The Official Energy Speakers Thread

[Miker107]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

I have limited space so it's out at least 6" from the wall. I don't think I'll notice because my speakers are set to small, and majority of the bass comes out from my dual subs.

That reminds me, I wanted to tell you those subs look great. How do they sound?

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by Miker107

That reminds me, I wanted to tell you those subs look great. How do they sound?

Excellent. Can't go wrong with them for $339


Regarding the front speakers. I did a measurement last night with the chairs I use to watch movies. The tweeter from the RC-30 comes about 6" below my ear level.

The surround, and back surrounds are just above ear level so I'm not concerned with the other 4 speakers.

If I can find something to raise it just a bit more. I think I'll be happier. Overall, the sound is great starting of with a 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 and finally going 7.2 as of last month.

I'm not sure if it's overkill, but I just want to get it right as far as the 2 fronts.

[Miker107]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

Excellent. Can't go wrong with them for $339


Regarding the front speakers. I did a measurement last night with the chairs I use to watch movies. The tweeter from the RC-30 comes about 6" below my ear level.

The surround, and back surrounds are just above ear level so I'm not concerned with the other 4 speakers.

If I can find something to raise it just a bit more. I think I'll be happier. Overall, the sound is great starting of with a 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 and finally going 7.2 as of last month.

I'm not sure if it's overkill, but I just want to get it right as far as the 2 fronts.

In my opinion, I don't think you need to worry about lifting up those towers, after all they are made to be on the floor and you might not see that much difference performance wise. I had those Yamaha's on the floor as you can see in my HT gallery. That's what I have my rc-10's sitting no right now, and they sounded pretty much the same when I lifted them up a couple of feet off the ground. I had built stands for them, but I didn't really notice a whole lot of difference in performance. Personally, If I had those towers, I would leave them on the floor.
Wish I had the room for a 7.1 set up but my space is limited.

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by Miker107

In my opinion, I don't think you need to worry about lifting up those towers, after all they are made to be on the floor and you might not see that much difference performance wise. I had those Yamaha's on the floor as you can see in my HT gallery. That's what I have my rc-10's sitting no right now, and they sounded pretty much the same when I lifted them up a couple of feet off the ground. I had built stands for them, but I didn't really notice a whole lot of difference in performance. Personally, If I had those towers, I would leave them on the floor.
Wish I had the room for a 7.1 set up but my space is limited.

You're probably right. I think I'm too much of a perfectionist. I mean if it's really bothering me. I can either A) buy a chair, or lounge chair that sits lower, or B) dish out $50 -$60 for those sub risers and put the speakers up on that.

At least I can hear the high frequency audio from my rear surrounds.

This forum is bad, very very bad.

Hey, you do what you gotta do. Like stack speakers on top of speakers!

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by Miker107

In my opinion, I don't think you need to worry about lifting up those towers, after all they are made to be on the floor and you might not see that much difference performance wise. I had those Yamaha's on the floor as you can see in my HT gallery. That's what I have my rc-10's sitting no right now, and they sounded pretty much the same when I lifted them up a couple of feet off the ground. I had built stands for them, but I didn't really notice a whole lot of difference in performance. Personally, If I had those towers, I would leave them on the floor.
Wish I had the room for a 7.1 set up but my space is limited.

Raising the Towers a few inches may help to reproduce a better stereo imaging and sound stage specially in 2 channels setup and the sound many seem more open with a better overall balance. Just my 2 cents.

every bit counts of course it's being a bit fossy but it all sums up^at the end.

[Miker107]

Originally Posted by BigAl87

Raising the Towers a few inches may help to reproduce a better stereo imaging and sound stage specially in 2 channels setup and the sound many seem more open with a better overall balance. Just my 2 cents.

every bit counts of course it's being a bit fossy but it all sums up^at the end.

Yep, that's what happened when I lifted my 10's up. The sound changed for me in that mids and lows came through a little more and seemed to be more balanced with the highs, and even imaging got a little better, but I figured since Mike has one extra woofer than I, that it wouldn't be as much of a problem for him.

Of course, Mike, you could always give it a test like I did and try to find something to place them on temporarily just to see what they would sound like.

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by Miker107

Yep, that's what happened when I lifted my 10's up. The sound changed for me in that mids and lows came through a little more and seemed to be more balanced with the highs, and even imaging got a little better, but I figured since Mike has one extra woofer than I, that it wouldn't be as much of a problem for him.

Of course, Mike, you could always give it a test like I did and try to find something to place them on temporarily just to see what they would sound like.

