I would like someone's opinion on the purchase of two main speakers. I currently have a 990/7500 with an Orb Mod 2 surround speaker system along with their Super Eight Subwoofer. Planning to purchase two outlaw 2200 amps to drive one of the following speakers: Anthony Gallo Reference 3.1, Aperion Intimus 6T1, Klipsch RF-83 or possibly something from AV123 or Axiom. Any suggestions as to which if any one reccomends?

I'd recommend Outlaw Bookshelves as your best choice.

For what it's worth, I'd second tonygeno's comment about the quality of the Outlaw Bookshelves. Having said that...

I am always cautious about recommending one speaker over another when you get into the domain of good quality speakers, as there is some personal taste that enters into the equation. It doesn't help that I haven't heard the Orb, Gallo, Aperion, or Klipsch speakers in question. What's your budget?

I have the Klipsch RB-75 surround sound system. It's a good system for movies and classic rock sounds good as well.

That being said, I don't like it at all for classical music or electronica, which I listen to a lot.

Just remember that Klipsch uses horn loaded tweeters and they tend to have a focused stereo image, so you essentially need to point them at the listener.

I really like my Klipsch, but if I were buying new speakers again, I wouldn't get horn loaded speakers. I have and old pair of Polk Audio SDA-2's from the days when Polk was a more respectable speaker company. The SDA 2's have silk dome tweeters and I prefer the sound of them over the Klipsch, although the Klipsch are better for movies.

Thank you all for your response. I fully agree with you Gonk
that speaker selection is purely subjective but there are not many high end stereo stores around VA Beach where I live. I have two Dalquist DC-10 that I purchased in 1972 but they are large Nad have seen their day. I remember shopping with my records and finally chose the DC-1o over the Mags of that period. For years I had them powered by a NAD 7600 which believe it or not still works. Budget is under $3000.

I'm with Gonk. I think you can audition the Outlaws and the Aperions in your home for 30 days for very little $$$. The Aperions will even ship back for free. The RF-83 are similar to my front L/R RF-82s. They are very efficient and do not need much power at all to drive them to a very high SPL. I would try to match the efficiency of the new speakers close to the old ones to level the sound field somewhat.

I am new to the HiFi game as I wanted to upgrade to my first "real" system when I moved about 10 months ago. Therefore, I read a lot (including a lot in the Outlaw Saloon) and ended up loosely modeling my system on some of the systems I read in HiFi related magazines that were installed for famous people, including Oliver Stone and a couple other directors/producers. I now understand that my modeling after film industry folks may have caused the system I ended up with to have a bias toward movies rather than music--but I am new and really don't have much to compare it to so the movies, and music, sound pretty terrific, clean, and "HiFi" to me!.

In any event, I say "I loosely modeled", because I substituted Outlaw products for the Amps (a 7125 amp driving my center, 4 surrounds, and second zone, and 2 2200s driving my 2 mains) and Processors (a 990). I substituted Outlaw because they seemed in many reviews to compare well to the ones the famous people had, but Outlaw was much less expensive which helped my sell to my wife.

But, when it came to speakers, I really could not compare reviews as I did not believe there was any good way to compare features for such an important yet subjective component of a HiFi system. And, when I went to various dealer and installer showrooms, I really did not know one reputable source from another and besides the various HiFi speakers, which incidently were never the same brand, sounded pretty good to me in the showrooms. Therefore, I really did not have a enough knowledge and experience in HiFi to make a truly informed decision in a reasonable amount of time and effort by listening to and trying out various speakers.

Given these limitations, I took the only practical course of action I thought was available to me, I chose the speakers some of the directors/producers I had read about installed--which in 3 separate instances, including in Oliver Stone's home, were NHT Evolution speakers (and Oliver Stone said that he knew how his movies were supposed to sound, including his movie "The Doors", and his NHT speakers delivered). Based on these votes of confidence, I have 3 NHT Evolution M6 speakers for left, center, and right mains, 4 NHT Evolution L5 wall speakers for surround, and 2 NHT Evolution U2 subwoofers (with the paired subwoofer controller and 200 watt subwoofer amplifier). My NHT speakers really sound great to me--and apparently to some directors/producers too. Moreover, the price of the NHT speakers over the internet were extremely reasonably priced (and cheaper than the Outlaw bookshelves).

