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Best Brand [message #67081] Sat, 16 April 2011 22:06 Go to next message
Clueless is currently offline  Clueless
Messages: 74
Registered: November 2010
Viscount
What is the best brand of speakers? Do brands really make a difference? I have been thinking on buying my husband a new set of speakers. I want good quality ones, but don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Suggestions?
Re: Best Brand [message #67088 is a reply to message #67081] Sun, 17 April 2011 05:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
AudioFred is currently offline  AudioFred
Messages: 377
Registered: May 2009
Location: Houston
Illuminati (1st Degree)
Clueless wrote on Sat, 16 April 2011 22:06
What is the best brand of speakers? Do brands really make a difference? I have been thinking on buying my husband a new set of speakers. I want good quality ones, but don't want to spend an arm and a leg. Suggestions?


It's hard to recommend a brand without knowing how much you want to spend. For example, if you plan to spend $250 for a pair I would recommend any of several mass market brands that are sold at big box stores like Best Buy, but if your budget is $1,000 or more I would steer you toward a completely different set of "high end" brands that are sold at high end audio stores and online.

Among the mass market brands, some I would avoid are:

1) Bose - Bose spends more money on advertising than all the other brands combined, and you pay a huge premium for this expensive marketing campaign. Bose speakers are small, which might be more attractive to some customers, but their sound isn't very good for the price you pay.

2) Any brand that's offered by a major electronics manufacturer (e.g. Sony) - Their core product is electronics, not speakers. They want you to buy their electronics, but they realize you'll need speakers too, so they offer low quality low priced speakers so you'll have more money left over to afford their more expensive electronics.

3) Any store's "house brand" that's priced much lower than the similar speakers from the major brands. For example, Best Buy's Insignia house brand speakers are attractively priced, but they don't sound very good.

So this leaves you with brands like Polk Audio, Klipsch, Infinity, Boston Acoustics, JBL, etc. I have no idea which is best, but I've always found Polk Audio speakers offer consistently good sound for the price. All these brands offer good sounding speakers from about $250 and up for a pair. Tell us how much you want to spend and I'm sure somebody here can offer a few suggestions.
Re: Best Brand [message #67092 is a reply to message #67081] Sun, 17 April 2011 19:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adveser is currently offline  Adveser
Messages: 434
Registered: July 2009
Location: USA
Illuminati (1st Degree)
I completely disagree about Sony. They are well known for making headphones and speakers. My Technics are great speakers.

Just avoid Bose and take each and every speaker without any regard for it's brand or price.

What's the best brand? If I had to pick one I would say JBL's line of professional PA speakers would be very hard to beat. These speakers are going to big and louder than you will ever need them to be however. Cerwin vega has more consumer oriented products along those lines.

The other side of the coin is boutique "audiophile" brands. I can't really comment on those. If the sound is great, they look attractive (something a pro PA speaker isn't going to take into consideration) and the price is right, why not?


Re: Best Brand [message #67105 is a reply to message #67092] Tue, 19 April 2011 06:00 Go to previous messageGo to next message
AudioFred is currently offline  AudioFred
Messages: 377
Registered: May 2009
Location: Houston
Illuminati (1st Degree)
Adveser wrote "I completely disagree about Sony. They are well known for making headphones and speakers. My Technics are great speakers..."

Many of the big names in electronics, including Sony and Panasonic (Technics) once sold some good consumer oriented speakers, but these products have largely been discontinued or downgraded to the extreme budget end of the spectrum.

The Sony product I'm referring to is this one: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665191299

I needed some cheap speakers to combine with an old receiver and DVD player to build an inexpensive two channel audio system for a friend, and I checked out he Sony speakers and the Parts Express B-652 speakers. Wouldn't it be great if you could get an ok sounding speaker for less than $50?

In both cases I found the speakers were cheaply constructed with the most rudimentary crossover (woofer running full range with an only an electrolytic cap as the tweeter high pass filter). I didn't measure the frequency response of the Sony, but it sounded much like the PE speaker shown here, with the bass down 5dB at 100hz and a big treble null at 8khz caused by the tweeter being crossed over too high: http://audioroundtable.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=15873

Re: Best Brand [message #67600 is a reply to message #67081] Thu, 12 May 2011 22:22 Go to previous message
brian21 is currently offline  brian21
Messages: 59
Registered: January 2011
Baron
My favorite brand of speakers is JBL. They're not too cheap though, so I don't know if they'd fit your budget. The other responders made some good points here, in that you usually get what you pay for. Cheap speakers just usually don't sound as good.
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