Speaker Selections, Receiver Recommendations, Bose EQ

Q: I have a Kenwood VR-410 Receiver, what is the best floor speaker for this system?

Audioholics: There is no absolute answer here. I would say however giving the budget of your system some good choices for you would be floor standing speakers from: Axiom Audio, Paradigm, Pinnacle, and Klipsh to mention a few. Just make sure the speakers you choose are 8 ohms nominal with a sensitivity of at least 89dB so that your Receiver will produce power to drive them cleanly and loudly.

For more tips, check out our Loudspeaker Buying Guidelines

Q: I need a recommendation for a home theater receiver. First, I would like to use my floor speakers for my main channel speakers, without a subwoofer. I plan on buying center and rear surround speakers. I am replacing a classic Yamaha integrated amp that has died (for the 3rd time). Although I loved it (A-1020, a 1986 classic) it is time to let it go. I would be willing to spend about $500 on a good receiver.

My speakers are Infinity SM-12s, and would Infinity's current product match well with these speakers from the mid '90s?

Thanks for your help. By the way, I have always been partial to Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon and Sony.

Audioholics: It sounds like you narrowed your choices down to four preferences. All of these manufacturers offer good products within your budget. Since you had good luck with Yamaha in the past, you may decide to stay with the Yamaha option.

Q: If you have a min, I have a question. I just bought a denon 4802 and hooked it up with Infinities in the front and a set of bose 901s in the rear i cannot figure out how to get the bose eq to work and this is a must with the 901s I am running a pasive cerwin vega sub off the 901s and it worked great with my kenwood receiver but i cannot seem to get the same bass response with the Denon probably because of the missing eq please let me know if you can help, thanks.

Audioholics: I am not sure I am picturing your configuration correctly. I assume you are trying to connect the 901s and a passive Cerwin Vega sub to the rear channels. If so, I recommend against this. You need to configure your system so that LFE bass is coming from either the LFE channel with a dedicated powered sub, or off your main speakers or both.

I would do the following:

1. Connect your passive sub speaker level with your main speakers.
2. Configure your Receivers bass management for Subwoofer ãNoä, Mains "Large", Center "Small", Rears "Small".
3. Connect the Bose Eq to the Rear preamp out/in couplers if available.

However, I would recommend getting new rear speakers and moving the Bose 901s into another room or the garage. Adding an active EQ inline with your Receivers preamp may have deleterious effects on its 5.1 decoding circuitry. In addition, the 901s don't have the full frequency extension to properly reproduce today's movie and music soundtracks. You can purchase dedicated surround speakers for as little as $200/pair that will easily outperform the 901s for this application.

For more info on connecting passive subwoofers read our article entitled Subwoofer Connection Tips for Two Channel Systems