, as good as can be had given the source and my budget (which is $800-$1,000). I’m told that there should be a digital-to-analog converter, and I guess there has to be an amplifer? And I guess it would be nice if I could (someday, maybe – this doesn’t have to be included in the budget for now) hook up a CD player (even just a transport). I know they’re obsolete, but I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of them. I have no idea how many.

I would be grateful for any advice.

2

What is your idea of a bookshelf-sized speaker?
And how large of a room or area does the sound need to fill?

In any case, I’d begin by researching ‘powered studio monitors.’
Are you using something now that you wish to improve upon?

3

Yeah, bookshelf can mean a few things. I’ve got an ancient Bose Acoustimass 10* system. The bookshelf speakers are teeny, but it’s got a sub-woofer box that all of the speakers connect through. The tiny speaker set that can’t be improved by a sub-woofer is rare, especially for music. So, if you have room for one, I’d advise getting a speaker system with one and amp that supports it, if you go that route.

If you are looking to buy an amp and speakers, you can eat up that budget with a really nice dedicated amplifier quickly. If you want one with terrestrial radio, you can get not quite as nice a sound quality, but you usually get a more flexible head unit. I’d advise that, myself. You can get an Onkyo TX-8220 for $199, and I’d imagine it’d make you mostly happy. It’s a decent brand, they sound plenty nice the last time I heard one. For $100 more you can get a Yamaha R-N303, which apparently supports all kinds of streaming services itself. I can’t vouch for their interfaces or anything, but I do still love the sound of the Yamaha A/V receiver I’ve had for 20 years, and it’s certainly held up. If I have one complaint about the receiver, it could have a better phonograph preamp. But that’s a small complaint for a receiver being sold at that time, and probably not a concern for you.

If you’re dead set against a sub-woofer, then get speakers that can reach to the low end. The most reasonably priced speakers I can see that reach below 40Hz (20Hz is around the lower limit of human hearing) are something like the Polk Audio S20.

So, even on the high end, you’ve got some space left on your budget. Grab a CD player. Don’t buy an expensive one, just get one with the features you want that seems durable. I don’t really have advice, here. I got a 60 disc CD changer at the same time as I got the Yamaha receiver and the Bose speakers. It lasted until 2013 or so, then died. After we finally put all the CDs back into their holders, we used my 1987 vintage Tascam deck until around last year, when it croaked. Now we’re using my wife’s 1990 or so vintage JVC. It’s holding up. (Looks at Cruchfield’s home CD players) Good Lord! You can go into that much debt over a CD player these days? You’re on your own here. They all should sound pretty much the same, try not to spend more than $200.

*Yeah, they’re supposed to kind of suck. I won them at work 20 years ago and have never seen a reason to replace them. I wouldn’t really advise buying them though, they are pricey for what they are. I may add an additional external sub since my amp supports it…but I haven’t yet.

4

Spend most of your money on good speakers and a good power amp. Then just use an old computer (with optical drive for CD) with a decent sound card as your input/preamp/DAC.

5

scabpicker is right. The Yamaha receiver will do just about anything you need. It will also accept just about any type of input.

You don’t need a separate digital to analog converter. The receiver takes care of that.

You can easily add a DVD/CD player and connect it at anytime.

The speakers are key. You can get some very capable bookshelf speakers, but I’m always disappointed in the low end response. I’d urge you to take advantage of the subwoofer output on the receiver and plan on a powered subwoofer. It can be fairly small, but it makes a huge difference when you have bookshelf speakers.

If you want suggestions on bookshelf speakers, I can provide some, but speakers are very, very difficult to recommend to another person. They are the most personal part of the system and make the biggest difference. I have often suggested somebody listen to brand A, which are my favorite, and then suggested comparing them to Brands B and C to see how much better Brand A are. The individual almost always ends up buying Brand B or C because he/she liked them better than my own suggestion. Meh…

6

If you can get a good deal on a used Yamaha, Denon or Pioneer receiver, you can blow most of your budget on a really nice pair of bookshelf speakers. You could get a B&W pair for $600 - $800.
I’d also recommend a used CD changer, which you can get for cheap because nobody uses them anymore.

7

My error…the Yamaha R-N303 does not have a subwoofer output. You can still connect most subwoofers using the speaker outputs, but that is not the way I would prefer to do it.

8

I’m kind of leaning toward snfaulkner’s idea TBH. That way you spend your money on the most important bit of any sound system, which is the speakers and amp. You could also look at any Bluetooth enabled amp/processor and use your smartphone as your remote, building playlists etc.
My recommendation would be something like this:
NAD 3020 V2
CA Minx 22 Satellites
PA PSW110 I used Crutchfield as they have decent prices generally. You’d get this all in for roughly $1k. Add a Cd player at any point or use your computer to rip them to FLAC or any other digital format. Don’t be put off by the power rating on the NAD amp, they are usually very conservatively rated. I use the CA Minx Min 12 (the smaller version of the Min22) as rear surrounds and they are great little speakers!

Have fun!

9

Ouch, that much money and no sub out? I looked at the back and didn’t notice that. Yeah, you could buy an external crossover or a sub with one, but yuck. If you ever plan on getting a sub, get a different receiver.

ETA: And yeah, the speakers are the most important part. Drop the majority of your cash on those, and buy carefully. Frequency response range is important, but try to listen to them before you buy.

10

Oh, and missed the edit window, but I forgot to add: don’t worry much about watts ratings, at all.

