Making an audio system... Please help!!!!!!!!!

[Progneta]

Hello Again!
I have been on here before discussing speakers! Nice forum!!

My father uses altec 15 and a driver w/ sectoral horn for his 5.1 surround sound and it is amazing! I would like to get sound like that, but altec gear is just to expensive.

I am looking for (5) 2-way systems either 12 inch or 15 inch and sound darn good like the Altec speakers? Either in a premade system or speaker and driver separate as making a cabinet is no problem. What would be a nice system relatively cheap and where could I acquire these speakers?

Thanks!!

Grant

[Nightbrace]

Nothing really, Altec has its own sound. Altec 14's run around $300-$500 a pair, about the same for the Altec 15's. In this price range you won't find any speaker that sounds as good. JBL's can be had for a little cheaper, but they won't sound "quite" the same, but similiar and yes much better than any offerings under $500.. I'd HIGHLY recommend the JBL L36's, they can be bought for $200-$300, there are some "poor man's" Altecs on audio.net, but they're called that for a reason, they are poor sounding speakers, but for $100 they might be worth a shot.
Here's a link, http://members.aol.com/KDresch/sd2506.html But you need 5 of them RIGHT?.

If $500 is TOO much for you to spend on a pair of speakers, then you cannot really expect "score" something really great unless you happen to find a great deal somewhere. And you'll be spending well over a $1000 for all 5. A lot of people have been finding great deals on Craigslist, but I wouldn't count on it. But you could get lucky. But probably not 5 speakers.

I currently have for sale my old Large Adevent speakers which I used for a 5.1 set-up. They are all in nice conditon and have real walnut wood veneer, shipping would kill you though, but I'm not terribly far if you were wanting to pick them up. I have a subwoofer to go with them as well. Bought them for my parents to use for this very purpose. All the people that heard these speakers have raved about them. Me inculded, they are fantastic. The sound is different as compared to the Altecs. These are New England speakers, but that doesn't mean they sound bad. On the contrary, they are excellent sounding speakers for the money. They sell for $300-$400 a pair on Ebay in the condition they are in. One speaker needs a new crossover, but the rest are 100% functional with new foams. All the grills are in excellent condition.

I'd accept $700 for all 5. And would make you a GREAT deal on the subwoofer if you came and picked them all up... The subwoofer is a BRAND NEW HSU VTF-2. It cost $399 direct from the factory. I'd probably accept $900 for all 5 speakers and the subwoofer... There's no set-up anywhere at this price point with better sound.. I can assure you of that.. I KNOW you'll be very happy with them....

If you are able to build your own cabinets I'd highly recommend Audio Nirvana full range drivers, while they won't sound the same as the Altec's they will outperform them in almost everyway. The bass won't be quite as powerful or "boomy", but very satisfying and very realistic. I think you'll be pleased with them.. I for one would prefer them over the Altec 15's, and only the Altec 19's would sound better.

Below is a link the raw drivers, they start at $118 for a pair of the 8" Nirvanas. Don't bother with the 6.5"ers. The Super 8's are better, the 10's and 12's better still. I have heard these in person and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you are into the Altec as the sound is similiar. Don't let the fact that they are full range drivers fool you. Plenty of GREAT speaker systems only use 1 driver. He is a good friend of mine, and actually makes no money on the actual drivers, its the cabinets that he charges a little extra for. If your good at building cabinets than he's your man..

http://www.nirvanaspeakers.com/nirvana.html

Of course, I'd rather just sell you my speakers, but its not a big deal, its better for you know all the BEST options.. Let me know if you are interested in the Advents. They will be going on Ebay soon.. They are the original Large Advents not the cheaper 80's version.. The last pair I sold on Ebay went for over $500, so I'm not too worried if you're not interested in them, just thought I would offer them to you..

What receiver are you planning on using?

[Zilch]

there are some "poor man's" Altecs on audio.net, but they're called that for a reason, they are poor sounding speakers, but for $100 they might be worth a shot.

The link you provide promotes them as "Poor Man's Klipsch Heresys," actually.

I must say, as self-proclaimed Lansing Heritage Goodwill Ambassador with an Electro-Voice 15TRX avatar, you're certainly pissing off the Zilchster tonight, promoting junk Magnavox and Audio Nirvana ("Will outperform [Altecs] in almost every way....") for pals, and gratuitously hawking your own Adevent [sic] and HSU system in response to Grant's Altec equivalent inquiry.

[A new low in transparency here.... ]

[Progneta]

Right now my father is powering all of his altec gear with a cheap 5.1 Koss surround sound unit we purchased at Sears and it sounds just fantastic! I am looking for speakers that can sound wonderful just like that Altecs when powered by this Koss unit.

Where are you from?

