I have finally finished my basement, wired it for home theatre, upgraded my receiver, DVD and VCR and I have some older JBL L44 speakers, but now as I am ready to buy the home theatre speaker set, the choices are just so many.

I have settled on a budget of between $1000-1500, and I have listened to Klipsch, JBL, Mirage, Boston Acoustic. I would like to get a versatile set of speakers, because I do listen to a variety of music too, R&B ballads, classical, and Rap.

I was leaning were toward JBL initally because I have those already, but the Boston Accoustics sounded very good and seemed to be a good value. The Klipsch sounded very good with theatre, but not as good with music, and the mirage, seemed mellow.

What direction and help can you give me.
Thanks

Check out the tried and True Energy Encore Package. Don't let the size and Spec.s fool you. Those little babies will astound you. and they fit into you rage. And don't Blow off the sub till you hear it.

Geoffry, Congrats on the new additions to your toy collection. Glad to see you are considering several different speakers. Have you asked the dealers if they will let you audition any of them at home. Most of the better ones will. You are on the right track listening with your own ears. You gotta build a system that sounds good in your room to you. Beware there are a few sharks in the waters around here (like me)that think Paradigm builds a good speaker for the money. You might want to give them a listen.
Best of luck.---Dave.


DDump--DDump--DDump-DDump

Geoff: Jay is right: an excellent choice in the Encore speakers.

I've head the Take 5s, the Encores, the Boston Acoustics and the Klipsch at home: I own the Take 5s and the Klipsch Reference and Synergy. I was privileged to be able to audion the Boston Acoustic bookshelf speakers side-by-side with the Klipsch.

When I first heard the Bostons, I was just strolling through a store. I was magnetically attracted to their "musicality", if you will. The sound and look darned beautiful.

I was totally impressed with the Klipsch at another store, after blind-testing several brands against them. So I managed to wangle the Boston store to let me take them out for a while, and I went with them back to the Klipsch store.

Well, the end of the story is that the Klipsch were vastly superior in every detail. This is not to suggest that the Bostons are anything less than wonderful; if I hadn't heard the Klipsch I would be exceedingly happy with the Bostons.

But through a very wide range of CDs (from 50's to classical to jazz to hard rock to new age, and so on, with accoustic guitar and solo singing to Brian Wilson harmonics, etc.) the Klipsch won out 95% of the time. And it consistently sounded better to me on movie soundtracks.

I don't offer this information lightly. I did some very serious testing. But for what it's worth... good luck, and let us know! ... Mike

First off, I would def. see if you can do a home test, like David said most of the good dealers will let you. Room accoustics and placement are key in speaker sound and will play a big part in how speaker A sounds vs B. You may like Speaker A at the dealer, but speaker B sounds better at home.

If your local dealers won't let you home test the speakers, make sure that you demo them with the same or very similar equipment to what you have at home. Different amps will bring out the best or worst in speakers.

With that said I would def. agree with David that Paradigm make one of the best speakers for the money. A large portion of their Monitor speaker series and PS subwoofer series have gotten very high ratings by mags like Sound and Vision, Stereophile, Home Theater Magazine.

I have the Monitor 7, Mini Monitor, CC370 and PS-1000 and these babies sing. Check them out. Also, what equipment are you using? I have seen many posts that recommend certain speaker brands that sound the best with XYZ receiever.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

Tony

Thank you for your responses, for those who were wondering, I have a Sony V333ES, Panasonic R31 DVD and a Mitsubishi VCR. As I have learned from reading these responses the receiver makes a difference in matching the speakers.

I found a Paradigm dealer in the area(Chicago) and will go listen to those, I have not figured out where Encore dealers are yet, but will look. Any other suggestions or insight is appreciated.

Geoffry

I'm quite happy with my Infinity Alpha set (40s in front and 10s in back plus the center). I have not tried these directly with any of the suggestions made here, but I did direct listening comparison (at the dealer) against Tannoys and Missions (good old UK brands) and the Infinitys were clearly best.

BTW, I have a harman/kardon receiver.

Just a suggestion...

/Allan

I am a Paradigm afficianado, due to its value: Sound/cost ratio.

Here is an article that takes you on a tour of the Paradigm facilities in pretty good detail.

But, I agree with all of the above, and as always, listen, listen, listen, in this order, IMHO:

1) In your home, with YOUR equipment, A/B
2) In your home, with YOUR equipment, even if it has to be at different times
3) At the same store, with the SAME equipment, because even "similar" equipment can work differently with a set of speakers.

4) And, IMHO, don't let them drive your speakers with a $10,000 pre-pro/amp combination at the store. Get them to drive them with "similar" equipment to yours, if not the same equipment as yours.