Unless you're telling me for £100 (or less) I can get a docking station that wil sound as good as self powered speakers??
Speaker advise please!!
- Thread starter Wordupdowg
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No. I was going to suggest some alternative powered speakers that sound as good as £200-£250 Hi-Fi, but they have a large footprint due to their unconventional shape (they're pyramids) so need quite a bit of space. They're probably too big for the space you have available.
If you're buying new from regular shop/online stock then there's always a price vs performance trade off. £100 gets you away from the 'toy' products which is good, but you're still in budget territory. However, you do start to find the use of better materials and higher quality components so things are at least heading in the right direction. Most everything is made in China (no surprises there) but one crucial question is whether the product is a Western design which is then sub-contracted for manufacture, or if it's a pure Chinese design/build that's tipped out of a faceless factory that made toasters yesterday, speakers today, and phone chargers tomorrow. There's a lot of product sloshing about that's simply bought in, badged up and then sold out the door without the reseller having anything much to do with it.
Rokit (by KRK Systems) and Alesis can both trace their histories back to music production, so there's some heritage in the business centered on quality rather than just price, and that's a good thing. It's not quite the same as saying these specific products are the last word in studio performance, but one would hope that the Alesis speakers are at least designed to uphold the brand values and encourage buyers to look at Alesis again come upgrade time. On that basis then the Alesis speakers might be a decent punt.
The other way to get better performance within a set budget is to look at the Used market. There are two dock products that stand out to me as worthy of investigation: B&W's Zeppelin Mini and ARCAM's rCube. The Zeppelin Mini was £300 at launch back in 2010. Since then we've had a major change in Apple to the lightening connector, so if you have recent product then I think you'd have to fall back on to the set's 3.5mm input instead. This perhaps indicates why Minis now change hands for around £60-£70 used. If the connectivity isn't an issue then that's a bit of a bargain for the performance. You'd be unlikely to find anything much better new under £200.
It's a similar story with the ARCAM rCube though the pricing is slightly different. rCube launched at £499 originally. In 2011 there was a price cut to £350. The rCube also includes an internal rechargeable battery meaning you could take it in to the garden or somewhere without mains. Used examples sell for around £100-£120.
If you're buying new from regular shop/online stock then there's always a price vs performance trade off. £100 gets you away from the 'toy' products which is good, but you're still in budget territory. However, you do start to find the use of better materials and higher quality components so things are at least heading in the right direction. Most everything is made in China (no surprises there) but one crucial question is whether the product is a Western design which is then sub-contracted for manufacture, or if it's a pure Chinese design/build that's tipped out of a faceless factory that made toasters yesterday, speakers today, and phone chargers tomorrow. There's a lot of product sloshing about that's simply bought in, badged up and then sold out the door without the reseller having anything much to do with it.
Rokit (by KRK Systems) and Alesis can both trace their histories back to music production, so there's some heritage in the business centered on quality rather than just price, and that's a good thing. It's not quite the same as saying these specific products are the last word in studio performance, but one would hope that the Alesis speakers are at least designed to uphold the brand values and encourage buyers to look at Alesis again come upgrade time. On that basis then the Alesis speakers might be a decent punt.
The other way to get better performance within a set budget is to look at the Used market. There are two dock products that stand out to me as worthy of investigation: B&W's Zeppelin Mini and ARCAM's rCube. The Zeppelin Mini was £300 at launch back in 2010. Since then we've had a major change in Apple to the lightening connector, so if you have recent product then I think you'd have to fall back on to the set's 3.5mm input instead. This perhaps indicates why Minis now change hands for around £60-£70 used. If the connectivity isn't an issue then that's a bit of a bargain for the performance. You'd be unlikely to find anything much better new under £200.
It's a similar story with the ARCAM rCube though the pricing is slightly different. rCube launched at £499 originally. In 2011 there was a price cut to £350. The rCube also includes an internal rechargeable battery meaning you could take it in to the garden or somewhere without mains. Used examples sell for around £100-£120.
Lucid, that is sound advice ( no pun intended )
One thing i noticed is the Maplin speakers share a common power supply/amp module so may suffer from psu issues at high output levels, No better than a cheaper alternative ??
One thing i noticed is the Maplin speakers share a common power supply/amp module so may suffer from psu issues at high output levels, No better than a cheaper alternative ??
