It's mostly hip-hop, but I'm looking for a good speaker that can handle home theater needs as well. I've got an 8" sony sub that's pretty tight, so that should fill out the low end pretty well. For this kind of music, is there a different ML that might give me better results?
Ah, now we're getting to the root of the problem you're having with getting the MLs to sound decent. Your "music" is the primary problem...
Don't get me wrong. I've got Warren G and Snoop and Dre and Black Eyed Peas in my CD collection, so I know what hip-hop sounds like on MLs with good gear driving them. But the fact of the matter is, MLs are engineered to reproduce MUSIC, and the signals you are putting through them, in the form of Hip-hop are not music per se, but rather a "sonic product", much the same way that Velveeta is not cheese, it's a "processed food product".
The voices, drums, musical instruments, and even the ambience of hip-hop recordings are so heavily produced, filtered, distorted, and otherwise electronically molested that by the time it gets burned onto a little silver disk, the material resembles real sounds only on some extremely abstract, Platonic level. Of course your MLs sound like crap--you are feeding them crap signals. What you are actually hearing, dear friend, is the TRUTH of your source material--it is essentially sonic cheezy-poofs--lots of color and crunch, but not nutritional value whatsoever.
Go get a Diana Krall CD, or some good acoustic guitar recordings, or even some Erika Bhadu or Wynton Marsalis. Listen to a signal that is actually an attempt by the recording engineers to produce something that sounds like a REAL performance, and you will find that the MLs will beat the pants off your Infinity's, even with your woefully underpowered Yamaha receiver.
Really, trust me. It's not the speakers. It's not really even your amp or CD player or cables.
It's your music, dude....
If all you listen to is pre-programmed, overly produced, digitalised, small-label, "urban-audience", dance/shout/bass-line, engineered-for-sale, being-held-down-by-the-Man, booty-shakin' crunk, then I think it's fair to let you know that you should save your money and take the Logans back TODAY. Save your money for a belt and some pants that actually fit, and be content blaze another blunt and listen you your Yamaha/Infinity/Sony rig. In the long run you'll be MUCh happier, and so will we...
Oh, and ditch the Sony subwoofer. Go buy a Sunfire. You can get them for under $500 used, and it will blow the doors off your Sony AND it's so tight that it will make the water in your bong boil over.
Peace out,
--Richard