First off, watts ratings depend on the THD the amp is rated at. Different manufacturers rate them at different distortion levels, so the number on the box is kind of a marketing gimmick. Unless you’re going to delve into that, it’s not much to worry about.

Second off, if you double the watts at a certain THD, you can barely hear the difference when they’re fully cranked. Unless you’re in a volume competition, just about anything rated at 30-50 watts per channel is going to be adequate to annoy the neighbors and/or damage your hearing. My aforementioned Yamaha is 100W/channel, it’s never been above 60% power, and it’s a pretty uncomfortable SPL at that setting (as in, about as loud as my rock band in a similarly sized room). A 50W/channel amp would be almost indistinguishable.

Third off, the efficiency of your speakers will actually contribute a lot to the volume available. So, similar to cars, where tires are the thing that governs how fast a car is in a race more than anything; the speakers are where the rubber meets the road. If volume is what you’re after, spend your money on the efficiency rating of your speakers.

11

To add to that, for every 3db in speaker efficiency means you need half the power for the same volume. My NHT super ones sound great. Nice and neutral. But with only 86db/watt at 1 meter, it’s tough to get it to get chest thumping transients. Then I inherited my dad’s b&w 640’s (not at all bookshelf sized) that are 93db/watt (I think? Somewhere around there) and with the same amp, I’m shaking windows.

12

Also, I forgot to add, distortion is what kills equipment more than too much power. Therefore it is better to have a higher power amp that won’t distort at the power your speakers are rated than to have a lower powered amp that will clip and distort at your speaker rated power.

13

Also forgot to add, there is stuff out there in the high 90’s/low 100’s…though maybe not cheap or bookshelf sized.

14

All I have to add is “Turn it up louder”.

15

I recently bought a pair of these - Kanto YU6 powered speakers - for less than $400. Bookshelf sized though on the large end of that scale. Blue tooth compatible so I can use my smart phone to play music from iTunes, Rhapsody or Pandora. There are RCA and AUX inputs so it looks like hooking up a CD player would work. Built in Phono pre-amp. Even the ability to plug in a subwoofer if needed via a SUB OUT port.

I’m no audio expert but from what I understand you are looking for I’m not sure why these wouldn’t work for you.

And the audio quality is superb.

16

Just be aware of the nitty gritty of comparing amps, though. Make sure the numbers are reflective of how they are tested.

Here is a hypothetical to give you the idea loosly based off a comparison of my buddies who were comparing their Kenwood and NAD amps:

Kenwood : 300W Total power at 1KHz with 8% THD
vs
NAD : 40W/ch avg power 20-20 kHz, @.001 THD. No comparison, the Kenwood blowsthe NAD away, right?

But that 300W is total for the amp so 150W/Ch. Still sounds like the Kenwood is way more powerful.

That 150W is measured at 1000 Hz to get the highest number at a distortion rate that is relatively unpleasant to the ear whereas the 40W amp has low distortion across the whole range of hearing. Plus, that 150W goes down significantly when spread across the whole range as it also factors in all power used by the amp, not just making music, so let’s be nice and say it drops to 130W.

Now you’re comparing avg power(as recognized by the audio world, so you IEEE types take a breath) which is 1/2 peak power. Total power is measured peak to peak, so your 130 W is now down to 65 W peak. Since Avg power is half that, your mighty 300W amp is actually 32W, less than the NAD and much less clean.

TL;DR: Audio power ratings a re a quagmire of confusion, but it helps if you can compare apples to apples.

17

Frankly, I’d start by thinking about a suitable set of speakers. Several have been mentioned, but I’ll toss out the Polk S20 ($221 on Amazon) and the Polk PSW111 subwoofer ($181 on Amazon). I know a sub isn’t what you planned for, but this is a small one and will make a huge difference.

So, that’s $402 out of your $800 budget…you have $398 for a receiver. I won’t even try to list the receivers that have digital/wi-fi/streaming capability, but I’m sure you can find one. One advantage to using the sub is that you don’t really need as much power for the Polk bookshelf speakers. Some bookshelf speakers, especially those with extended low-frequency response, really eat up the power.

JMO…

18

I did, however, just notice that the Denon AVR-S650H receiver is only $399 on Amazon. I can’t believe that there’s anything you want to do that it can’t do. That would make your total $801.

I know, I know…you don’t need a home theater receiver. But you never know. Besides, it’s hard to find a feature-laden streaming receiver that isn’t home theater (HDMI switching and 5.1).

19

I have both a Denon home theater system (ARV-S740H) and an Onkyo stereo receiver (TX-8260), both purchased within the last year.

Both have features for networked and streaming music. But of these two, only the Denon supports Napster/Rhapsody. The Denon uses it’s own system called HEOS which is pretty good once you get used to it, you can control the system from a smartphone app.

I can play Napster on the Onkyo using the built in Chromecast, but it’s not as useful as the HEOS, and quite frankly the Chromecast on the Onkyo hasn’t turned out to be an useful as the $35 Chromecast Audio dongles that I have (actually, I would recommend these if they were still available, but Google kills products seemingly indiscriminately).

Not sure about Yamaha supporting Napster, but Denon certainly does. And Denon just came out with a 2 channel networked receiver with HEOS.

Even without considering Napster, I think the Denon is better at network and streaming. But throw Napster in and Denon is the only one to support between the two.

20

Based on the link to the Yamaha in scabpicker’s post, it looks like it also supports Napster.