Knowing myself. I probably will. I mean I can stack anything under my fronts from books, to a stool, but I want something to go under the speaker that keeps the front stage "clean".

This is where I sort of miss the C-200 and speaker stands used as fronts. The tweeters were lined up perfectly.

[Miker107]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

Knowing myself. I probably will. I mean I can stack anything under my fronts from books, to a stool, but I want something to go under the speaker that keeps the front stage "clean".

This is where I sort of miss the C-200 and speaker stands used as fronts. The tweeters were lined up perfectly.

How are you with wood working? You could build yourself a couple of boxes and wrap them in scraps of carpet or something, sort of like little many stages to put them on.

I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my audio too. I'll adjust and readjust until I think it's perfect, then the next day I'm doing it all over again. When I get something new I will fidget with it for a few days until I finally settle down.

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

Knowing myself. I probably will. I mean I can stack anything under my fronts from books, to a stool, but I want something to go under the speaker that keeps the front stage "clean".

This is where I sort of miss the C-200 and speaker stands used as fronts. The tweeters were lined up perfectly.

I known John built some risers for his Totem Sttaf you can look at his gallery.

[9883]

My 5.1 energy system is complete now. I decided to go with the CC-5 for the center instead of the CC-10 that you guys told me to go with for 3 reasons. The first reason was the price, the best price I got for the CC-10 was $220 shipped from Vanns and that is not bad considering that they wanted $130 for the CC-5 and more recently $150 (why they decided to raise the price I have no idea). I didn't want to spend $220 on the CC-10 because I only paid $240 for the 2 CF-30s. Based on the MSRP I figured that the center should cost me around the same price as one of the front towers. The second reason I picked the CC-5 was because Klipsch uses the C-10 with their entry level f-10 towers (the synergy C-10 is inferior to the CC-5 in many ways: frequency response, dimensions, size of woofer) so I figured the CC-5 should work just fine with the entry level CF-30s. The third reason was the number of people who use the CC-5 and the earlier model the C-C50 (I know that many of you say that the C-C50 was a much better speaker than the CC-5 but looking at the specs I can only see a very marginal diff. and the previous generation of these entry level speakers was better and cheaper as a whole) with floor-standers and medium to large bookshelf speakers. I can find at least 6 different users on the list located on the 1st page of this thread that use the CC-5/C-C50 with front speakers other than the corresponding BK speakers. I hope this does not sound like I'm over justifying my choice so I feel like I made the right and not wrong decision. My goal is just to help other people make a decision. There is no doubt that the CC-10 is better than the CC-5 in many aspects because otherwise there would be no justification for Energy to make one and sell it at a much greater price but I also don't think that the role of the CC-5 is only as a center paired with the CB-5s. At this moment, I have yet to hook everything up. I'm still looking over the speakers to make sure that they are not damaged in any way. I'm looking forward to listening to the speakers in the near future and posting my impressions. Sorry for the long post, here is a run down of the speakers I have, prices I paid, and the places where I purchased them from.



CF-30 ($120 each) newegg.com
CB-5 ($80 pair) newegg.com
CC-5 ($120) electronics expo
ESW-C10 ($220) electronics expo


If I waited a bit more I could have probably done better on the center and subwoofer but I wanted everything now so that I can enjoy the whole 5.1 system from the get go. Just to give you an idea, before I came across Energy I was ready to spend close to the same money on a set of Polk with TSi300 as fronts.

[MaCruz]

Originally Posted by Miker107

How are you with wood working? You could build yourself a couple of boxes and wrap them in scraps of carpet or something, sort of like little many stages to put them on.

I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my audio too. I'll adjust and readjust until I think it's perfect, then the next day I'm doing it all over again. When I get something new I will fidget with it for a few days until I finally settle down.

It depends really. I rather buy just to save time.

Originally Posted by BigAl87

I known John built some risers for his Totem Sttaf you can look at his gallery.

Which John? There's so many of them. Fors*?

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

It depends really. I rather buy just to save time.



Which John? There's so many of them. Fors*?

