Cerwin Vega?

[varova87]

Audiophiles, what's your take on Cerwin Vega? The TV is mounted and I've got my pioneer receiver hooked up to a set of Pioneer floor speakers. As I'm shopping for a center channel and active sub, I come across Cerwin Vega. Their stuff has good reviews so I'm considering not only their center channel, but replacing the floor speakers as well.

I'm in a rental townhouse, so I won't be installing rear speakers. Going to stick with a 3.1 setup.

 

[Some Dude]

Whatever you do, just make sure your center and fronts are timbre matched. Don't throw an oddball speaker in the mix because you'll hear pitch change as sound moves from left to right across the screen and through your center to the other side speaker. Buying a package where the center and fronts match is pretty important in my experience.

Also, go easy on the sub. An 18" 500w downfiring behemoth sounds badass at the stereo shop but it will piss off your neighbors real quick in a townhouse.

Beyond that, the question of whether or not to buy CV stuff boils down to your budget. It's not my thing, but it's better than Pioneer, Sony, etc. And whatever you do, run away from Bose.

 

[akronk1]

lol here I am reading this after a shower where I listened to a 15+ yr old "Tune a Fish" radio and thinking how good its sounds since changing the AA batteries yesterday

 

[lgoldd1]

Cerwin Vega makes some good products. I like these B&W speakers for a center. http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/Speakers/Home_Audio/600_Series/HTM62.html

The B&W 600 line has some really good small loudspeakers as well.

I agree that you should try and stick with one brand if you can, although I have Klipsch loudspeakers, Visonix Sub and B&W's for my center so what the hell do i know.

 

[varova87]

Whatever you do, just make sure your center and fronts are timbre matched. Don't throw an oddball speaker in the mix because you'll hear pitch change as sound moves from left to right across the screen and through your center to the other side speaker. Buying a package where the center and fronts match is pretty important in my experience.

Well that shoots my backup plan, which was to leave the Pioneer towers and put a Cerwin Vega center in the middle. I'm not following how speakers of different builds/series can not match up when it comes to sound pitches. If the frequency response ranges are similar, the sound should flow smoothly enough left to right, true?

Or, perhaps you mean quality. As in, fuzzy - really bright and clear - fuzzy. How's that for an explanation.

Guess I'll start shopping for CV towers.

 

[lunchbox]

Mids and highs need to be of the same material, quality, size, impedance, etc... Best thing to do us get them all from the same mfg and series. Just google matching home theatre speakers. It's nothing new.

 

[Some Dude]

Well that shoots my backup plan, which was to leave the Pioneer towers and put a Cerwin Vega center in the middle. I'm not following how speakers of different builds/series can not match up when it comes to sound pitches. If the frequency response ranges are similar, the sound should flow smoothly enough left to right, true?

In theory, maybe. In practice, not so much. Just because a speaker has the same frequency response range doesn't mean it will sound the same as another speaker of different construction. For example if you have floor standers for fronts with 5.25" drivers made of kevlar, they're going to sound different in the mid range than a center that has 4" paper drivers. The center will sound muddy. Obviously this is an extreme example. A more realistic scenario is you have fronts with a standard neodymium tweeter and you buy a center with horns, ie Klipsch, Cerwin Vega... The speakers with horn tweeters will be much "brighter."

I'm totally nerding out. You can probably just go buy whatever center channel you can get a good deal on and be perfectly happy watching TV while you laugh about that stupid guy on the internet and his obsessive-compulsive home theater bullshit.

 

[az_max]

...
I'm totally nerding out. You can probably just go buy whatever center channel you can get a good deal on and be perfectly happy watching TV while you laugh about that stupid guy on the internet and his obsessive-compulsive home theater bullshit.

Cable-delivered HD is so highly compressed that it's dynamic range gets severely chopped. Cable SD is barely watchable in some areas. BD, DVD and SACD might have a noticeable difference in sound quality in a perfect listening environment. But most listening environments in homes are far from perfect.

And whatever you do, run away from Bose.

I agree 10,000%.

 

[ukoffroad]

depends on your budget and source. For cable, sound quality is the problem. For other stuff Polk Audio and Definitive Technology sound pretty strong. Crutchfield has the outlet place on 29, they often have big markdowns on overstock stuff. Cewin Vega made great higher end stuff in the late 80's and early 90s. More run of the mill now but would work well for most folks.

These energys I have heard and liked, they have a center as well. I ended up with Polks.

 

[flyfisher11]

I had Cerwin Vega's along with Sound Craftsman, Studer Revox, Nakamichi etc in the day LOL! They would blow your hair back literally. This isn't helpful but I just had a flashback to the '80's.

Cheers,

Mike