Nothing really, Altec has its own sound. Altec 14's run around $300-$500 a pair, about the same for the Altec 15's. In this price range you won't find any speaker that sounds as good. JBL's can be had for a little cheaper, but they won't sound "quite" the same, but similiar and yes much better than any offerings under $500.. I'd HIGHLY recommend the JBL L36's, they can be bought for $200-$300, there are some "poor man's" Altecs on audio.net, but they're called that for a reason, they are poor sounding speakers, but for $100 they might be worth a shot.
Here's a link, http://members.aol.com/KDresch/sd2506.html But you need 5 of them RIGHT?.

If $500 is TOO much for you to spend on a pair of speakers, then you cannot really expect "score" something really great unless you happen to find a great deal somewhere. And you'll be spending well over a $1000 for all 5. A lot of people have been finding great deals on Craigslist, but I wouldn't count on it. But you could get lucky. But probably not 5 speakers.

I currently have for sale my old Large Adevent speakers which I used for a 5.1 set-up. They are all in nice conditon and have real walnut wood veneer, shipping would kill you though, but I'm not terribly far if you were wanting to pick them up. I have a subwoofer to go with them as well. Bought them for my parents to use for this very purpose. All the people that heard these speakers have raved about them. Me inculded, they are fantastic. The sound is different as compared to the Altecs. These are New England speakers, but that doesn't mean they sound bad. On the contrary, they are excellent sounding speakers for the money. They sell for $300-$400 a pair on Ebay in the condition they are in. One speaker needs a new crossover, but the rest are 100% functional with new foams. All the grills are in excellent condition.

I'd accept $700 for all 5. And would make you a GREAT deal on the subwoofer if you came and picked them all up... The subwoofer is a BRAND NEW HSU VTF-2. It cost $399 direct from the factory. I'd probably accept $900 for all 5 speakers and the subwoofer... There's no set-up anywhere at this price point with better sound.. I can assure you of that.. I KNOW you'll be very happy with them....

If you are able to build your own cabinets I'd highly recommend Audio Nirvana full range drivers, while they won't sound the same as the Altec's they will outperform them in almost everyway. The bass won't be quite as powerful or "boomy", but very satisfying and very realistic. I think you'll be pleased with them.. I for one would prefer them over the Altec 15's, and only the Altec 19's would sound better.

Below is a link the raw drivers, they start at $118 for a pair of the 8" Nirvanas. Don't bother with the 6.5"ers. The Super 8's are better, the 10's and 12's better still. I have heard these in person and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you are into the Altec as the sound is similiar. Don't let the fact that they are full range drivers fool you. Plenty of GREAT speaker systems only use 1 driver. He is a good friend of mine, and actually makes no money on the actual drivers, its the cabinets that he charges a little extra for. If your good at building cabinets than he's your man..

http://www.nirvanaspeakers.com/nirvana.html

Of course, I'd rather just sell you my speakers, but its not a big deal, its better for you know all the BEST options.. Let me know if you are interested in the Advents. They will be going on Ebay soon.. They are the original Large Advents not the cheaper 80's version.. The last pair I sold on Ebay went for over $500, so I'm not too worried if you're not interested in them, just thought I would offer them to you..

What receiver are you planning on using?

[Nightbrace]

As it says in my profile, I live in Urbana, IL.. The Advents are at my parents house in St. Joseph, IL about 100 miles from Indianapolis, maybe we could meet halfway or something if your interested.

I am amazed to hear that a Koss receiver sounds so good, but the speakers are MUCH more important than the amplifier. As long as there are 50 REAL (RMS) watts per channel, I think you should be fine. The subwoofer is not necessary as the Advents make good bass, but as anyone with a good Home Theater system will tell you, a good quality sub is needed for explosions etc.. It just adds a whole different dimension. And makes the home theater system "come together" so to speak. HSU make world class subwoofers, and for the money no better sub can be bought.. It works equally good for both music and home theater.

The Nirvanas will sound better, but you will need to build cabinets to make them cost feasible and unless you have really good skills, you will be hard pressed to make a more beautiful cabinet than the Advents. Wood and wood veneer is expensive, as the expense of the cabinets designed for the Nirvana's indicate. The AT COST price on the 2.5's are $600 a pair.. Not to mention shipping etc. Building good quality cabinets with furniture grade wood veneers' costs a lot of money.. And for you to build 5 cabinets will cost about $500 in just materials to get anything near the quality of the Advents.

