Newbie Alert - recommendations for upgrade over old CBM170s

[donaldekelly]

I have old 170s. Would sierras, sierra 2s, 240s be recommended - worth the money for a person on a budget? Would be a stretch to get sierra or sierra 2 but might be worth it.

OR are the 170s fine with a good sub?

Feel free to point me to where this is topic is already talked to death

thanks

[natetg57]

I have old 170s. Would sierras, sierra 2s, 240s be recommended - worth the money for a person on a budget? Would be a stretch to get sierra or sierra 2 but might be worth it.

OR are the 170s fine with a good sub?

Feel free to point me to where this is topic is already talked to death

thanks
What do you use the speakers for? What is your source material? What kind of music do you like? Do you feel like something is lacking with your current speakers? I have the Sierra-2's and think they are a terrific value.

[donaldekelly]

What do you use the speakers for? What is your source material? What kind of music do you like? Do you feel like something is lacking with your current speakers? I have the Sierra-2's and think they are a terrific value.

Classical and rock, not much for movies. I really like the 170s but maybe I should just add a small sub and call it a day.

I think after checking prices more carefully the Sierra 2s are out of my price range, 1s or 340s would be more possible.

By the way - I did a quick search and did not find a thread title that looked like it was on this topic.

Thanks

[natetg57]

There are some really good prices on Sierra-1's right now. I think those would be a very nice upgrade for you. And the bass is better as well, you might not feel like you need a sub.

[FirstReflect]

Well, I'm certainly of the opinion that bass should almost always be handled by subwoofers. Not because there aren't speakers capable of producing totally adequate bass all on their own, but because what you hear at your seat is NOT just what comes from the speakers themselves; it is a combination of the direct sound coming from the speakers and the reflected sound coming from the wall, ceiling, and floor of your room. And when we are talking about bass frequencies, the wavelengths of the sound waves are so long that the dispersion coming out of the speaker starts to become omnidirectional, the sound waves physically exceed the dimensions of your room, and what you end up hearing is almost entirely reflected sound.

So there's a simple experiment that anyone can try:

Connect only one speaker. Don't have speaker wire connected to any other speakers - just one. Then play a bass sweep. Have that bass sweep playing at 85dB if at all possible (since that is the SPL at which human hearing is its most linear). And listen to the bass sweep coming from that one speaker starting in your primary seat, but then also listen to the bass sweep play from that one speaker in all the other seats in your room.

Once you've done that with one speaker, try it with the other speaker. And if you have a surround sound system, try it with each and every speaker individually.

What you will almost surely discover are two things:

1) extremely few speakers can actually play all the way down to the lowest frequencies that humans can hear - and even if they can, they struggle to do so linearly, and

2) Even if you have speakers that CAN play linearly all the way down to below 20Hz, that is not how they sound at your seat! Or even if they sound linear at one seat, they do not remain sounding linear at all of your seating locations in your room.

So this is not the fault of your speakers. But if you want to address both issues, the solution is not bigger, more bass capable speakers. The solution is subwoofers. Because even if you get speakers that can, themselves, produce frequencies all the way down to the limits of human hearing in a linear fashion, due to all the reflections of the very long sound waves within your room, the sound will not remain linear at your seats. And from seat to seat, there will be a great deal of variation.

It is all a matter of placement. You must place your speakers where they belong in order to create proper imaging of the midrange and treble frequencies. Those frequencies are directional, localizable, and short enough in wavelength that you can have a much higher ratio of direct sound vs. reflected sound reaching your ears. But the best locations for the midrange and treble frequencies almost never line up with the best locations for bass. Subwoofers give you the freedom to locate the sources of the bass frequencies so that by the time they reach your ears, they are far closer to even, linear, and uniform across all of your seats.

If you really only care about one seat in your room, then one subwoofer - carefully positioned - can do the job very nicely. You can make use of the "subwoofer crawl" to find the best location for one subwoofer for one seat. The subwoofer crawl involves placing the subwoofer temporarily in your seat. Yes, the subwoofer goes in the seat. Then you play your bass sweep through that subwoofer. Now you can easily crawl around your room - hence the name "Subwoofer crawl". In realistic settings, there are probably only a handful of location in your room where you could reasonably place a subwoofer. So with the subwoofer in your seat playing a bass sweep, you can walk over to each of those locations, get your head close to the floor, and listen to the bass sweep playing. You are trying to find the spot where the bass sweep is the most linear and even sounding. You will quickly discover that some spots in the room make the bass sweep sound like a rollercoaster. Some spots might make one or two frequencies in the sweep extremely loud or quiet compared to the rest of the sweep. But, hopefully, one or more spots will result in a sweep that sounds pretty darn close to even and linear all the way through. That's where you want to position your subwoofer. And now you can go back and sit in your seat! It's reciprocity :)

If you care about more than one seat, though, and you want every seat to get uniform, linear bass, then you will need at least 2 subwoofers. 4 would be even better, but that starts to get expensive and unwieldy in terms of placement. With multiple subwoofers - 2 or 4 - what you are trying to achieve is as uniform a distribution of bass sound waves as possible. If you have a perfectly rectangular room, that will happen when you have one subwoofer at the mid-point of your front wall, and one subwoofer at the mid-point of the back wall. Even better would be a subwoofer at the mid-point of all 4 walls. One subwoofer in each of the 4 corners will also work very well. But 2 subwoofers - both of them in corners - is not as good. Still, if the only locations where you can position a subwoofer realistically in your room are in the corners (which is often the case), then diagonally opposite corners would make the best of that situation.

