Lo Peeps just wondering if anyone has a view or recommendation on new speakers for my living room .
My amp is a nice Sony one which won lots of awards in its day but the standard speakers always lacked mid-range .
I don't want to spend much over £400 & having read around the two packages I have listed below look like they could be best of breed in this budget range. Has anyone got a wild card suggestion for me ?

1) Mordaunt Short Genie

2) Kef kht-2005.2

3) Another ???

Can't really help other than say I had a pair of Mordaunt Short speakers many years ago that were awesome.

Ta Sent , the Mordaunt Short Premiere's where not rated as highly as the Geinie but I have read some good things about the Jamo A102-HCS5 . I intend to listen to the KEF's & MS Geinie at Richer sounds & me thinks Jamo's are available there also ...

Rofl demoing kit at Richer sounds, good luck getting any help there mate. They are box shifters thats it.

Also in order to demo anything you need the same amp you use, the same dvd player, the same cables, hell you even need the same room layout. Not to mention you have to pray they have broken in all the speakers you want to test.

The biggest thing for you to look out for is to make sure your speakers match tonally or your new rears are going to stand out like a sore thumb, and they really shouldn't it should be a subtle use of rear effects for the most part same as bass. So that your soundstage covers your entire room and melds together, and nothing stands out.

The most common mistakes in home cinema setup is people first set their sub to max and that just over powers everything, your bass should sound as though it is coming from your main speakers not your sub. Second most people up the volume on their rears so everything is 10 times as loud as it should be.

Ok having re-read your post it looks like you want a new all in one system. Your title makes it sound like you just want new rear speakers tho.

First off I would wait a while as what ever you buy now will be out of date and not be able to handle HD audio. So if you can wait a few months and pay maybe a little bit more and get one with hdmi inputs capable of handling uncompressed pcm audio and the like.

Am I right in thinking that you are wanting to keep your old sony amp, or do you want a entire new 5.1 setup including speakers ?
Because if you are using a all in one amp to power proper speakers from say kef, you are not going to get much out of it.

Ok here is hoping 3rd time is a charm.

Right assuming you have a amp and all you want is speakers I recommend the following from reviews. Oh also do not try and power proper speakers on a all in one amp, its just a waste of cash.

Jamo A102HCS5 -250 - Very small cube like speakers, and it should NOT be partnered with bright sounding amps, rich rules out the Sony.

Q Acoustic 1010i - £500 - Award winning speakers, the i version is a improvement over the previous release giving the sub almost 50 percent more power. This is the package I would recommend, but not with a all in one amp.

Tannoy Mercury F1 5.1 - £800- This beast is more expensive but if you look around you might find a bargain and apprently can also cope with stereo sound very well. Also has a nice big center speaker for good realistic dialog [this is the speaker that will be used most in almost all films]

One other thing don't use cheap no name wire or lan cable like some people do, you don't have to spend a fortune but some nice QED speaker cable can bring a system to life.

The most important thing when using new speakers is giving them time to break in, don't force them too loud to start with or you can do damage to them, the average is about 100 hours of use before you really push them. Also be sure you set up the amp correctly with the right distances and the right cross overs etc.

lol. I bet they are good, considering they're like 3x the price of the ones SENT posted

LOL Ryan , I was waiting for you to come back & I honestly appreciate the feed back .
My amp which is a Sony STR-DB 930 is man enough for the speaker's which fall into my bracket but there is a strong chance I will upgrade it next year & then the entire Sony kit goes into the kids room seeing as it aint worth much second hand so may as well use it for the kids DVD's & my PS3 .
Your right about having to demo in my own room but all things being equal I should in a demo suit be able to assess which speaker package will give me the acoustic range which lights my fire.
Now the Q Acoustic 1010i look like they could be a contender, my gut feel is that the Jamos will lack the mid range & the Tannoy's are on my list but they will probably be out of budget. The F1's would need to be something else to justify the uplift over the Mordaunt Short Genie or Kef kht-2005.2 which are by all accounts both kick ass speakers set's. will let you know how I get on after my session on Saturday.

Fair enough mate I assumed as you said standard speakers that it was a all in one kit, that amp should be able to power the 500 quid speakers, the f1's might be pushing it though.

Take movies you know well, if you can get hold of it I recommend Master and Commander, it has one of the best dvd sound tracks I have ever heard, and the positional sound is just out of this world. Check out the first battle and then the bit where the doctor is trying to save the mans life by putting a coin in his head. If the kit is set up right you should hear some one walk from right to left behind you in one fluid line, and feel the weight off each step. It really is breath taking stuff and will show off almost every area of the speakers.

