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March 14, 2019 - 9:55am
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Recommendations on Floor Standing Loudspeakers under 3k
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The KEF R700 is only rated to go down to 42 Hz; if you will not be using a sub you want speakers that go a lot lower than that.
The problem is that true full-range speakers tend to be quite large and cost over $5000 each, generally.
You pay a lot of money to get a little more bass extension in a high quality full range speaker system.
It makes a lot more sense to get a couple of good speakers that can go down to 45 or 50 Hz and then spend $1000 or so on a good subwoofer, which will give you excellent low bass below 40 Hz.
Another BIG advantage of a separate sub is that its placement can be optimized for best bass in the room, and the placement of your front speaker pair can be optimized for best imaging without any concern for what that placement does to the bass. With large full-range speakers, it is often impossible to get the speakers in the position where they sound the best and also get the best bass response.
I recommend the Focal Chorus 726 speakers, which are excellent in all respects and run $950 each. They also have a relatively small footprint, which is highly desirable unless you have a huge room.
For the subwoofer, I suggest the REL HT1205 sub, which is very good and only costs $700. This will give you plenty of bass down to around 25 HZ. To go much lower, you need a huge sub with tons of power, and these cost several thousand dollars. I think you will find that this one will give you all you want.
That’s a great point on the Kef’s. You’re right...true full ranges are pretty out of my budget.
I love my SVS sub even though its entry level. I’m familiar with REL subs. They’re the real deal for sure!
I’ll check out the Focal Chorus and see if any are near me to audition.
Thanks!
Check out Analysis Plus Black Oval 9s for speaker cables. A lot more expensive than when I bought mine 10 years ago. But the bass exploded in my KEF reference 105.3s, (1995 model). The APs replaced my MITs which were twice the price. My friend found a set of Black Oval 9s on Audiogon. Good luck.
I’m unfamiliar with them but I’ll look into it. My cables are shit...my father keeps trying to convince me to upgrade them to Audioquest or something similar. Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll do some digging
another good thing about a good powered sub is it takes over the heavy lifting from your receiver. Mine is a B&W sub that has 400 watt amp in it so now my receiver only has to amplify down to 80hz using the line out connection to the sub. This should help the AVR a lot. My AVR is a Yamaha Aventage I just bought a couple months ago. My previous Denon Avr crapped out.