Decent (budget) Surrounds

[daveburt]

I've been through a few pair of rear channel speakers I bought off Craigslist...  
The last set were some Boston Acoustic Sat6's that I picked up for $30.  I knew they were a little dated, but they sounded good and matched the rest of my speakers pretty well.  Fast Forward to ~1 year later and one of them started developing a buzz...  

I finally decided to break down and look for a new set within my budget (admittedly cheap)!
I found these at Parts Express:
www.parts-express.com/pure-acoustics-dreambox-compact-hi-fi-speaker-pair-black--303-530#lblProductDetails

PE is only ~30 miles north of me, so I decided to drive up there and pick up a set, knowing that I could return them if I wasn't happy with the results.

After trying them out I'm very happy with the purchase!
 EmoQ set the crossover @ 80hz, but after a little tweaking I raised it to 100hz (just sounded better to me)...

Just thought I'd share my experiences with these speakers for anyone else on a tight budget looking for some decent surrounds. 
I'm no hard core audiophile, but I'm not sure you could do much better in this price range!

Dave

[Canuck_fr]

Other good choicies :

fluance.com/products/Surround_Speakers.eng-7.html

emptek.com/bookshelf.php

www.htd.com/Products/bookshelf-speakers

[garym]

May 28, 2015 0:51:01 GMT -5 daveburt said:

I finally decided to break down and look for a new set within my budget (admittedly cheap)!
I found these at Parts Express:

I use these (4 of 'em). They do the job.

www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-RC65i-In-Wall-Speakers/dp/B00005T3C8

Don't need super fidelity for the sounds of approaching cars and helicopters. But I have a few 5.1 audio files and they sound good playing those too.

[drtrey3]

Several of us believe that you will hear the best results by matching the speakers, especially the tweeters, in your surround set up.

Trey

[garym]

May 28, 2015 11:30:54 GMT -5 drtrey3 said:

Several of us believe that you will hear the best results by matching the speakers, especially the tweeters, in your surround set up.

Trey

That may be true, and if multi-channel music ever becomes available in any quantity --- and actually constitutes a worthwhile improvement over stereo --- I'd probably consider upgrading my surround amps and speakers. But for ambient, background sounds on movie soundtracks --- approaching footsteps, screeching tires, distant gunfire --- it doesn't matter much.

[drtrey3]

I have to agree with you Gary. I want an immersive, coherent soundfield most with my surround sound music, and that is where I hear the most benefit from the matching tweeters. Sadly, an immersive, coherent soundfield is pretty rare in movies in my experience.

Trey

[moovtune]

According to SA-CD net there are 10532 titles listed and the majority are multi-channel. Sounds like a decent quantity to me.

[dasanto2]

The B652-AIR with AMT Tweeters perform way above their price. At 60 bucks a pair trying them out is a no brainer.

www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-b652-air-6-1-2-bookshelf-speaker-pair-with-amt-tweeter--300-651

[teaman]

Maybe look into some used Klipsch KSB series speakers. They sound fantastic and are pretty compact. Run about $120 per pair on the Bay.