Man in the Box

What does "reasonable" mean? I generally don't blast my music. The Yamaha starts at -80 and ends at +16 when measuring decibels. On the RP 160s and the SVS sub, the loudest I'll go is around -15. I don't know if this + the receiver's spec sheet would mean anything to you.

Also, will my receiver (the Yamaha R-N602) be able to drive both the RP 8000 and the 160s? How can I learn more about this?

But the sub still only covers the same frequencies as the one I have. It's the bass above what the sub handles that I have an issue with (because it the size of the woofers on the 160s).

Also, why is there no such thing as overkill? Might the mid bass get out of control, for instance?

I feel like they don’t, tbh. I put the bass gain on the receiver to around +65 to be level with the sub, but it still doesn’t catch up. I love the 160s, but I’ve always felt that they’re somehow inadequate. I thought a sub would solve this problem, but it only exacerbated it (unless I tone it down, which beats the purpose).

Edit: Forgot to quote the above post; reposted below

I’ve been itching to buy floor standing speakers to go with my RP 160s, SVS SB-2000, a Yamaha R-N602 and an OLED tv. I used them for music, primarily, but also movies on occasion. I listen to classical music and jazz. I’ve treated my walls to control some of the high frequencies and the base. The RP 160s will move to support duty. It’s a choice between the 8000 and the 5000. I intend to make a purchase very soon. Thanks in advance! EDIT: Also, will my receiver (the Yamaha R-N602) be able to drive both the RP 8000 and the 160s? This is the spec sheet. EDIT 2: I just realized that I posted a similar thread on here. Apologies; I totally forgot.

This is similar to my situation. When you say fully treated, does that mean every single wall plus floor and ceiling? Because that’d be too much for a bedroom lol. But I really want the biggest towers. Those guys can produce such a grand presentation.

I see. I’ve been experimenting a lot with placement and volume, but I left phase and crossover constant by letting the receiver take care of them. On this note, is there a consensus on letting the receiver take control of phase and crossover is better than doing it on your own? Thanks for your overall input. It’d be good to rationalize keeping the bookshelves over spending more money that way. I could look into other ways to upgrade my setup, like investing in better music input (universal/ CD player, maybe, as ppl here suggested to me in a prior thread).

Once I plug into LFE and set it at 180, the crossover and phase knobs get deactivated. So I don’t know; presumably 80 hz. I’ve experimented with manually changing the crossover on my own, but nothing sounded as good as the auto crossover. You’re onto something though: the sub has to be controlled or else the bottom frequencies sound too loud when compared to the RP’s woofers. This is basically why I’ve identified the woofer as the weak link. On the plus side, I’ve managed to make the speakers “disappear into the room,” as some audiophiles would say. Would I lose that if I replace them with tower speakers?

The crossover seems to be working well since I’ve used the LFE port or whatever it’s called. Am I correct in thinking that a bigger cabinet + extra woofer will improve improve the lower midrange? The 280 has a bigger tweeter so I imagine it would represent a more detailed overall sound. Thoughts?

What my set up looks like at the moment:

I spent $200 to heavily treat the room. Now the subwoofer sounds great but the woofer can be underwhelming, depending on the source or how close I sit. The room may be able to handle the RP 280s now, I imagine. Definitely the RP 260s, considering that the woofer size is the same as the ones in the RP160s.

I’m based in Bahrain; probably not where you are. I appreciate the offer though. What’s your experience like with the 280s? Do they overwhelm the space? And have you treated your room for them to sound good?

I own a pair of RP 160s, an SVS SB2000 sub and a Yamaha RN602 receiver. Someone offered to buy the bookshelves over the next day or two for a price that would make it worthwhile to replace them with the RP260 or RP280. I love those speakers, but after adding a subwoofer, I think that the woofer is the weak link because they make me have to sit closer for me to hear them. However, the caveat is that I can’t actually hear them as coherently as possible because of the room’s reverb. I plan to somewhat heavily treat the room over the next couple of days. Would the 260s/ 280s exacerbate the reverb problem even further? I’m considering upgrading mainly because I imagine that floor standers would sound better when playing orchestral music. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Sounds to me like they’re great speakers for rock, pop and other vocals-centric music. That may or may not be a good thing, considering the material I listen to. The issue here is that they’re available to demo where I am. From what I understand from you, it seems like it may be a risk to buy online because there’s a chance that I may prefer the RP sound after all. Could be the other way around too. Guess I’ll never know which unless I hear them myself.

I honestly don’t have enough experience with audiophile speakers to know whether I’d prefer a two or three way speaker. I haven’t heard the Heresys. What do you mean by “live sound”? As in a live performance versus a studio recording?

