Hi All,

I am in the market for HT set of speakers.  The front L/R has to be less than 12.5" in height.  These speakers will be push by Onkyo 705.  The room size is about 12x14 (9 feet ceiling).  My questoin is, if I am willing to double my budget from the front L/R speakers to 500-600.  Can you all recommend me speakers that are less than 12.5 inches in height.

Currenlty, my choices are the

1.  Aperion 532 L/R (4 - 532 and 533-VAC) & HSU VTF-2

2.  Aperion 532 L/R (534 / 533) & HSU VTF-2

3. Axion Midi Epic (M2, QS4, VP100) & HSU VTF-2

Thank you very much,

Joe

Hi Joe,

The 532's/533-VAC are going to work great as front speakers in your application. Your room is small so the 534s' would work great as surrounds if you have side walls next to your listening position to mount them. If not, you might want to consider 422's or 532's as surrounds.

You should give one of our guru's a call and ask about Bravus subwoofers before you put your money down on the VTF-2.

 

Hi Joe,

My Aperion Speakers:

2) 632 L/R, 2) 532 L/R, 1) 532 C, 2) 534-SS, 2) 422 rear surrounds and an S-10 Sub.

Both the Aperion 532 and Axiom M2 are rear ported. They will both need a bit of room to breathe at the rear of the speaker since it sounds you may be installing them in bookcases. I have one of my front 532’s mounted in a freestanding bookcase and needed to cut a hole in the back that aligned with the port to reduce vibration and a somewhat muddied sound at lower frequencies.

The 532 uses a silk dome tweeter where the M2 uses a titanium metal dome tweeter. I have read that metal dome tweeters can sound harsh, but I have not heard Axiom.

The 532’s are real wood with immaculate fit and finish. To get real wood in the M2’s would cost about $70 more per pair than the 532’s.

I would highly recommend the 534’s for side surround if you can wall mount them. IMO they will blend better with the room’s décor than a box speaker due to their shape and they do sound great in 5.1 multi-channel from my DVD and other sound fields.

Hi Jack,

Seems like the Aperion is ideal for speaker stand setup, where there are able of space behind.  Since I am going to place my speakers in the boodshelf, do you know of any other choices that I might consider. 

 I believe M2 is also rear ported.  So, that falls under the same concerns as well.

 Once again, thank you for bring this concern.

 Joseph

Hey Joe,

My left channel 532 only has ¼ to ½ inch clearance to the back of the bookcase and the back panel is only 1/8 inch thick. It is placed in the horizontal position within a 21 X 12 inch opening that is too confining I believe for a rear ported speaker so I cut an opening somewhat larger than the 532’s port opening. This resolved all issues I had with vibration and sound.

If you have a few inches of rear free-space and the sides are open you will probably be “ok”.

I think the worst case for a rear-ported speaker would be to put it in a small box like I did but then remedied by venting the port to 6 inches of free air to the back.

But if on a shelf with solid construction behind and a bit of room of free air on the sides you may have good results.

I like my 532’s and after solving that little problem, they are a really cool addition to my HT setup. I run the 532’s with my second AVR when I want to combine effects mostly with movies using 2 AVR’s.

The 532 fronts when driven by just the Sony AVR are still quite impressive in a 2 Channel presentation without my 805 and it’s 7.1 effects and the other 8 speakers connected to it.

Jack

Hi Joe,

I too had height issues. But you did not mention whether or not width was an issue. Oliver (Aperion rep, great guy) recommended the 532C, which is the same exact speaker as the 532, but has a sideways grill, meant to be mounted sideways. I will be using the 533-VAC for center.

I will be mounting them on the walls with brackets, so the speakers will breath. This solved my height issue. The only thing holding up my order is the preorder on the new Aperion sub! Dual 12" to be exact.

Should be a rockin system. I can't wait!

Ken Salzberg:

John, we are waiting....

 
Ha seriously, you said it would be this week and time is running out....don't be mean and make us wait till tomorrow

Maybe this will satisfy your curiosity....

Product pages should be available later today.