Potential owner, many Q's

Kind of wordy... Stick with me.


Hey guys, I stumbled on this board while doing loudspeaker research for a 2ch system.

Long story short I didn't really use my home theater gear as much as I liked and being a offspring of a baby boomer I inherited a pretty cool vinyl collection. I decided to do something I've always wanted to do... Have a dedicated listening system. Right now it's primarily for vinyl but I would like to branch out to SACD when(if) the vinyl bug wears off.

Anyhow for the time being I repurposed my Onkyo 876 (140w) as my amp/pre and a pair of SVS STS-01 towers all fed from a Project Carbon.

I would like to build a more 2ch (2.1 maybe) friendly system, probably separates. I also love looking at quality built gear, my kind of art. I really love tube Macs but that might be out of my league. I would love to have quality gear to be able to pass down... I am currently dreaming about a set of Emotiva mono blocks.

My question I guess is, after reading about the Ethos and Theos it seems like the choice comes down to room size? I am currently set up in my bedroom (roughly 20x20) but I am known to move stuff around. The Theos is more in budget but I wonder if the Ethos would offer more future flexibility? Also the watts ratings listed for these loudspeakers seem very conservative compared to what I read people are driving them with.

I'm currently running my Ethos speakers with an Emotiva XPA-2 which is 500W / channel into 4 ohms. It is doing a fantastic job of pushing them certainly as loud as I want them and they sound great! Honestly I tried this amp out just in case I liked it since it seemed priced very low but it really does a great job. I fully expected that I would find some issue and end up with a higher end amp, but I am perfectly happy with the XPA-2. It also runs pretty cool. They have a 30 day trial period, so you could try them out. If you don't mind the additional heat and want mono-blocks the XPA-1L should be plenty to drive them with Class A for most listening levels.

The reason I got the Ethos was to make life easier for me. I didn't want to worry about bi-amping the speakers and the Ethos come with built in amps for their woofers.

The bass response changes very noticeably based on how far they are from the wall behind them. You will need to experiment with speaker placement.

I looked at the Theos, but only briefly. I feel like I have enough bass with the Ethos alone without a subwoofer, but I would have felt like I needed a subwoofer with the Theos.

I saw the Ethos as saving me both a subwoofer and an additional amplifier for bi-amping.

That was my train of thought.

Good luck with your decision!

What Mark said follows my experience as well, I went with the Ethos. I already had a bi-amp set up, when I looked at the Theos, so that was not much of a concern. But when I demo'd the Theos, they were definitely lacking somewhat in the bass. I knew I would have to go with a sub. The Ethos may not have that last half octave, but for music only, in my room, the bass is more than adequate. If I really want to rock out, the bass is adjustable +/- 10 dB. I normally run at 0 dB but set at +2 or +3 adds a little extra kick with out being out of control or obnoxious. I sold my bi-amp 4 ch amp and external electronic crossover and am using a 150 w/ch (300 w/ch into 4 ohm) integrated amp. Plenty of power for me and a much simpler set up.

20x20 bedroom……..wow, that's big !

will that be rededicated as your listening room ? Square rooms aren't ideal (even more acoustical issues to deal with) but the bigger the square the better I suppose

If your budget will allow Ethos would be the way to go IMO, perhaps a nice used pair ?