If you like the Altec sound, what I'd recommend is to find 2 speakers for music and use either the Advents or Niravanas for Home Theater where GREAT speakers like Altec are not as important... You will find no better Altec than the Altec 19. True Hi-fidelity sound will not be possible with the Koss receiver for 2 channel sound reproduction. The good news is that MOST 70's receivers, most notably Pioneer and Marantz, will give you high fidelity sound at a VERY modest cost.. And for now you can get by with a modest Sony CD player... (A must for great sound as most DVD player do not do music very well)

If you just want something for movies what you are contemplating sounds ok as long as you are happy with the Koss receiver. I personally have never believed in spending A LOT of money on the receiver for Home Theater as the speakers make MUCH more of a difference, and with movies critcal listening is not as important, just merely to give you a "sense" of the action.. 5.1 or 6.1 does this adequately enough with even modest speakers like the Advents, no need to spend more unless your nuts about AWESOME theater sound.. Which is why I bought them for my parents, because I KNEW that it would be better than anything out there today at a fraction of the cost. That being said, the Altecs would most definitely be an upgrade, but as you said more expensive.

Let me know your intentions, I can send you some pics of the Advents if needed. They are not PERFECT< but VERY nice. With a light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper and coat of Tung oil they would look phenomenal, but as is they are very presentable with no gouges or veneer issues. The person I bought them from actually owned 15 pairs of these speakers and I picked the best 5.. The pair I sold on Ebay for $500 were comparable in condition... I would not want to deal with shipping these to you, but as I said, could meet you halfway if you were truly interested. I guess I could ship them, but it would cost a TON.

I also have a set of great sounding HH Scott speakers that I am doing nothing with that would be great to keep for an extra room or as rear speakers in a 7.1 set-up later on. They are not worth anything really, but they sound very good and are very well made.. If you buy the Advents and sub, I'll throw them in. I mainly have kept them as no one would pay me anything for them and its not worth the effort to sell a set of speakers nobody wants, I've actually offered to give them away to numerous friends to no avail... I actually think they are a bit better sounding than the Advents but with a little less bass as they are smaller cabinets. (which would make them perfect as rear channels as they are smaller and more convenient)

If you are interested in a nice hi-fi 70's receiver and a nice sounding inexpensive CD player I can aid you with that as well.. You can find a GREAT receiver for under $100 and an adequate Sony CD player with MUCH higher sound quality than a consumer DVD for under $50... As I said keeping movies and music separate is the easiest and cheapest way to have the best of both worlds. Of course as with anything, there are MUCH better options, but your budget seems to be a MAJOR concern... If I were you, again not that I am trying to sell the Advents, I would intially start with the Advents for the price, and if you want to upgrade to something better, you can always sell them easily on Ebay. And if you love the cabinets, you can mount 10" Super Audio Nirvanas in these cabs which would be better than even the Altecs..

[Robh3606]

What's your budget??

Rob

[Nightbrace]

The link you provide promotes them as "Poor Man's Klipsch Heresys," actually.

I must say, as self-proclaimed Lansing Heritage Goodwill Ambassador with an Electro-Voice 15TRX avatar, you're certainly pissing off the Zilchster tonight, promoting junk Magnavox and Audio Nirvana ("Will outperform [Altecs] in almost every way....") for pals, and gratuitously hawking your own Adevent [sic] and HSU system in response to Grant's Altec equivalent inquiry.

[A new low in transparency here.... ]

Zilch, cost seems to be his BIGGEST concern, and its unlikely that he can purchase anything to rival his father's Altec 15's for anywhere near the price of these speakers. If you read through the thread again, I recommended the Magnavox as something VERY CHEAP to try as I assumed he was wanting to spend about $100 a pair.. And yes I have heard AudioNirvanas personally and in many ways they sound better than the Altec 15's.. The bass is not as good,. but they do work very well in a Home Theater set-up with a subwoofer as sattelites and are a great "cheap" alternative for someone wanting to build their own cabinets.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any JBL/ALtec product thats decent that can be bought in this member's price range, do you? I recommended the JBL L36's to him, but even those may be too expensive at about $200 a pair. And whats he's propsing, to duplicate his father's ALtec 15's or building something comparable with Altec drivers will be MUCH too costly unless he gets real lucky finding some really cheap sets.

And to defend myself, the Advents and HSU were not bought for me, but for my parents, and they have decided to go a different route, not because of the sound, but because physically they are too big. I KNOW that there are MUCH BETTER alternatives out there, but for the money I just can't think of anything.

If you read through the response again,. I said that the Advents will sound nothing like the Altecs, but thought I'd mention them before offering them for sale on Ebay. I still think that for the money that he'd be hard pressed to find something that sounds better... and much better than NEW speakers costing the same...

I hope that there is a better Altec/JBL alternative out there that I haven't thought of for his price point.. And I don't see how its possible to find 5 ALtec 15's or the drivers for less than $700 for all 5 speakers, but as I told him there are deals to be found on Craigslist..

And I take offense that I am trying to dump crap on him.. I mentioned the Magnavox's as they are horn speakers, I have no affiliation with this website in anyway, and for what its worth he did list them as "poor-mans" Altecs at one point, seems as if someone emailed him and told him to change it (THAT WAS ME!) It seems that he took my advice.

