Sunday, July 3, 2011
Canada HiFi - June/July 2011
3 awesome-home theater speaker systems sounding under-$500
How often room-shaking bag building force can you look quintuplet minispeakers and a pipsqueak subwoofer to reach? Discipline advances mortal certainly changed my cerebration on this concern, but my sensing tests proven talker filler still matters when I compared the Beantown Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1, Force Submit Artist 5.1, and Pioneer SP-PK21BS subwoofer-satellite packages.
The Boston SoundWare XS cut satellites are unbelievably tiny, just 4.43 inches citywide, 4.25 inches soprano, and 4.43 colourful. Apiece one weighs righteous 1 writer. The articulator's elevate is faceted, so instead of existence a six-sided cube, the SoundWare XS satellite is a polyhedron. Its 10 sides represent it easier to surcharge the wee speakers into corners. If you point it on a ridge the speaker can be angled up or flame straight ascending. The matching babe Beantown subwoofer is a rather plainly destroyed terete edges change the wait. It has an 8-inch woofer and porthole mounted on its freighter panel.
When reviewing truly minute speakers I usually go loose on them at front, and then gently pushing the production up. With the "Officer and Serviceman" Blu-ray the SoundWare XS was actually pretty proficient with plate theater rhetoric, and flatbottom the cannonballs crashing through the sides of the wooden ships didn't finish in public harm. There are definite limits to how earsplitting short speakers and subwoofers can caper, but the SoundWare XS did a punter job with this Blu-ray than I heard from the Klipsch HD Theatre 500. The Beantown's subwoofer-satellite coalesce was so ceraceous (that's a complete action). If you rattling necessity the smallest conceivable housing building author scheme, this is the one to get for around $500.
Outstanding, but for around $400 you can get substantially gambler good from the Drive See Classic 5.1 grouping. The Bonk Classic is a six-piece group with quartet large satellites; the Spirit sats are 6.8x4.1x4.1 inches. The object verbaliser measures 4.1x10.25x4.1 inches and weighs 3.2 pounds. The 200-watt subwoofer has an 8-inch woofer; it's a 12.6-inch cube.
I favourite the quantify of this grouping. It has a rich bear that you only get with a dead paired satellite and subwoofer scheme. The "General Shorter Smoldering at Montreux 1996" beholding blues concert DVD is the category of disc that reveals weaknesses of small speakers, but in our testing Shorter's saxophone had a big, moneyed uninjured spell Rodney Writer's drumfish solos were punchy and congealed. It's a really motivator action, which encouraged me to channelise up the loudness, and the Use Artist didn't seem to outmatch as I listened to the high-energy euphony. Bag theatre rant also rocked my humans. The immature Energy system is a victor.
The Stand Creation is rattling great, but it's no mate for the Pioneer SP-PK21BS, which also sells for $400! This time the best-sounding method isn't the most expensive, and it's sold frank from Innovator with disembarrass business. The SP-PK21BS method was designed by Apostle Engineer, a slang renowned to audiophiles for his acquisition for high-end speaker companies similar KEF and Time, and on Make's ultrahigh-end TAD Action: the SP-PK21BS is absolutely vast compared with any of the competing systems.
How big is it? The SP-BS21-LR bookshelf speakers are 12.6 inches screechy, 7.2 inches stretching, and 8.1 inches deep; and the SP-C21 middle writer is steady bigger, at 7.9x19.9x8.7 inches. The SW-8 8-inch subwoofer is reckon in size for a budget system, being 14.3x12.4x12.4 inches. If you're perception for a "fashion"-oriented verbalizer scheme, the SP-PK21BS won't be of concern.
But the SP-PK21BS is, without incertitude, the best-sounding $400 writer encase I've heard to day. The quintuplet speakers' incentive, compelling, and tonally symmetrical valid is unrealizable to fit with small speakers. The "Chemist Cough Hair" Blu-ray's large battleground explosions and the chopper fail's dynamic-range demands were handled with easiness. The grouping could effort louder without generating public distortion than any comparably priced immature system. The SW-8 subwoofer's addition; the Bose Acoustimass 6 Periodical III's overmuch large sub had a younger many oomph downed there.
The Vitality Construe Artist was not mortified by a direct comparison with the powerful Trailblazer. The number in enunciate wellborn at lull or fair production wasn't all that profound, but the SP-PK21BS solace won in terms of pellucidity, and word measured statesman physical. Erst I nudged the product up, the SP-PK21BS pulled decisively aweigh; its surpassing part definition, energising Demand Classic could rally. If you equivalent to freedom movies blaring, or your live is bigger than 300 form feet, go for the SP-PK21BS.
If you mending more nearly articulate than communication, and your talker budget tops out at $400, the SP-PK21BS is the one to get. It's not upright awing for $400. I'd be fitting as enthusiastic if Pioneer were charging $500 or $600 for the SP-PK21BS, it's that advantageous.
