And dont forget the Mirage Sub/Sat system. AVS 500. It has a pretty powerful little sub.

Kev

You will not find AR Hi-Res components at Best Buy,
Circut City or WallMart. AR sells thier cheaper lines
of product to said stores but the Hi-Res line is reserved
for Home Theater Specialty Shops and online sales.

The Hi-Res series is not cheap, my AR9 towers list and
sell for a grand a pair at Crutchfield but if you shop
around you can shave 400 bux off that price. I bought
my AR9's from bestpriceaudiovideo.com for $550.00 +
$83.00 S&H.

I would put the Hi-Res up against anything Klipsch, Def
Tech,Paradigm,B&W and the rest have to offer. These
Towers are great for Cinema and music but they shine
on music especialy classical,instrumentals.. So clear
so vivid. Of course picking speakers is difficult as
what sounds great to one person may not be ideal for
another and this is why listening is a good idea. I
allready had AR speakers and I knew the Hi-Res series
would be even better than what I had.. And it is.. So
MUCH better :)

Brett,
The point to this was finding a system setup for around 600.00 I know JBL, Paradigm, and Energy all have them and they all sound better than Sony.

Pretty bold statment about the AR Hi-Res. I think you may be overstating ARs ability just a smidgen here =) You really think these Hi-res could compete against anything Def. Tech, Paradigm, B&W have to offer?

Kev-Good call on the Mirage. I forgot about them! Although their price w/sub will be stretching the budget range of 600.00. Their OM-9 system was just reviewed in the latest Home Theater Magazine..and it beat out the Pardigm system, just barely, but it did!

...Tony

ttiger,

Am I overstating? No I most certainly am not. Within
the same price range AR's Hi-Res will compete with
what the brands I mentioned have to offer. Sure if you
spend 8K on B&W Naut's or maybe a pair or logan areils
I would "hope" they sound better.

I just now saw that he is looking for a budget up to
$600.00 therfore I can't help him :)

It is very nice when everybody basically ignores you. But I'll get what ever I want.


HtPB

Heretic,

You posted the list and we responded.. No one ignored
what you had to say, but just as the replies you got
over on the Home Theater Forums you would think that
there must be some truth to what everyone is saying.

But I digress..

HtPB

I know I posted several speakers that are all within your price range that are better speakers (general consensus) than Sony. As I said in an earlier post...listen listen listen, buy what you like. But don't just ignore the other brands, because at least in mine and others here they are better than the Sony.

Tony

Hey Brett,

I thin I misunderstood you then. You had said that the AR could compete against anything that the others had to offer. I still think that the best speaker for the $$ is Paradigm, that's why they have won so many awards and gotten such rave reviews in the mags. I orginally had some AR stuff (forgot their model #s) but it was a powered sub, fronts and center. This was a couple of years ago. Not bad, but certainley not as good as the Paradigms I have now.

Tony

Tony,

You most likely had either Performance or HO series
from AR. The AR9's are $1000.00 a pair list the AR5's
are $600.00 each (same set as the 9's only diffrence is
that each tower gets a Carver Sunfire 175 Watt Amp)

And then you get into the AR3's AR1's which run closer
to 3 grand for a pair. Within those price points they
compete head to head with Paradigm and Klipsch. The
reviews for all 3 of the companies are astounding and
each offers one hell of a speaker for the money.

Did your AR's look like this?



Just curious as to which AR's you had..

This message was edited by Brett DiMichele on 10/12/01 17:24.57.

Hey Brett,
Nope nothing like them, mine actually were just towers no powered sub in them. 2 6 1/2" mid/low drivers and 1" tweet. The center was 1 5" mid/low 2 5" passive radiators and 3/4 tweet. The sub was a 12" front facing woofer with 100 or 125 watt amp.
I am very happy with the Paradigm's I have now, and when I upgrade them I will most likely buy the Monitor 11s, but I may go with the Studio series, not too sure yet. I haven't been to big a fan of powered speakers so I will probably stay in the Monitor series (I currently have the 7s).
I paid about 2K for my entire Paradigm system. Monitor 7s for the front, CC370 for the center, mini-monitors for the rear and the PS 1000 for the sub. I thought about the ADP 370 for rear, but I like the direct radiating speakers better than di-pole or bi-poles...Tony