Kid-safe speakers
April 21, 2003
I've been using a pair of Snell K-II speakers for a few
years perched on top of a decent pair of metal stands. They're driven by an NAD 304 amp,
along with a fairly basic Pioneer DVD player that replaced a defunct NAD 501 CD player.
My wife and I are expecting our first baby at the end of
September, and looking down the road a bit, the Snell speakers, despite their fabulous
sound, are a problem. With the current stands, they're a big pair of top-heavy hazards for
a crawling baby.
I could replace the stands, but I thought I would consider
replacing them with a pair of wall-mountable speakers. A small sub could be safely tucked
away in this scenario. Budget is a big consideration, and for now the NAD amp and the DVD
player are here to stay. If I could find a pair of speakers that could later be fit into a
coherent 5.1 home-theater system, I'd be very pleased. The room is 16' x 15'. With a limit
of $400 for a pair of speakers, what might you suggest?
Brian
Take a look at Paradigm's
Cinema 70. These speakers can be stand or wall mounted and blend well with a
subwoofer. You can also add the matching center-channel and surrounds later on for a
child- and room-friendly home-theater system.
CD rejection
April 18, 2003
I have a Krell KAV-300 CD player that I am very happy with.
The player is about three years old and is beginning to reject random discs by not reading
them. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this; all of my CDs are in perfect
condition. I know this player has a Teac transport that is supposed to be one of the best.
Some of my higher-end discs on certain labels like ECM do not seem to be rejected. Can
anyone tell me what could be causing this very frustrating problem? Take care and thanks
for your help.
Dan
I'd give Krell a call and see what they have to say
about it. Their service department can likely tell you what the problem is, and if the
player needs to be sent in for service or cleaning. I always start with the manufacturer
in a case like this because if there is a particular problem with the model that they have
dealt with in the past it may be something they can fix easily while you'd never track
down the problem. Plus, if you are the original owner a three-year-old player will still
have two years remaining on the factory warranty. Good luck.
System advice
April 17, 2003
I recently bought the Creek 4330 Mk 2 integrated amp for my
son. It came at a great price, and I couldn't pass it up. What speakers would you
recommend with this amp? My son was paralyzed in a car accident a year and a half ago and
he loves music. He's 24 and has a lot of older equipment. So to surprise him I've been
looking to buy him new stereo components. When I found the Creek at $325 and only a month
old, I snapped it up. I didn't realize at the time it had only 40Wpc. But, then it will
only be used in his bedroom, 15' x 22' approximately.
I hope you can find the time to help! Not knowing a lot
about audio components, I feel like I'm at other people's mercy, and I don't think you
would steer me wrong. So if you can recommend speakers, speaker cables, a CD player and
what interconnect I should buy it would be most appreciated. My budget for the speakers is
approximately $1200, the CD player $550, and I don't know what the cables are going to
cost me.
Lori Frislie
For $550 you can buy an awfully nice DVD-based player.
Not only would you get excellent CD performance, but you'd gain the ability to play movies
over the stereo, too. Within your price range you can likely find something like the
Pioneer DVD-45A. This "universal" audio/video player will allow your son to
playback the new SACD and DVD-Audio formats, as well as CD and DVD movies. As for
speakers, there are a lot of great choices out there. The usual suspects such as Paradigm,
Energy, Mirage, and Axiom always come to mind as they offer class-leading performance at a
reasonable cost. One other option, though, is the Epos brand, which has always been paired
successfully with Creek, so you may find a certain synergy there. As for cables, we have
some particularly good buys in our archives from such companies as Audio Magic and TARA
Labs. I wouldn't spend too much on them, but high-value cables such as the ones I've
suggested will certainly add that final touch to a carefully constructed system.
Vertical biamping
April 14, 2003
I have a Carver C1 preamplifier that has two main outputs,
either or both of which the manual states can be used to, for example, drive one or more
sets of speakers. I also have two Carver M-1.5t power amps which apparently are not
"bridgeable" (whatever that means), but each of which I would like to use to
separately drive its own Polk SDA SRS speaker, to increase available system speaker power
over what it would be with just one power amp driving both speakers. In my ignorance, it
seems possible to have the L-R outputs from each preamp main to go to each of the power
amps, but then just run the speaker cables from only the left side of one power amp to the
left speaker, and the speaker cables from only the right side of the second power amp to
the right speaker. Stated speaker resistance is 5 ohms, if that matters. BTW, the Polk
speakers have connections for optional "vertical" biamping (use of each amp to
drive different frequency ranges in both speakers), although nothing is said about
"horizontal" biamping such as I am proposing (each amp separately drives one
speaker).
Neil Beck
What you suggest will work, and you will realize some
benefit from separating the left and right channels, essentially getting monoblock
performance. Power output may be increased marginally due to only having one channel for
each amp using the total available power supply (instead of both channels drawing from
it). However, since you have facilities available to biamp the Polks, I'd go that route.
What you would do is run both sets out left outputs (one from each of the two sets of
outputs on your preamp) into the L-R inputs of the left amplifier. You'd then use one
channel to drive the upper frequencies and the other to drive the lower frequencies of the
left Polk speaker. Then do the same for the right side. This would give you the benefit of
utilizing both channels of each amplifier and creating a monoblock configuration. The only
real expense to doing this is that you'll need an extra set of speaker cables (two for
each side).
Subwoofer reviews?
April 10, 2003
Can we expect to see some more subwoofer reviews from the GoodSound!
Guys? Subs are hard to compare because they are so large and heavy, so reviews are
important to help people decide what to buy. Thanks and love the website.
Glenn Botero
We have a couple of subwoofer reviews right around the
corner -- one from Paradigm and another from Hsu Research. You can also keep an eye out
over at www.hometheatersound.com
as we review a fair number of subwoofers over there, too.
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