Can $150 Speakers beat a $750 pair? Klipsch RP600M ii vs Sony SSCS5 Cheap vs Not So Cheap Speakers

hey i'm randy and you're watching the cheap audio man here at the jeep audio man we talk about high-value hi-fi home theater and headphone equipment and today can a 150 speaker compete with a 750 speaker no way right i don't know let's find out together grab a cup of coffee sit down let's compare the sony sscs5s to the klipsch rp 600m mark ii so i just did the review on the rp600m mark ii i like it it's a great speaker it's a clip speaker unapologetically so i was trying to figure out a cheaper speaker that had similar characteristics to the rp 600m mark ii and i thought ah maybe the so maybe my favorite sony sscs5s i think they're kind of similar they have kind of a emphasis in the upper mid-range a tilted top end maybe i like what the heck i had these in the garage unopened in a box every time they go under a hundred dollars i just buy a pair currently they're going for about a hundred and seventy dollars on amazon i'll link them in the description i'll link the the clips too right now they're seven hundred fifty dollars the rp 600 mark one on sale right now on amazon 400 and guess what i did last night i ordered another pair which should be here tomorrow so i will do another review another video that compares the rp 600 m mark one to the rp600m mark ii i took these out of the box burned them in all night last night and i sat down for a few hours today and i compared these two let's talk about what equipment i used so my mac air was the source i think i'm gonna buy one with more memory i love the mac air it's just i'm running out of memory on it ram like you were very interested in that anyway i had these hooked up to the gushelly labs j2 running into i guess yeah the akateka pt 102. it's preamp i could be hitting that model number wrong and then going into the emotiva a1 monoblocks so i have plenty of power plenty of power plenty of power i had a great dac man i'm making myself laugh i'm sorry i had a great dac going into a great preamp going into uh great amplifiers that have a ton of power okay so we're going to take any of the electronics arguments off the table there's no problem with those electronics all in let's see the monoblocks are 900 dollars for a pair the dac is 300 so we're at 1200 and then the preamp if you build it yourself i think it's four or five hundred dollars so that's eighteen hundred dollars worth of electronic i had the electronics covered then i used amazon music running well through all of it it was terrific it was wonderful i ended up listening to about five songs really closely closely listening intently listening even flow by pearl jam i gave you all by mumford and sons the light by disturbed shoot to throw by ac dc and then i can't remember the other one anyway i had the same takeaway from every song i listened to so it doesn't really matter let's talk about oh by the way i listened to these in the near field in my office i was about three feet away one meter and that's gonna be important in just a second it's about one meter away from these and these were about one meter apart equilateral triangle or best that i could do talk about sound stage and imaging they both did a great job of imaging and soundstage frankly i was a bit surprised just how good the sonys are and still continue to be so i need to put the stage pretty much in line if not a little bit behind the speakers the clips pushed it forward a bit both had very good vertical imaging above the speakers oftentimes the voices would be above the tweeter level they both did a great job of lateral sound stage and imaging i guess it would be tie i guess depending upon if you wanted a more forward stage versus a stage behind the speakers is going to depend upon which one you want but let's talk about let's talk about some bass we have different types of woofers we have a sarah metallic and we have some type of like fiber paper-ish woofer on the sony's these are two distinctly different speakers we have a two and a half way basically with the sony and then we have a two-way with a clips titanium driver silk dome tweeter and super tweeter five and a quarter inch six and a half inch so we would assume that there would be a lot more bass out of the clips and your assumption would be correct there is a ton more bass presence out of the clips that does not mean that the klitsch is a better speaker when it comes to bass frankly the sony's outfinest the clips fairly easily a lot more clarity in the bass coming out of the sony's that could be it might be perhaps it's a function of the room because there is so much more bass energy coming out of the glitch it could be covering up or booming could be covering up some of that bass clarity i did bring it down a bit more but the surprising thing here is i was still hearing more detail more base detail out of the sony ss cs5s that may not make any difference to you because the clip sounds more dynamic it sounds like there is you can feel the bass way more on the clips than you can on the sony ss cs5 i wish the clips was a little bit tighter though a little bit more clean take a bath clean it up let's talk about mid-range if you are new here consider subscribing please like the button you can always take your like away you can always unsubscribe but we have over 470 videos speakers amps stacks turntables home theater stuff headphones all sorts of stuff it's a lot of fun we don't take ourselves too seriously so like this video and subscribe huge difference in mid-range here the clips are way more forward and when i was when i was getting ready to do this comparison i thought they were going to be more similar i thought because the sony's they have a tendency to be a bit forward in the upper mid range not even close to being as forward as the clips even flow pearl jam 42 second mark the clip sounded nasally in comparison and it really sounded like someone was talking through a horn i don't know if that should be a surprise because we do have a horn here but it was a pretty stark contrast to the sony the sony mid-range seemed a bit more natural but the clips was way more in your face with mid-range male vocals sounded i guess equally as weighty on both of these speakers but there was such a different presentation with the clips than there was with the sony's one of the biggest differences i heard though was in acoustic guitars i heard a lot more detail out of the sony's this is a weird review to do because i am hearing things in the mid-range detail-oriented things out of a significantly lower-priced speaker that i personally would consider to be more appealing i'm not saying that my opinion is going to be everybody's opinion and i am not saying that i am right personally for me i love detail love hearing detail with acoustic guitars with voices with breath sounds with everything the more detail the better i love it i feel like i'm getting extra music i heard more detail with the sony's in the mid-range than i did on the clips but the clips is pushing things way more forward i gave you all by mumford and sons again different reasons way different presentation voices more forward acoustic guitars more detailed i really don't know what else to say here i will say this though the sony's had a tendency to be more sibilant than the clips and