I was talking about the Totem Sttaf Owner John72953, so maybe you don't know him he's a mod on here.

https://www.blu-ray.com/community/ga...mber=John72953

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by 9883

My 5.1 energy system is complete now. I decided to go with the CC-5 for the center instead of the CC-10 that you guys told me to go with for 3 reasons. The first reason was the price, the best price I got for the CC-10 was $220 shipped from Vanns and that is not bad considering that they wanted $130 for the CC-5 and more recently $150 (why they decided to raise the price I have no idea). I didn't want to spend $220 on the CC-10 because I only paid $240 for the 2 CF-30s. Based on the MSRP I figured that the center should cost me around the same price as one of the front towers. The second reason I picked the CC-5 was because Klipsch uses the C-10 with their entry level f-10 towers (the synergy C-10 is inferior to the CC-5 in many ways: frequency response, dimensions, size of woofer) so I figured the CC-5 should work just fine with the entry level CF-30s. The third reason was the number of people who use the CC-5 and the earlier model the C-C50 (I know that many of you say that the C-C50 was a much better speaker than the CC-5 but looking at the specs I can only see a very marginal diff. and the previous generation of these entry level speakers was better and cheaper as a whole) with floor-standers and medium to large bookshelf speakers. I can find at least 6 different users on the list located on the 1st page of this thread that use the CC-5/C-C50 with front speakers other than the corresponding BK speakers. I hope this does not sound like I'm over justifying my choice so I feel like I made the right and not wrong decision. My goal is just to help other people make a decision. There is no doubt that the CC-10 is better than the CC-5 in many aspects because otherwise there would be no justification for Energy to make one and sell it at a much greater price but I also don't think that the role of the CC-5 is only as a center paired with the CB-5s. At this moment, I have yet to hook everything up. I'm still looking over the speakers to make sure that they are not damaged in any way. I'm looking forward to listening to the speakers in the near future and posting my impressions. Sorry for the long post, here is a run down of the speakers I have, prices I paid, and the places where I purchased them from.



CF-30 ($120 each) newegg.com
CB-5 ($80 pair) newegg.com
CC-5 ($120) electronics expo
ESW-C10 ($220) electronics expo


If I waited a bit more I could have probably done better on the center and subwoofer but I wanted everything now so that I can enjoy the whole 5.1 system from the get go. Just to give you an idea, before I came across Energy I was ready to spend close to the same money on a set of Polk with TSi300 as fronts.

First congrats on the new speaker I hope you will enjoy it.

I just want to say this so you understand well, It will work fine but be prepaired to raise the gain by 3db over the towers, use a 100hz X-over and have very little impact during action scenes from your center, 60-70 % of the sound in HT comes out of your center sot it's the most important speaker.

I am just giving you the reasons why I have said the C-C50 was better matched to the older C series. The much lower extension in the lower end and the fact that all c-series was designed to work with anything in the line back then, the new line is designed with a different mindset not that it's bad but the CC-5 does not extend nearly as low as the C-C50.

When we said to use the CC-10 and spend the extra $$$ we were talking from experience. Most of the users here that are using the C-C50 as center was because the C-C100 was no longer available online and as I said because I have heard it with C-500 I had no problem recommending it as a backup solution, when the occasion came a lot of members baught C-C100 used to properly complete their setup because the bigger driver had so much more to offer. Now I don't want you to feel upset or anything, I know it will work fine but you might say sooner than later, I should have spent the extra 100$ on the full setup back then and be done with it for a while.


Just my 2 cents

[K-Fed2]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

Should be putting in my order for the RC-LCR in about a week. After that. I'm done upgrading! Period!!

BTW, I was able to raise my RC-30 about 4 inches higher. No the tweeters are bout ear level.

[Show spoiler]

perfect! same as mine.

[9883]

I see your point. I just want to say some things and than ask some questions.
As far as I can tell there is nobody on that front page list that is using the current CC-5 with the CF towers as fronts so practical experience does not exist. If anything I see myself as the test subject. If the setup works out then I will be happy and I will provide practical details for others and if it fails than I will sell the CC-5 somewhere down the road and pick up the CC-10 for a much cheaper price than the current one.

1.Why does Klipsch put the C-10 with the F-10 in their 5.1 HT?
2.Why did Energy make the CC-5 if it can only be used properly with the CB-5?
3.Why do I need a center that can put out low frequency sounds if the lowest of the human voices can only get as low as 85Hz?

I have yet to purchase the receiver to go with these speakers so I don't know what the x-over points will be as set by the receiver. The diff. between the CC-10 and CC-5 in the low frequency is 5Hz (60 vs 65). Maybe I'm having such a hard time understanding all this because I'm a noob at this with very little to no practical real world experience.

[9883]

Just to add on the subject of center channel level. Once in a while I like to watch the screen adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, the one where the title character is played by Jeremy Brett. This screen adaptation is very theatrical and most of the speaking is faint and quiet with sudden punctuations delivered with high volume. I have trouble following every word so I turned up the level of my current Polk rm7 center all the way to 10db and than I still have to turn the volume way high. However, when I recently watched Iron Man 2 on BD I had the center level turned down to 0db just like the rest of the speakers and I had no trouble hearing every single word that was spoken in that movie.

