getting a little obsessed with my first purchase


alright, I've been into music for a while now, however my budget for audio equipment has always been in the sub 500$ range until now. My GF bless her heart, bought me a DE875 sony for christmas. I want to set up a home theater but my priority is music so I'm gonna start with two loudspeakers. I don't want to spend any more than 700-800$ and I'm looking squarely at used equipment (because I always want better than I can afford). I have been obsessing over the DefTech 2006tl's. However I haven't seen any of these for sale second hand anywhere on the net. I need advice from an old hand here. Is my choice a good one? Can I do better? Keep in mind the low end receiver/amp. Also I have a relatively small living room in an apartment. It's probably around 15-16 feet by 9-10. I have been stressing over this purchase for over a month now and I need to buy something fast for the sake of my girlfriend and my health.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Patrick
elchuppa

Showing 1 response by ewha

i've heard the def tech's. they are very good speakers, but you also might want to look into b&w 601's and 602's (series 2, which unlike the s1's have the same tweeter as the much more expensive nautilus line). they go for about $250 (601's) - 400 (602's)used. you could probably get a pair of 602 s2's for your fronts, 601 s2's for the rears, and the matching center for right around $800 used. these are very, very good speakers. equally at home with music and theatre. for your size room, they should be perfect (you might even be okay with 4 601's + center).

i think it would be a little premature to drop $700-800 on two speakers given your current set up. if you're talking $700-800 used, your up in the $1200-1600 retail range for a (i'm guessing here) <$400 A/V receiver? i think it would be much more worthwhile to use that money for a full set-up of b&w's (or something comparable). to be honest, it might be worth it to buy a pair of used 602's and spend the rest of your allocated money on upgrading to a nice two channel integrated amp (there are some great ones out there for $400-500 used). however, given that the sony was a gift from a very thoughtful GF, i can see how that would be virtually impossible!

the 601's and 602's are speakers that will last you through quite a long chain of upgrades. they are that good. plus, since b&w just released the series 3 versions, used s2's are going for very reasonable prices. throw in a decent pair of stands, and you are looking at a fine entry level HT/2 channel rig.

happy listening,
EWHA