What you would want to avoid is what we see so often when people get 2 subwoofers - which is putting both subwoofers at the front of the room - either in the two front corners, or with the two subwoofers right beside the Left and Right front speakers, or even acting as speaker stands for the Front Left & Right speakers. While this looks aesthetically pleasing and makes intuitive sense as being a way of turning any speaker into a genuinely "full range" speaker, in effect, it is no different than if the speakers themselves played all the way down to below 20Hz. Those locations are far from ideal. And if you just picture what the sound waves would look like (or do the full fluid dynamics analysis ;) ), it's rather easy to see why: the sound waves would be denser at the front of the room than at the back of the room. And our goal is to get the bass sound waves to be as even and uniform throughout the room as possible. So spread the subwoofers out. Get them on opposite sides of the room from one another. We're trying to "blanket" the entire room with even, uniform bass sound waves. It's certainly trickier in a room that isn't a rectangle, but even in those situations, just a little bit of picturing what the sound waves might look like as the bounce around your room can help a lot.

So I'm definitely in favour of you adding a subwoofer to your system in this case - preferably 2 subwoofers, although 1 subwoofer is perfectly adequate if you really only care about one seat in your room. The CBM-170 are very accurate, linear speakers. Certainly, there are audible improvements possible. The Sierra-2, for example, would be quite a clear improvement in virtually every metric. But, as you've pointed out, it's a considerable cost upgrade!

So I personally think you will glean more bang for you buck by adding subwoofers. There are frequencies that your CBM-170 simply are not playing, quite a bit of bass that is being played quieter than what is called for in the signal, and even if they could play those bass frequencies linearly, they wouldn't be in the best spots in your room in order for those bass frequencies to reach your ears while still being linear and accurate. So I vote for subwoofers in this case :)

Hope that's of some help,

Rob H.

[donaldekelly]

Thanks for the comments

I am seriously considering a sub now. I see Ascend has subs for sale, but I was thinking something cheaper - a Hsu stf-2 or vtf-1. Maybe something off ebay and under $400.

Seems like anytime you mention a sub or two the correct advice is the better and usually more expensive one. I am just not sold on spending on something more than the $360 or so for an STF-2.

I have an STF-1 and even that adds to the sound in my other setup in a small room. The STF-2 would be for another room with more square footage for a larger sub. about 20x10 feet with 8 foot ceilings.

Anyway - the Hsu team said, predictably, to get the vTF1 or vTF2. Just not sure I want to put that much money into it, unless it is discounted (used from ebay).

I welcome advice.

[18inch]

Hey Donald,

Would you be able to build an enclosure for a subwoofer; tools, space? If so, then my personal advice to you for a subwoofer is to go the DIY route. I mean if you have some space to work and tools of course... Its definitely worth it... Its not that complicated you just have to concentrate on making the enclosure plan and tuning (or sealed) with the right measurement for the right type of sound your after...

You can get a 18'' sub or 15" sub for ~150$ plus a plate amp plus the wood for building the enclosure you would be at prolly 500$ total but it will most definitely destroy any already made sub at that price, in general...

just a thought...

[donaldekelly]

Thanks for the idea 18inch. I think the second one I made myself might be good - the first one would be trial and error. I think I will stick with one made correctly by someone who knows how to make very good subs.

[donaldekelly]

I bought a HSU STF-2 and it sounds pretty good. I realized in looking at bass management that my speakers are set to large by default on Yamaha HTR 5540and I don't have the remote (yard sale buy came without remote).

I don't think I can buy a remote - so any recommendations for a cheap good receiver? I don't need wifi bluetooth, networking. Just clean sound and bass management. I suppose anything with a name like Denon or HK or Onkyo or Yamaha that is marked down at bestbuy would fill the bill? I am running only 2.1 but do have other speakers that have a center that I might try on the receiver.

Thanks

[natetg57]

I bought a HSU STF-2 and it sounds pretty good. I realized in looking at bass management that my speakers are set to large by default on Yamaha HTR 5540and I don't have the remote (yard sale buy came without remote).

I don't think I can buy a remote - so any recommendations for a cheap good receiver? I don't need wifi bluetooth, networking. Just clean sound and bass management. I suppose anything with a name like Denon or HK or Onkyo or Yamaha that is marked down at bestbuy would fill the bill? I am running only 2.1 but do have other speakers that have a center that I might try on the receiver
Thanks

Instead of buying a new receiver, you could get a universal remote, such as a Logitech Harmony. If you want a new receiver, check out Accessories4Less. This one is just over $100. http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/denavr1513/denon-avr-1513-5.1ch-home-theater-receiver-3d-ready/1.html

[donaldekelly]

Thanks.