I’ve posted on this forum before (see link below) and was humbled with the generous support and guidance that I had received from the community. I thought about the feedback and made a decision to buy the excellent SVS SB 2000. The sub has improved the sound — though perhaps a bit too much, because it can make the RP 160s sound even smaller. I’m afraid I can’t accurately describe what I’m chasing in audiophile terms. More satisfying mids? Bigger soundstage? More instrument separation? What I do know is that when I demoed the 8000s (right after the still slightly underwhelming RP 260s) and was finally satisfied. Adding a couple of towers to the system would crowd my 13 x 13 x 10 bedroom, but I like music more than I do my physical space. Besides, I may move down the line. What’s troubling me is another thought: why not stretch the budget a bit for the fabled Heresy if I’m going to pay full retail prices for the 8000s? The caveat is that the Heresy isn’t available for auditioning in my city, nor is used gear a realistic option here. I could end up building a 5.1 with the 8000s, even. But the promise of the big horn mid range driver on the Heresy makes me hesitate. Would love to hear your thoughts. PS: my media consumption is 70/30 in favor of music (mostly jazz and classical). The source of my music is entirely digital.

Update: I'm very eagerly waiting for my new SVS SB-2000 to arrive at my doorstep tomorrow. Won't leave the house until the UPS man is here 😬

Good to know. I was hoping that this would be the case, given my limited budget at the moment.

At the moment the speakers are about 6 feet apart. They’re positioned slightly off center and slightly diagonally (with one speaker a bit farther from the wall compared to the other). I’m still experimenting with their position. Did you add any acoustic panels or anything of the sort to your listening room? Mine is also my bedroom, and I feel that bass traps are a bit of an eyesore for my personal living space. But there’s certainly unwelcome reverb in my room that I can do without. It’s most pronounced when I play high frequency notes on my piano (also in my bedroom) at forte or fortissimo. I imagine the speakers would sound better if room surfaces are somewhat treated. It’s good to know that I can get away with one rear speaker for 5.1 classical music. I’ll try it after I add the next pair of speakers (probably the 280s/ 8000) — before I add the central speaker as the system’s final piece, as has been suggested to me in this thread.

Yes, the local store still sells the 280s, but a Dubai-based store that will deliver has the 8000s. I’ve been looking for how the two pairs differ but haven’t found concrete comparisons (assuming they’re possible). Seems like I’d have to listen to them side by side, but unfortunately that’s not possible for me at the moment. On this note, any clue as to whether 280s/ 8000 are too big for my room (~13 x 13 x 10)? This is the only factor that made me consider the smaller 260s/ 6000s. This is definitely on my list of things to explore and very possibly buy. I wasn’t even aware of what a universal player is before you suggested it. I really appreciate the advice. Yes, I plan to upgrade toward a 5.1 system. I didn’t consider that such a system would be great for classical music. I imagine I’ll be over the moon when the day comes!

For future reference, should anyone else with similar issues stumble across such issues, here's a summary of what I've done since starting this thread: experimented with speaker placement for improved bass performance. My current set up also followed the advice of placing them somewhat diagonally due to my square room's acoustics experimented with bass gain of (which is at ~30% at the moment) on my Yamaha receiver. The default setting will not do downloading actual high res tracks from hdtracks.com sidenote: while Primephonic's material varies from record to record, none comes close to the quality of the aforementioned tracks. It remains a useful tool for discovery, I think I'm sure these are avoidable for many people, but they apparently weren't for noob like me.

@wvu80 @robert_kc Thanks to wvu's experiments, I decided to purchase a few tracks (including Brahms's second concerto along with Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Schostakovich's 8th and 10th symphonies) from hdtracks.com to see if the issue lies with the content I've been streaming rather than the speakers themselves. Wow! A difference of night and day. Dynamic range on every instrument is very clear, the violins sound well articulated and clean, separation between the instruments is excellent and the rumbles of bass drums (on Schostakovich's 8th, particularly), which I expected to be lacking because I don't have a subwoofer, sounded pretty decent. I've been questioning my purchase of these speakers; it seemed like they aren't well-suited for classical music. I really wanted to love them and, thanks to the generous help I've received here, I now do. At this stage, it seems that a subwoofer would be good to have, considering that they promise not just broader audible frequency range, but also to add depth. But given that buying the RP 280 would add "bigger sound," as they say, as well as better bass with their double 8 woofers per speaker (vs. the 160's 6.5, which can certainly do better but aren't bad), I feel it may represent better value per dollar than a subwoofer. I'll be secretly hoping the 280s (vs. the 260s) would allow me to forgo buying a sub, but we'll see. If anyone has any comments on any of the above, I'll gladly listen. To those who are familiar with my Yamaha receiver by now, I'd like to ask: can this 80 per channel receiver drive the Rp 280s (which require 150 watts), or would it need to be upgraded? Thanks once again. I learned a lot.

Robert, thank you very much for this. It opened my eyes to options I wasn’t aware of. Investing in a universal player shouldn’t be a problem at all, especially given that inexpensive options are available. I’ll look into it. I appreciate your recommendations too. I’ll revisit them if I end up buying such a unit. But the RF III is well beyond what I can afford. They can be had at $1,800 per speaker, which isn’t unusual in markets outside of North America. I imagine that they may also compel me to buy a more powerful (and presumably expensive) receiver. Then there’s the heavyset stature, which seems to be too big for my space. Do you think the RP 280s would be a decent compromise, though? I can justify getting them over the 260s, especially if they’ll let me forego purchasing a sub.