Favourite speakers under INR 20k

[srikarkav]

Hi tropic,

Happy that you have accomplished your mission, though with a Usher.
Happy musical hours to you!

cheers,
sri

 

[cooltoad]

Hi Psychotropic,

No way i can go and audition the usher at B'lore. Have to choose between what is available in chennai and possibly between one of the wharfies. want to know, price diff apart, the pluses that wharf 9.2/10.1 might have over the usher.

 

[psychotropic]

Hey cooltoad, you can audition it at my place. It's not optimal and the room is not treated or anything, but it would still be useful I am guessing.

Give me a little bit of time for the speakers to break in a little bit.

Hi Psychotropic,

No way i can go and audition the usher at B'lore. Have to choose between what is available in chennai and possibly between one of the wharfies. want to know, price diff apart, the pluses that wharf 9.2/10.1 might have over the usher.

 

[thevortex]

Hey cooltoad, you can audition it at my place. It's not optimal and the room is not treated or anything, but it would still be useful I am guessing.

Give me a little bit of time for the speakers to break in a little bit.

If it is not too much of a trouble, psycho, I would love to come listen to your Ushers as well and slake my curiosity somewhat. Do let me know your convenience.

 

[psychotropic]

Okay gentlemen. I've set up the setup. Unfortunately I didn't have speaker wire. And my neighbourhood electrical shop did not have Finolex electrical wire, therefore I had to make do with 2 sq. mm. electrical wire from VIP (with ISI mark). I bought eight meters. Two runs of two meters each for each channel.

The IC used was my old Bandridge gold plated ones. I am yet to find the telephone directory type books, so right now the speakers are just sitting on the granite slabs.

And it's sounding excellent. The speakers are new out of the box and I am not going to pass any judgment on them now. Also of course, very stupidly, I left all my reference discs back in Bangalore, so I am listening to random music but without a proper "frame of reference." But yes, it's sounding lovely. Replacing the diminutive Audioengines, these look massive in the room, but I guess it's just a question of getting used to it. Also due to space constraints there's only about 5-6 feet between the speakers.

The finish on these speakers is excellent, and the transparent woofer cone looks pretty cool I've removed the grilles and put them away. My wife woke up and said "what happened to the black stuff?"

Of course, if someone here could lend me some proper speaker wire for a couple of hours, I would love to compare it to my 15 rupees per meter VIP electrical wire, and decide whether I should splash the cash for proper speaker wire. Maybe today I'll do a Finolex upgrade

 

[grubyhalo]

Hey man, congrats! :clapping: How does it feel to have the babies home after waiting for so long? Oh, BTW, where are the pics? If it was me, I'dve fallen 'sick' for a few days, <cough>, <cough>...


P.S: How about seeing if you could get some Belden cables? I'm sure they are not THAT expensive and are pretty good...

 

[psychotropic]

hey vortex i'd love to have you drop in. Let me take a couple of weeks to break these in to the best extent possible, and we'll fix up a plan. I'd also be grateful if you could bring some speaker wire over so I can compare and understand how much of a difference there is vis-a-vis regular electrical wire.

And yes, since there are no Usher dealers in Chennai, and if anyone wants to listen to the Usher S520, feel free to drop in. And once you like it I am sure the ARN guys can ship it to you or something. (if i had the capital i'd take up a dealership )

@gruby - hehe, i would have loved to have 'fallen sick' but i am just very bad at stuff like that, so I very rarely try it. Also right now the AC in my listening room is being repaired (some PCB issue), and today it should be fixed, so now I can go home and listen to music without sweating like a pig. I envy all those Bangalore audiophiles who can sit i a room without fan or AC and listen to their music without any extraneous noise.

If it is not too much of a trouble, psycho, I would love to come listen to your Ushers as well and slake my curiosity somewhat. Do let me know your convenience.

 

[sushanthace]

Hi Pyschotropic,


Congrats on the purchase. Seems like you are enjoying every bit of it. Please do invite me when(if) you are planning for a listening session with other forum members.

Cheers
S

 

[psychotropic]

Am borrowing my father-in-law's camera this weekend and taking some pictures. Watch this space

Hey man, congrats! :clapping: How does it feel to have the babies home after waiting for so long? Oh, BTW, where are the pics? If it was me, I'dve fallen 'sick' for a few days, <cough>, <cough>...


P.S: How about seeing if you could get some Belden cables? I'm sure they are not THAT expensive and are pretty good...

 

[grubyhalo]

Am borrowing my father-in-law's camera this weekend and taking some pictures. Watch this space

Nice! Thanks man!

 

[psychotropic]

to be perfectly honest, the Usher is superior to the Wharfedale in almost all regards. The bass on the wharfedale is more substantial, if that can count as a plus, but it's not as tight or as accurate as it is on the Usher. Why don't you do this? Go to grand cinema with your amp, listen to the Wharfedale 10.1 and then immediately come over to my place and listen to the Ushers, that will help you decide.

The Wharfedales are not bad speakers at all, and cost substantially less than the Ushers. For rock and pop the Wharfedales will offer more punch. For hip-hop and stuff like that I am sure the Wharfedales will do better than the Ushers. They are fun, great value and lovely to look at, but yes, the Ushers are in a different class altogether. Definitely worth saving up some extra money for.