[K-Fed2]

Originally Posted by MaCruz

Yeah, I think the LCR might be slightly bigger than the C-C100 for myself.

It does suck when you have to find a new location for an upgraded center. I for one don't like the center speaker stands. Just looks like it would get in the way of your view when you're watching a movie based on pics I've seen online.

Once none of that works, you end up buying a new TV/AV rack because of the upgraded center.

that was my big mistake when i bought my stand. i never even considered that my center woudl not fit just below the TV. RC-LCR is a "beauty and a beast"

[K-Fed2]

Originally Posted by BigAl87

Indeed and also the RC-line already had the ribbed elleptical surround which allow longer excursion with minimal distortion and provide a really good slam for their size, the RC-30 is very good filling medium to large room but the RC-50 would be a bit better. Dual 5.5 inch driver of the RC-30 allow really good bass and provide a bit more linearity over the RC-50 which will have lower end extension and more slam, alot of people would be surprised by the RC-30. They perform really well with a devent receiver but they like a whole lot of power if you can give it to them.

Keep in mind Energy is a Linear speaker Regardless of which one you choose.

As i've said here before that the bass from my '30s has never not met my expectations. even in 2-channel mode bass is clean, present, never boomy (mine are about a foot and a half from the wall) and always pleasing. The first song i cranked after the break in was Madonna's Hung up. after the intro when the club bass kicked in it was slammin. i was stunned ! i took the grills off and watched those twin 5.5s just plowing the air around. the excursion from the elliptical surround works wonders .
I can only imagine what the '50s could do but I dont think anyone would be unhappy with the '30s imo.

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by 9883

I see your point. I just want to say some things and than ask some questions.
As far as I can tell there is nobody on that front page list that is using the current CC-5 with the CF towers as fronts so practical experience does not exist. If anything I see myself as the test subject. If the setup works out then I will be happy and I will provide practical details for others and if it fails than I will sell the CC-5 somewhere down the road and pick up the CC-10 for a much cheaper price than the current one.

1.Why does Klipsch put the C-10 with the F-10 in their 5.1 HT?
2.Why did Energy make the CC-5 if it can only be used properly with the CB-5?
3.Why do I need a center that can put out low frequency sounds if the lowest of the human voices can only get as low as 85Hz?

I have yet to purchase the receiver to go with these speakers so I don't know what the x-over points will be as set by the receiver. The diff. between the CC-10 and CC-5 in the low frequency is 5Hz (60 vs 65). Maybe I'm having such a hard time understanding all this because I'm a noob at this with very little to no practical real world experience.

1 -Honestly I have no idea but the only thing I can see is that they have the exact same efficiency and it's not true in the case of the Energy however as I saidd I think it will work but I would have gone to the CC-10 route knowing myself and from many other peoples experience. I know this will be a great step up from your Polk audio regardless.

2. Would not make sense to use the CC-10 in a space restricted setup where sometimes WAF comes into play so it makes sense to pair it with a smaller center so 4xC5 and 1xCC5 makes a nice little setup for moderate HT budget.

3. Not only speech is sent to your center channel, alot of sound goes there in action movies in scene with machine gun shots and a whole lot more, I X-over my center at 40hz and sitll get sound that comes out of ther way below 85hz. It's just the total movie experience, Still your CC-5 goes as low as 65hz so you will be able to X-over at THX recomendation of 80hz, Matching driver size would have been your best bet but still it's not as bad as I thaught it would be cause there is only 1db efficiency of difference and the setup should be better than the Klispch you suggested as the C10 goes only at 100hz which would be aweful to me.

Yeah the 5hz difference is not so signinficant but bigger surface driver will deliver more impact at the same frequency response since the driver will move more air (air displacement). The bigger driver should aslo reproduce it with a lower distortion. I know this setup will work out great for you but I was just giving my thaughts base on my own personal experience.

I just hope this helps you understand my reasoning and I am sure you will enjoy the Energys for a while.

Don't forget the pics

[BigAl87]

Originally Posted by K-Fed2

As i've said here before that the bass from my '30s has never not met my expectations. even in 2-channel mode bass is clean, present, never boomy (mine are about a foot and a half from the wall) and always pleasing. The first song i cranked after the break in was Madonna's Hung up. after the intro when the club bass kicked in it was slammin. i was stunned ! i took the grills off and watched those twin 5.5s just plowing the air around. the excursion from the elliptical surround works wonders .
I can only imagine what the '50s could do but I dont think anyone would be unhappy with the '30s imo.

Love the bass of my Rainmakers from a single 5.5