# good, cheap commercial bookshelf speakers?



## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

I have dilema. 

First of all I am fairly picky about my music - as is everyone here. Secondly I have amassed a good collection of drivers that are not worth selling.

I built some SEAS kit speakers for my main system which sound great. They sound really good for their size, but they were not cheap.

My old Infinity RS series 3 ways also sound great. I realize that the current infinity offerings are not the same as the old ones. I like the fact that they came from the factory with Solen caps and large monster wiring - and that they are solid, sealed enclosures, but the mid and tweeter adjustment pots are noisy and I have replaced the drivers with CA21RNX, DLS IR3 and Peerless HDS tweeters. I made some minor changes to the crossovers pretty much just to account for the impedance changes - they measure pretty flat but they aren't voiced very well, and in fact probably don't sound as good as they did stock - although they play much louder now. They certainly don't look good after 20 years of me carrying them around with me.

Anyway I need to replace them with something smaller. I was looking into using a set of my P18RNX/P's and either the Seas 27TDFC or the Peerless HDS tweeter - since I have extras of both. Madisound has a crossover for the seas driver and nice looking cabinets. The Madisound crossover does not look to be very well thought out - just a very basic crossover with good components. Which may be fine.

I can not build cabinets - I have no tablesaw and just cant make a straight cut to save my life. The dilema here is that if I use the drivers I have it will cost me $400 in madisound parts to finish them. I am sure they will sound pretty good as I like the sound of the individual drivers.

My goal would be to have a smallish speaker (I even considered an 8 inch 2 way) that can crank out the music and take a lot of power. Preferably a 6 or 4 ohm total impedance, which I can't do with the P18's unless I do an MTM - which I don't generally like. The speakers will be powered by an old Pioneer SX-1050 which is kind of like a muscle car amp. It will easily deliver over 100wpc without breaking a sweat all day. And it does run all day every day.


Another possibility would be to take the CA21RNX and the HDS's out of the infinitys and build a small 2 way - sacrificing the infinitys - although I would like to keep them together. 

Or I could take that $400 to best buy and buy something. The speakers that I saw that I liked the best in that price range were some Klipsch MTM's which sounded better than I expected, but not as good as I would expect my DIY speakers to sound. I went to the $88 store and looked at the current infinity bookshelf speakers and was not impressed. 

Finally - these do not have to sound perfect - they would be going in my weight room, but they do have to sound good enough for me to enjoy and there has to be enough clean bass to keep my workout going.


The truth is that I would rather spend $200. I don't really want to spend $400 just to be able to reuse drivers that I have on hand.

Or the final option is to give up on the small and put my old Cerwin Vega VS12's in there. Lots of bass, shreiking highs and I think they have some mids. Would definately not be my first choice primarily due to shear mass. Sound quality would actually be sufficient for the workout room. I could probably stick a nerf ball or something in the ports to tighten up the bass.

I don't know. Obviously I have no idea what I want to do.

Input would be appreciated.


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## rdv (May 14, 2007)

have you tried looking at the stuff in parts express? they have kits and raw drivers that are reasonably priced.


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## speakerboy (Oct 2, 2007)

PE also has pre-fab cabinets w/o drivers that they ship knocked down. All you have to do is assemble them.


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## $NotEnough$ (Aug 19, 2007)

Polk RTI4's at Fry's....great sounding imo.


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

I looked at the PE cabinets, they would save me a little money, but not a lot.



One of my goals if I were to do another DIY set would be to use the speakers I have here already. Which are 

Midbass: Seas CA18RNX, P18RNX/P, CA22RNX, Vifa XG18(?), DLS IR6
Tweeters: Seas 27TDFC, Peerless HDS Tweeter, DLS IR Tweeter, Seas NEO Textile, Alpine XT19. 

I also have a couple DLS IR3's I could put in if I wanted to do 3 way.


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## Bob Blickle (Oct 27, 2007)

CBRworm said:


> I looked at the PE cabinets, they would save me a little money, but not a lot.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Make this exact same post on the PE board with the list of drivers, requirements, budget, and desire to use pre-made cabinets. I bet within a day you have a good plan and someone that will help with XO if you need it. You might wait until Friday though to post.

Good Luck,

bb

Mad has cabs too btw.


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

Good idea.


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## Need-sq (May 26, 2007)

I might recommend giving Mr. Marv a call. He would almost deinitely be able to build a great set af cabinets for your existing assortment of drivers. He is quite busy, but it would be worth getting in touch with him. Don't quote me me but you would liekly have to spend in the upper range of your budget. He is a cabinet maker by trade (as you probably already know). Just a thought.


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## AzGrower (May 30, 2005)

Athena Technologies Audition B1.2
$99/pr
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=ATASB1.2


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## BlackLac (Aug 8, 2005)

http://www.av123.com/products_product.php?section=speakers&product=82.1


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## kaineilsen (Jan 31, 2007)

If you're interested, I have a couple of pairs of good bookshelves for sale:

I have a pair of Mirage Omni 50's 
http://www.goodsound.com/equipment/mirage_omni50.htm 
$150 + shipping

and..

a pair of Onix Reference 0.5
http://www.av123.com/products_product.php?section=speakers&product=80.1
$150 + shipping


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## zukiaudio (Jan 31, 2007)

.


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## Sephiroth619 (Jun 24, 2005)

^Who makes that? Any more information on that particular bookshelf speaker?


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

That's sweet Zuki !


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## slamtry (Mar 20, 2008)

PSB (Canadian speaker company with well-deserved rep for building speaker with high quality/price ratio are introducing new lines, You can find their bookshelf speakers new for $175 to $325 on Ebay from a licensed dealer and hence with warranty. I have some and they are excellent. The Image B15's and B25's might suit.


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## havok20222 (Sep 5, 2007)

I absolutely love my Kef bookshelves. Check out the Kef iQ3s, they sound fantastic. 

Also check out some of the bookshelves on AV123 and Aperionaudio.com


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## 60ndown (Feb 8, 2007)

CBRworm said:


> I looked at the PE cabinets, they would save me a little money, but not a lot.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


when do you actually imagine you will use all those drivers?

sell them all for $$ then buy any bookshelf you desire.


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## Lsmkenpo (Feb 17, 2007)

I second the Athena AS-B1.2 already mentioned, you could 
spend triple that amount on the Klipsch, and the sound quality 
won't beat the Athena's IMO.


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## deadbeat son (Feb 24, 2008)

For the money, I've always felt it's hard to beat Paradigm speakers. I have a set of Mini Monitors. They're 6.5" 2-way bookshelf speakers. MSRP $400. My local shop gave me 10% off. If you can, give a pair a listen.

-JP


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

One of these days there will be a CBRworm garage sale. Very soon if my wife has anything to do with it.

I ended up buying a set of ER18's to go with the 27TDFC's - with a basic crossover in a basic vented box they sounded fantastic together, so I am going to build the SR-71. They should sound even better with a properly designed crossovers.

I put the HDS's in a set of infinity speakers that had broken (blown) tweeters - I would rather match them with the ER's but I need a predesigned crossover. The HDS's and 27TDFC ring out as about 2 ohms difference so the crossover wouldn't even be close assuming everything else was the same. However they sound very similar to the infinity tweeters and they only run a small frequency range And the speakers have adjustable tweeter and mid levels on the back so I was able to really just dial it in to nearly flatish (as flat as infinity intended)

I was really amazed how much better they sound in a box than in my car door . . . Power handling with regular music was about doubled as well as bass output. My car doors are extremely well sealed, but to the speaker it is IB.


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