Unfortunately his price point dictates everything. I guess I may be reading a different thread, but of all the Altec/JBL speakers I have heard or know about, I know of none that will sound better than these modest Advents (and of course much different and poorer sounding as compared to the Altec 15's) for the price. I can only assume that the member will understand this from my post.

Even the mini-monitors like the L20T's or L15's are bringing over $200 a pair... I sure hope we can find him a better alternative for the money, and I'll be the first to recommend any ALtec/JBL product to suit his needs. Which is why I bought the Advent speakers and HSU sub for my parents. If there was a more economical alternative with better sound I would have definately bought it instead. And they look nice and will work decent enough for Home Theater for an average person. The Advents in no way shape or form an "audiophile" speaker intended for critical listening, but I think most will agree that for the money they are hard to beat for the average person and will sound better than just about anything "new" for the same price.

Again, nowhere anywhere did I say that the Advents will sound anything like the Altecs.. nothing could be further from the truth. And I mentioned several times that there are BETTER alternatives. I think its obvious that I should not have mentioned them. By no means did I mention them for any monetary gain and I KNOW I can sell them for plenty more than I am offering them to him for. It would just be nice to see someone use them for the same purpose I was considering. I know now that it was wrong to recommend anything but Altec or JBL in the open forums, and it was wrong to do so... I am making it to easy for you guys.

Lets find something for this guy that Altec/JBL, and I'll just dump off those Advents on Ebay . As I think its clear that he'd rather have Altecs. Trust me if I had 5 Altec 15's sitting here, I'd love to see them go to him.. The only "cheap" JBL/Altec speakers that I can think of that will be "similiar" are the JBL decade series. Any L16, L26 or L36. L19's would work ok too. But they all sell for $150-$400 a pair. And I think he is in "need' of the Altec horn speaker sound, I know of no better deal than the ALtec 15's or 14's that his father already owns and please correct me if I'm wrong, but he mentioned VERY CLEARLY that they are MUCH TOO expensive.

In regards to the EV's, they may sound like crap to you, but I like them, and I just bought them and am actually listening to them now, I think they are fantastic, even that said, I still like my Altec 19's better . Whatever I listen to I put as my avatar, even if its not JBL. And I am sorry if you took it as yet another personal insult.. Thats just not the case. I can't listen to 2 pairs of speakers at the same time now can I?

Soon my EN3's will be up again as my avatar, but with the proper drivers, I think my avatar was WORSE with Allied drivers mounted in EN3 cabs, now don't you? BTW< I am in the process of designing and building custom "110Ti" speakers modeled after the 250Ti styling wise. Would those make a better avatar? And I found out that those .25 mH inductors were totally wrong, I need to either find someone with original transformers or take them from a N65 network and then I'm good to go!

[Nightbrace]

What's your budget??

Rob

While he doesn't give a clear figure, I think its safe to say that even the modest Advents I offered to him are much to expensive.. Which is why I mentioned them in the first place as I think that they would be a "decent" alternative for the money. Unless its possible to get this guy 5 Altec 14's or 15's for under $700? .

Anyone near him with any Altec 14's or 15's to get him started??

Maybe he could buy a pair at a time as his budget will allow?

[Zilch]

I'm sorry, Nightbrace, but I have no more disposable resources available to squander on someone obviously lacking the full measure of good sense God vested in a single Goldfish cracker....

[SEAWOLF97]

NB

dont take this the wrong way....you seem a smart guy with lots to contribute , BUT , also seem a little "long winded" and give the impression of trying too hard to impress. IMHO.

[4313B]

seem a little "long winded" and give the impression of trying too hard to impress

Suspiciously so... like a sock-puppet of another former member maybe... there can't possibly be more than one can there?

[Nightbrace]

Suspiciously so... like a sock-puppet of another former member maybe... there can't possibly be more than one can there?

Not this again, there's only one Nightbrace, and yes I do tend to talk too long.. And on some wild tangents nonetheless. Just trying too much to impress I guess, to put it politely to "explain" rather than tell to validate my responses in fear of getting mocked. I guess my explanations are now fodder for even more mocking, so I guess less IS more ...

[hjames]

Suspiciously so... like a sock-puppet of another former member maybe... there can't possibly be more than one can there?

Tempting as it is to consider clones - its probably just echos in the gene pool

[Nightbrace]

NB

dont take this the wrong way....you seem a smart guy with lots to contribute , BUT , also seem a little "long winded" and give the impression of trying too hard to impress. IMHO.

just trying to redeem myself I guess when I make comments I should have recanted in the first place .. And maybe sometimes to defend my own ignorance .

[4313B]

Tempting as it is to consider clones - its probably just echos in the gene pool

I suspect you are right.