What to do?

[MikeR]

I've been dabbling in HT for a few years now, so enjoyable to watch a good movie conveniently at home. My budget isn't very big at all that's why all my speakers are used, on craigslist a lot lol, so i'm mostly all B&W, DM 580's for mains DM220i and 202's for ss  and a small NHT for center, recently got 'new' Yamaha RX-A1040.
  A friend recommended Emotiva's Amps, (I don't have an external amp yet) so after visiting this site I discovered their HT speakers , guess i'd just like to have new matching spkrs and perhaps better than what I have and the price seems good but a little scary ya know buying and hoping it meets or exceeds yr expectations, not like I can send them back if I don't like'm.
  In the last year I've upgraded to a nice sub and avr but speakers seem to be a little bit different ball game, so my next upgrade is an amp, I think it would improve my listening experience a bit but speakers, man I just don't know what to do, stay with what I have or roll the dice.

Thanks!

[dcg44s]

Oh but you can send them back if you don't like them! Emotive has a 30 day money back guarantee.So why not give them a try?

   link

[mgbpuff]

Get a matching B&W center speaker and sit tight for a while. When the finances are more plentiful, then expand your hobby.

[vneal]

I would sell the speakers and buy mini monitors from the same manufacturer. Many here disagree but I would never suggest different brand speakers for a system(less the sub woofer)

[mshump]

If you are happy with your speakers

I would look for a matching B&W center first. This will give a little better smooth sound for the front 3 speakers.
Then I would add one of Emotiva's 3 channel amps for the frots and center. This will give you some more headroom for the fronts. You won't notice any different sound quality, but you will notice a bit of a fuller sound and a little more dynamic sound. Let the Yamaha run the surround speakers for now.


Mark

[DYohn]

^^This. The three across the front should match sonically.

In general the biggest bang for the buck in any system is from the speakers. Second is probably more power, third is probably better source, fourth is cleaner preamp.

[LCSeminole]

Oct 22, 2016 10:12:02 GMT -5 DYohn said:

^^This. The three across the front should match sonically.

In general the biggest bang for the buck in any system is from the speakers. Second is probably more power, third is probably better source, fourth is cleaner preamp.

What David said. I will add along with speakers being the biggest bang for the buck, be willing to supplement whatever speakers you use with room treatments and proper speaker placement. For many of us here on the Lounge this goes without saying and is second nature, but you'd be surprised at the amount of home theater setups I've seen that aren't being optimized with the speakers and equipment one has.

[MikeR]

Thank you guys for your advice,
  Think I'll sit tight for now and not jump the gun, I just get impatient to make an improvement on my setup
and since no one really said "yea go for the Emotiva HT speakers, you won't regret it" or something of that sort, I'll stick with what I have for now.
  Couple more questions though; So for an amp, think just a 3ch for fronts only and not worry about others? And get one that has more output than my speakers are rated for some headroom?
  So for center channel, not sure which b&w would be considered 'matching' for my DM580's and also I'm afraid to go with a small size CC thinking it wont meet my expectations, I mean my NHT is nothing special but if I'm going to upgrade just one speaker I'd like to think that, yea this is a bad### CC and not be disappointed.
  For a while now I've really wanted a nice CC, not just get one and say 'yea its ok', I like my movies pretty loud and from what I've noticed, at least to my ears is a lot of context  (is that the right word?) comes from the CC so my way of thinking is bigger would be better, am I thinking wrong about that? Like a WMTMW design. I've explored some of the DIY kits out there, would that be an option? No its not the same brand as my mains so how critical is that? I've heard some say conflicting opinions.

Thanks, MikeR