i thought it could be i thought that would be the opposite i thought the clips could be more sibilant but the clips aren't sibilant at all it was just in your face in that upper mid-range area let's talk about trouble back to even flow by pearl jam there is a ride symbol in the back even something like that anyway i could barely hear it on the glitch it was loud and clear definitive separated on the sony's it was covered up and i think it was covered up by that mid-range bump neither one of these speakers measure flat and depending upon how a speaker measures there can be a perceived emphasis on a specific frequency even if that frequency isn't bumped basically by having the frequencies in front of it being scooped a little bit more i do that all the time on eq if i want to emphasize a certain frequency sometimes i'll just turn the frequency to the left of it down a bit so it's more apparent because frequencies can cover up frequencies around it so if i want a boost at 4k sometimes i just have to turn 2k down a bit either way it all sounds the same whether or not i'm boosting 4k or if i'm cutting 2k people will probably argue with that but that's how i do it i just heard more treble on the sonys more detail the sonys at times seemed a little bit artificial artificial similar to something along the lines of the emotiva b1 plus in my full review video i said that the clips have a similar characteristic as the b1 plus being tilted on the top end these are more tilted than these so these the sonys actually seem a little bit even more artificial than the klipsch rp600m but the sonys have more detail more clarity i heard better instrument separation on the top end from the sonys what are my final thoughts i feel weird about this video because on one hand i am the cheap audience this is my channel the whole channel is predicated on the fact that you can get great sound out of less expensive electronics speakers amp stacks turntables the whole thing right and i think at some point it's kind of like a shtick for me like oh this amp this 100 amp is just as good as a 900 amplifier whatever it is or they're similar at least in this case this is my preference my preference only i'm not saying that i am right for you everybody has different likes different preferences when it comes to speakers but in this case i actually prefer the sound of the sony sscs5 over the clips rp600 and mark ii and it's not a stick it's just me listening to both of these with the same song with the same electronics in the same place in the same room and picking the one that i like better and it's the sonys i listened at higher volumes too to make sure that i'm just not hearing some level differences which brings up one of the most important points of this whole video i pulled out my phone phone as a microphone i have a decibel meter on my microphone i reached out to one speaker had him both playing in mono left speaker was the klipsch right speaker was the sony both in mono same song i held my arm out i put my phone in the same position at the same levels surprisingly the sony was actually playing louder if one looks at the specifications the clips has a much higher sensitivity than the sony therefore it should be playing much louder than the sony i found the opposite to be true the sony was a titch louder than the clips we can chalk that up to me being a couple of inches in front or below what we cannot dismiss is that there should have been a larger delta in the levels the cliffs should have been playing much louder it at least a couple of db louder and they were not they were actually quieter sony's are rated at 87 db either the sony's are way more efficient than 87 or the clips are way more inefficient than what they're i think 94 92 i don't know i thought i was gonna have to level match these and i in a way i did have to level match these because i actually had to turn the clips up a little bit to get them the same levels of the sony's which should not be the case this is a video where i am talking about the differences in my personal preferences when it comes to a speaker the clips are definitely way more dynamic the clips have way more bass presence where i find there to be a significant difference though is in the forward leaning nature of the clips and then the clarity i think the sony was much better as far as detail retrieval across the board base mid-range and top end clips punches way harder way harder definitely different frequency response and that could be your thing could be your preference but for me i prefer the sonys across the board really they're not going to punch you in the face with the bass and i thought i was like okay well i'll just turn this up because the clutch will really pull away and be way better at louder volumes and at louder volumes really what happened is the nasally nature of the min range actually got a bit more pronounced these did start to fall apart about 83 85 db i started losing all that instrument separation the detail and this was probably you know i was pretty close up so in a larger room it's going to be way worse because you're going to really start pumping some juice through these they're going to lose that magic that they have at higher volumes especially at greater distance so keep that in mind eclipse did keep it together but in the near field in the near field only i still felt like the sony's were a better choice for me i am not saying the clips are not worth the 750 asking price just reporting what i hear and what i prefer i feel like i'm beating a dead horse there is no better speaker there's no best speaker there are speakers that you may prefer over another and that's it just because i prefer the sony over the clips does not make it a better speaker it could be better for you because it's a lot less expensive and for my personal predilections i like the sony uh anyway if you want to support the channel you can sign up for patreon patreon.com cheap audioman every sunday night we have page only zooms we also have patreon facebook group a patron only discord server we do patron giveaways you can also use the links in the description i'll link both of those speakers these are running for 170 right now still a decent price they keep going up in price i am hoping that they go to their lowest level here pretty soon but it hasn't happened for a while these right now 750 rp 600m first generation really on sale at 400 that may be something you should consider again i'm getting those in today or tomorrow and so i will do another review comparing the rp600m first gen versus the second generation you can also use the thanks button down below right below the video next to the share button there's a little heart with a money sign if you got any value out of this video you can buy me a cup of coffee or two you can also sign up for amazon music or title titles are also running a deal right now three months for 9.99 so you can try out title for 10 bucks for three months see if you like it so don't binge watch anything on netflix or hulu binge listen maybe through one of these new speakers and fill your soul with happiness and with that i'm randy i'm the cheap audio man [Music] you

Channel: cheapaudioman

Views: 117,637

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Id: NROA90CXyV8

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022