The single amp for a stereo pair is pretty common at this sort of level. There are some advantages too such as having the need for only a single mains socket; and easier source to speaker wiring; and a single volume control rather than adjusting each speaker individually. The amp is probably going to be a Class D, so basically a switch-mode power supply-based amp. They're cheap and efficient but you're right if you're talking about distortion when you say "psu issues". Basic Class D is inherently noisy compared to transformer-based Class A/B Hi-Fi amps, but then again I doubt you'd fit a Class A/B amp of the same power output to drive two speakers in the small space required by a Class D, not to mention the heat; and I'm sure the cost wouldn't be as low either. For example, the Rokit's have class A/B amps but one per speaker, and the speakers are twice the price.
The thing with active monitor speakers like this is there's little real information about the amplifier section and the speaker section because they're designed as a whole system. With the little T-amps and Class D's on Ebay it's possible to look at the paper spec and call BS on the power claims. 25W but measured in to 4 Ohm @ 1kHz and at 10% THD... nah... be lucky to get more than 6-8W in the real world.
But 25W or 40W or 50W looks better on paper so that's what the headline reads.
AFAICT Alesis doesn't make any quantifiable claims for the power output of the Elevate 5's other than a rather vague "40W". There's no 'RMS' or 'Peak Power', and certainly nothing about the load or how the measurement was taken. Then again that's probably par for the course. The handy thing is that it doesn't take much power at all to start making a reasonable volume; so long as the drivers are relatively efficient then the speakers can perform quite happily on fewer that 5W per channel
The thing with active monitor speakers like this is there's little real information about the amplifier section and the speaker section because they're designed as a whole system. With the little T-amps and Class D's on Ebay it's possible to look at the paper spec and call BS on the power claims. 25W but measured in to 4 Ohm @ 1kHz and at 10% THD... nah... be lucky to get more than 6-8W in the real world.
But 25W or 40W or 50W looks better on paper so that's what the headline reads. AFAICT Alesis doesn't make any quantifiable claims for the power output of the Elevate 5's other than a rather vague "40W". There's no 'RMS' or 'Peak Power', and certainly nothing about the load or how the measurement was taken. Then again that's probably par for the course. The handy thing is that it doesn't take much power at all to start making a reasonable volume; so long as the drivers are relatively efficient then the speakers can perform quite happily on fewer that 5W per channel
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Lucid,
That's brilliant advise thanks!
I've just looked on eBay at the B&W's Zeppelin Mini, and they are going pretty cheap.
Just to confirm this will give me a top quality sound for a dock as in as good sound as the powered speakers?
Cheers
That's brilliant advise thanks!
I've just looked on eBay at the B&W's Zeppelin Mini, and they are going pretty cheap.
Just to confirm this will give me a top quality sound for a dock as in as good sound as the powered speakers?
Cheers
Looks to be good for a dock
Possibly not ?? one problem with a dock is the speakers are very close together...............
IMO the short answer is Yes.
Gee is correct that a single point speaker such as the Zeppelin Mini can't do stereo separation for very obvious reasons. Beyond that though the B&W product comes from a company world renown for making some of the best speakers that money can buy. When you look at ground-breaking B&W products such as the Nautilus (the mad curvy thing) whose design eliminates standing waves inside the cabinet, and then see how that technology trickles down to the Diamond 802D to the right of it which is found in hi-end Hi-Fi systems and recording studios such as Abbey Road due to their exceptional accuracy, and then from the Diamonds down through the rest of the ranges then I hope you can start to appreciate that B&W knows a thing or two about speaker design.
The Zep' Mini will sound different to the Alesis monitors. When I first heard a Zeppelin Air the sound of it really surprised me. Lush, detailed and insightful. That was something of a revelation for a desktop speaker let alone an iPod dock. The Zep' Mini won't achieve quite the scale but I would expect you to hear something with a bigger sound than you expect from a smallish box. If the source music is decent then vocals should have a nice weight and resonance to them rather than sounding thin; and instruments should convey a sense of their timbre. Where a typical pair of £60-£80 bookshelf speakers with a £100 amp sound a bit congested I'd expect the Zep' Mini to sound more open and revealing.
BW zep mini purchased! £100 via eBay!
Thanks for all the help and I'm looking forward to hearing this bad boy when it gets here!
Thanks for all the help and I'm looking forward to hearing this bad boy when it gets here!
How does it sound ?? just curious..
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