Hey, guys. I found a pair of Boston Acoustics VR965 for 200 bucks plus shipping. Shipping will be low as my work will let me ship on on the corporate account. Currently I'm using BA's System 9000 and it's been great but I'd love to upgrade to something a bit more. I've always liked the BA sound but I've never heard the VR965. Don't really have much spare cash at the moment but I could swing a couple hundred for these. I guess the question I'm asking is has anyone heard these and is 200 dollars as good a deal as it seems? They're being sold by the original owner and he's even still got their boxes and paperwork. Thoughts?

Have not heard them but...they should be an improvement over your current mains in the system 9000. Bear in mind the VR965s have side firing subs built in and they can present some placement issues in some rooms. If the speakers are in good shape I would jump at them for $200. You can always re-purpose your other speakers to be surrounds and back surrounds. or even setup a 2.1 system in another room.

That's what I was thinking, too. The placement I'm looking at is to have the subs firing outward and they'll be about three feet or so from the sub to the walls. They'll be flanking a large entertainment center so I don't think firing inward next to the big piece of furniture would be good.

I am hoping that with two of them it will help even out the distribution in the room and it's bound to be better than the single sub placement I have now. It's literally under an end table in the corner half behind a bookcase that's beside the table. It sounds great on the couch but start walking around the room and there are some serious saturation points where the bass drowns out just about everything.

$200 seems pretty cheap for quite a large potential gain. Plus, like you said, I am already trying to decide which room to set up a new 2.1 system in. And if the speakers don't work out in the theater, I can always use them as a stereo setup in another room instead. Time to break out the old 1050 I never got around to selling!

Ok, so follow up question. I went ahead and bought these and they're on their way to me now. Hooray!

Is there a preference between using the sub input on them or just setting them to large in the 975 and configuring it as no sub? What are the pros/cons of one over the other?

I would definitely try them with the subs engaged, with and without your old sub in the system. Since the placement is limited by the design I would place the older sub in your main seat and do the sub crawl with everything in the mix to see if you have a better place to put the old sub. With two subs bouncing off the walls and a third in the corner you may have some areas where the bass is boomy. Moving the third sub around or eliminating it is really the only way to adjust the bass. If you don't engage the 965 subs you will still have mains that are bigger than the system 9000 mains. The biggest advantage to using the subs is that you get more LFE without sacrificing headroom on your amp since most of the power being supplied by the amp can now be dedicated to the mid and upper range speakers. If you have a receiver, it might be able to send a lot more power to the mains without getting close to its limits.

The specs on your new to you speakers show the lower -3db limit at 30hz. You might try running your mains down to around 40hz and let your current sub take over from there.

It will take a bit of trial and error but you can cross the mains at 80hz and experiment dropping 10hz at a whack until the unplesantness you currently experience with your sub goes away.

I would expect that the 30hz spec is with the 965s subs in the mix. The midranges would not go that low.

You are correct. The -3db at 30hz is with the use of the powered drivers in the Bostons

Cool. Thanks, guys. I went ahead and ordered a Y adapter and a couple more sub cables. They'll be here on Tues and the speakers on Wed. Looks like I know how I'll be spending next weekend!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Could you describe your current speaker set up in regard to crossover point?

With the sub in a corner under a table you have created a poorly designed corner horn. If you currently cross at 80 hz try dropping your crossover point by 10hz and listen for a difference. My best guess is you will eventually get below the bass frequencies that are causing you difficulties. Just keep dropping 10hz at a time until it sorts itself out. Or it won't :-)

Current sub placement is kinda fixed based on spousal approval so that's just the way it is. It's really not bad in our primary listening seats so I live with the weird boomy spots in other areas.

I don't remember offhand what the crossover is set at, but the built in subs in the 965's are spec'd lower than the sub I'm currently using by a few Hz. I'm hoping that there being two of them and not trapped under the table they'll give us better results.

Where do you have the crossover set now and what is the -3db limit of your current front l&r.

I get that the sub is where it has to remain. I am just suggesting it might be tunable.

I read online that the sub is intended to cover frequencies below 150 hz so it is probably already doing all it can at this point. The LCRs are all 3.5 inch mid-range speakers so they won't be much use down low. I would think the built in subs will add a lot of oomph to your system. The sub in the corner is getting all the boundary gain effect it can use now so if it sounds good I would leave it until you can get the new speakers into the system and check out some good LFE movies.

Thanks for all the help, guys. I got the new speakers in place and redid the SPL levels on everything. I still need to play a bit more with the crossovers and sub levels but it already sounds fantastic. Huge improvement! I'll probably mess around with the settings some more tonite. The wife enjoys the end results but the "noise" from doing all the set up stuff can be obnoxious to her so I try to do that sort of thing while she's out.