Hi Psychotropic,

No way i can go and audition the usher at B'lore. Have to choose between what is available in chennai and possibly between one of the wharfies. want to know, price diff apart, the pluses that wharf 9.2/10.1 might have over the usher.

 

[Rem]

Psycho,

Excellent upto the minute reports,

thanks a lot buddy this thread along with Magmas(noobs take) thread would help a lot of budding audiophiles setup a budget system.

Psycho now you have unofficially become the brand ambassador for Ushers in Chennai.

'Usher oru thadava sonnal nooru thadavu sonna mathiri'
Hope I got tht right



@Thevortex

When the Ushers are broken in and when you go to Psychos place for a listen do give us ur impressions on the Ushers as compared to the similarly priced PSB's as well as the higher priced Epos M12.2

 

[square_wave]

Okay gentlemen. I've set up the setup. Unfortunately I didn't have speaker wire. And my neighbourhood electrical shop did not have Finolex electrical wire, therefore I had to make do with 2 sq. mm. electrical wire from VIP (with ISI mark). I bought eight meters. Two runs of two meters each for each channel.

The IC used was my old Bandridge gold plated ones. I am yet to find the telephone directory type books, so right now the speakers are just sitting on the granite slabs.

And it's sounding excellent. The speakers are new out of the box and I am not going to pass any judgment on them now. Also of course, very stupidly, I left all my reference discs back in Bangalore, so I am listening to random music but without a proper "frame of reference." But yes, it's sounding lovely. Replacing the diminutive Audioengines, these look massive in the room, but I guess it's just a question of getting used to it. Also due to space constraints there's only about 5-6 feet between the speakers.

The finish on these speakers is excellent, and the transparent woofer cone looks pretty cool I've removed the grilles and put them away. My wife woke up and said "what happened to the black stuff?"

Of course, if someone here could lend me some proper speaker wire for a couple of hours, I would love to compare it to my 15 rupees per meter VIP electrical wire, and decide whether I should splash the cash for proper speaker wire. Maybe today I'll do a Finolex upgrade

Hi Psychotropic,
Don't buy the Finolex wire

Check this thread out.
http://www.hifivision.com/audio-video-cables/2355-mogami-cables.html

Buy the Mogami wire discussed here. Some of us have checked these out and they are far better than some costing 10k branded. They are available cheap. Check with reignofchaos where they are available.

Alternatively you can get the TDK cables with ARN. They too are very nice.

The Mogami This is a very organic sounding wire. No hint of hardness in the sound.
TDK wire Very open and neutral sounding wire. The ushers have a very extended treble. If your partnering equipment is not upto the mark, this cable will show it.

 

[psychotropic]

Thanks for that square_wave....How cheap is cheap? could you give me a ballpark figure of the per metre cost?

Buy the Mogami wire discussed here. Some of us have checked these out and they are far better than some costing 10k branded. They are available cheap. Check with reignofchaos where they are available.

 

[square_wave]

It is around 400 bucks a metre. It is as good as it gets if you want to do justice to your new speakers
I have edited my earlier post to include my observations.
Please read through the thread to form an opinion.

 

[Asit]

Hi Psychotropic,

I do not know about the Mogami cable, but it seems very very good. But I myself am using the TDK cable square_wave has mentioned above, and it is simply excellent, a tremendous VFM. If you can, just buy the length you need. Sridhar, I am sure, will help you with the pricing.

Regards.

 

[psychotropic]

hey Asit and square_wave, thanks a ton for the suggestions. But i don't know if i am going to spend 400 bucks a meter on speaker wire without actually hearing them. I might consider the 75 bucks a meter DAC speaker wire though.

 

[thevortex]

hey vortex i'd love to have you drop in. Let me take a couple of weeks to break these in to the best extent possible, and we'll fix up a plan. I'd also be grateful if you could bring some speaker wire over so I can compare and understand how much of a difference there is vis-a-vis regular electrical wire.

And yes, since there are no Usher dealers in Chennai, and if anyone wants to listen to the Usher S520, feel free to drop in. And once you like it I am sure the ARN guys can ship it to you or something. (if i had the capital i'd take up a dealership )

@gruby - hehe, i would have loved to have 'fallen sick' but i am just very bad at stuff like that, so I very rarely try it. Also right now the AC in my listening room is being repaired (some PCB issue), and today it should be fixed, so now I can go home and listen to music without sweating like a pig. I envy all those Bangalore audiophiles who can sit i a room without fan or AC and listen to their music without any extraneous noise.

Sure thing Psychotropic. Let me know when you think your system is ready and I will drop in with some speaker wire as well as the PSB Alphas. And just for the heck of it, lets play with both sets of speakers and see how they play. Of course only if that is fine by you.

 

[thevortex]

Psycho,



@Thevortex

When the Ushers are broken in and when you go to Psychos place for a listen do give us ur impressions on the Ushers as compared to the similarly priced PSB's as well as the higher priced Epos M12.2

Certainly Rem. Is there any particular kind of music that you would like to test these on?

 

[reignofchaos]

Mogami is the bare basic cable you'd want to buy to be honest. That cable is incredible value for money. Totally worth it. Else if you can't afford it, look for MX speaker cable. No way in the same league but atleast better than lamp wire.