From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Need help on buying Bookshelf Speakers
Date: 16 Nov 92 10:22:57 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

jkonghsu@ocf.berkeley.edu (James Kong Hsu) writes:


>	I am looking for a good pair of bookshelf speakers for
>	the price range of $100-150 each. I have a Sony 120 watt
>	amp and I need the speakers to be able to handle this power.
>	If you have any suggestions please mail me at:

There are now a number of companies that make reasonable speakers in
the $200/$300 per pair range.  I'm leafing through the Audio
directory, and picking out models either because I've heard and liked
them or because they've had good reviews here:

  Advent, Altec Lansing 85 or 95, AR M-1, Boston Acoustics (presumably
	HD-7, 8 or 9), Celestion (3?), Paradigm 3, 5, or 7, Tannoy 603

That doesn't mean these are the only ones to listen to.  There are
several companies known for more expensive speakers that make some in
the price range, but I don't recall hearing any reaction to them, e.g.
B&W and KEF.  And I'm sure there are others that I just haven't heard
or don't recall having read about.  (It's interesting, when I look at
the speakers I personally like and then at specifications, I seem to
like acoustic suspension designs.  The ones I'm including because of
my own tastes are Advent, Altec, and Boston Acoustics, all of which
are acoustic suspension.  So is the AR, which I haven't heard.  I'd
say reaction from knowledgable people here would tend towards
Celestion and maybe Paradigm.)

Based on other postings here, it doesn't sound like power is much of
an issue.  However a lot will depend upon your tastes.  At this price,
you have to make tradeoffs, and the speakers I've listed may not have
made the right tradeoffs for rock music.  That is, they may not have
enough bass.  I'm most familiar with the Altec's, since I have 85 in
my office and 95 at home.  I can tell you that there's a big
difference between the two.  Speakers are an area where the difference
between $200 and $300 can be very significant (and I suspect this
phenomenon continues up to a couple of thousand dollars).

In listening to speakers, I recommend (1) doing some preparation, so
you know what to listen for.  Go to a concert.  Spend a lot of time
listening to systems that your friends have.  One of the problems is
that things can sound impressive at first, but not "wear" well.  So
ideally, you should live with some friends' systems long enough to
begin to get a feel for what you want over the long run, (2) take
along your own CD or record when you're listening, so that you know
the music.  You might want to note specific sections of the recording
that you find particularly critical.  (3) be aware of things that affect
listening in stores, e.g. a few stores have been known to do wierd
things like turn on subwoofers without telling you to make speakers
sound good.  More commonly are stores that don't do a careful job of
matching levels.  When you compare speakers using those speaker
switching gadgets, the ear will interpret a speaker that's slightly
louder as sounding better.  Differences of less than 1db can
apparently cause this effect.  Few stores match loudness carefully
enough.  I'm not sure quite what to do about this, since it's
something you can't fix.  What I did was control the volume as well as
the switcher and reduce the volume to zero while switching.  In effect
this just avoided doing straight A-B comparisons at all, since I knew
they would be misleading.