Therefore, NYGIANT, because you don't really have an opportunity to listen to the speakers you are going to buy, and you may not want to try out several different speakers with no practical ability to compare them side by side, perhaps you might want to consider the NHT speakers. With that said, I am sure the Outlaw speakers are terrific, and they do come with Gonk's recommendation, which in and of itself is probably one of the most objective opinions you could hang your hat on.

P.S., Gonk, if you read this, who are you and what do you do for a living? If you are not already on Outlaw's payroll, you should be as your contributions to this site are invaluable to the industry generally and Outlaw in particular. In fact, you are one of the reasons that I own Outlaw products; it was your general HiFi knowledge and insights that kept bringing me back to the Outlaw site and to their products.

I am a life-long Memphian (aside from 4.5 years spent away at college) approaching my mid 30's with a wife and a 3-year-old daughter. I've got a BS in mechanical engineering and am a licensed professional engineer and LEED Accredited Professional, working as a design engineer and production manager for a small engineering firm. I design the HVAC systems for buildings.
Glad I could help!

edcrash1,

I read your post with great interest and I thought long and hard about writing this. Maybe now is a good time to relate a tale "from the Dark Side."

First let me comment on the NHT Evolution series of loudspeakers. I have heard them on more than one occasion and, in my opinion, they are really good in all respects. You have made a fine choice.

Now for the story:

A while back at my "day job" at Atlantic Technology we were contacted by the group responsible for designating all of the components for Oliver Stone's state of the art home theater. We were told that the integrators had evaluated a lot of speakers and had decided that an Atlantic Technology THX system was their number one choice. They also said that a major magazine was doing a story on the installation and that it would receive a great amount of attention.

As you might imagine, we were quite flattered and pretty excited about the potential magazine artcle. We were then informed that we were expected to provide the speakers at no charge. The people responsible for designating the components claimed that the great publicity surrounding the installation would be payment enough. After explaining to them that we provide nothing free (except to a charity for auction), we chose to take a pass on this "opportunity".

Companies like Atlantic and Outlaw get approached all the time with offers of placement, especially for home improvement or technology TV shows often shown on cable. They too want free goods and the answer is always no.

As for Outlaw, we have sold a number of our products to high profile customers. For example, over the last two years we have sold about forty model 990's to one of the world's most famous video game software developers. There is a good chance that some of you might be listening to 5.1 games mixed on an Outlaw pre amp. We don't talk about this company and neither do they talk about us.

So what is the point behind all of this? Be skeptical of any third party endorsements. The best way to find out what's right for you is to evaluate the components (or speakers) in your own home, where it counts the most. That's why so many reputable on-line companies offer a 30-day, money back, home trial guarantee.


Peter Tribeman

Peter, I am very glad you decided to weigh in on this topic and that you provided further insights about Oliver Stone's installation. Actually, I almost wrote basically what you said in your response about Oliver Stone receiving free components and speakers but I thought I was already being too verbose.

In any event, I knew generally that "comping" is what happens for famous people (it is ironic that the rich and famous with a lot of disposable income never have to pay for anything!), and in particular I knew Oliver Stone was comped for his NHT speakers because I spoke to Oliver Stone's installer (as I wanted to hire them to provide some limited "consultation" on my installation given that I didn't really know what I was doing) who readily admitted to me that everything was given to Oliver Stone for promotional/advertising good will.

Notwithstanding this, I still read that Oliver Stone and the other directors/producers were quite happy with their compenents and speakers. And, given that the directors/producers, as well as the installers who where catering to them (including the one I spoke to), had reputations to uphold, I thought that was good enough for me to hang my hat on. As I said in my initial post, I did not have the ability nor inclination, nor spousal patience, to effectively demo different speakers.

Given that NYGIANTS seemed to be in a similar position as me (i.e. he did not have an easy way to demo--and he did not seem inclined to demo several speaker sets), I thought that I would weigh in on what I did; although I am sure that some people are shaking their heads in frustration/confusion as to my admittedly flawed methodology. At least I am glad to hear that you believe my unusual methodology led to a decent choice: NHT.

Edward Christian aka edcrash1