However I do suggest you take your amp with you, as I very much doubt they will have a old Sony amp just lying around, and testing the speakers on a new modern amp just ain't a fair test at all, as what sounds good on a onkyo or denon might not sound good on a sony or vice versa.

If you want mate, I can name you some of the best disks out there for demo material.

Cheers Ryan , I did not think about bringing my amp ! Give me a list of other titles I should think about taking I have got master & commander .
Oh BTW it was an amp which came with the speakers which is a mistake I will never make again - bloody impulse buy . Ironically my now retired HiFi was all best of breed component in each budget range & this amp was powering a pair of Mordaunt Short 35 TI's & a Sub woofer at my dad's 70'th with ease but that was only three devices but the Sony does not have HDMI which I want big time so any suggestions on amps might be useful ...
I can see this minor upgrade going the same way my PS3 project went
TTFN Joe

Ok this won't be the longest list as I doubt you will have that much time.

Saving Private Ryan - Both the landing sequence and the battle at the end, specifically the tanks rolling into town, just some impressive bass.

The first Matrix film - The lobby shootout and then the shootout on the roof, for good positional sound.

Finding Nemo - The scene where the sub is falling down the abyss and almost crushing the fish, and then the scene where the little girl is taping the fish tank. Both scenes have insane amount of bass.

The phantom menace - Yes its a god awful film, but I have heard of plenty of people destroying their subs and speakers by pushing them too hard in the pod racer scene.

U571- Some of the later underwater scenes of the sub being depth charged, just fantastic sounding.

The legend of zorro - The first scene where the camera zooms out of the carriage, you should hear a subtle use of rear speakers while you are moving into the crowd.

Lord of the rings return of the king, extended cut- Listen to the dts soundtrack of this, during both the huge battle scenes, and when Farimia is in the ruins being shot at by orc arrows for great positional sound.

Alien - Still a fantastic audio mix with some superb subtle and not so subtle moments. I myself like the scene later in the film with all the chains rattling, and the water dripping just before the Alien drops down from above.

That should do you for now, however I would recommend using the DTS track whenever possible.

As to what amp I would recommend, I myself love denon, however onkyo have been winning virtually every award this year. I would however MAKE sure that it can cope with HD audio via HDMI, including DTS HD Master audio. If you don't it will be a real waste of cash. As far as I am aware not all denon amps can do this other than via 5.1 analogue inputs. Although most of the receivers can just not the amps.

Don't forget to check what speaker cable they are using when you demo the speakers. Also you can almost always get places like that to throw in free stuff like speaker cable when you make a big buy.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to take your dvd player either, if you have a nice one. Also take note of what player they have as that can make a huge difference to sound quality. Also make sure they are connected via coax not optical, as in my opinion coax gives far better bass response.

Ryan

The amps I would recommend are the following

The £400 Onkyo TX-SR605 - What hifi's receiver of the year and can handle HD audio including HDMI. They say this amp is unmatched under £700

The £1000 Onkyo TX-SR875 - Which is one of the best amps in its price range, also award winner.

If I were you mate I would listen to the speakers on one of these amps to make sure they work well together, as it would suck if you spent all that cash on a amp and receiver only to find out when paired together they give a harsh brittle sound.

Well how did it go mate ?

Well guys the Mordaunt Short Genie came out tops for me & I have just placed an order for the suckers. They worked well with my amp & I am now a happy bunny .
The sound they output is simply amazing & to me they where in a class of their own they sounded just that bit more balanced than the Tanoy F1's & the Ked & jamo's where a tad to bright for my liking.
Stan the Onkyo TX-SR605 is just the type of amp I would go for , great spec & not to expensive but me thinks its going to have to wait till Crimbo due to the fact my Sony does everything I need it to atm .
Thanks to everyone for their input & a special thanks to Ryan who's fastidious attention to details ensured I had the information to test each speaker set-up properly. I will say this though mate the guy demoing for me thought I was anally retentive

No problem mate, as you can probably tell it is my passion.

Thanks for actually listening to what I say, I hate to think how many hours I have wasted on people like felon who then go and ignore me and buy some piece of shite instead

Oh also I wouldn't push the speakers too hard for the first 100 hours, what I tend to do is leave my setup playing a dvd audio disk at low levels over night to help break them in. Of course then you need a dvd player and amp that can do dvd audio, but any dvd should work as long as you set it to repeat so it ain't stuck on the menu most of the night.