Dear sifus and taikors, i was seriously considering the Mordaunt-Short Carnival 2 bookshelf speakers as a contender for my new (entry-level - budget) system.

I have a Marantz CD5400 cd player.
I'm interested to know if anyone's tried them before, and if so, what would be a good budget amp to match it with.
I'm currently using MS Declaration 902.

The other contenders are none other than:

MS Avant 902i

Mission M31i

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1, and

Tannoy F1 (the only one that i've never had the chance to audition)


But these are all one level up in terms of budget range. Any advice please?

This post has been edited by Suave: Oct 21 2008, 01:34 PM


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I am using the Carnival series as my HT speaker. I'd say for the kind of money i paid for them it's pretty good. However is you can stretch abit more get the Avant. Carnivals are the entry level MS speakers. Hope this helps.

thanks. yeah, carnival is the entry level. money is not so much the problem, in fact, my present speakers (the 1st generation MS902) are more expensive. so technically, if I were to buy them, it’s more of a “downgrade”. it’s just that, I noticed a certain purity in the tone of these carnivals and was wondering if matching it with a good amp would bring out something in them.

It would be better to go for MS 902i or the Mezzo 2. Carnival 2 is really an entry level speakers. But price wise, it's almost the same as ms902i.

If you need them, you can PM me for price

I only listend to Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 and Tannoy before.
Tannoy is musical, sweet and mellow, easy to get you involve in music. IMO Whafy is sligtly warm and Tannoy is more to neutral.
I preffer Tannoy.

I will get an Used speaker rather than new entry level budget speaker,
since now you are using MS Declaration 902, i doubt the upgrade will bring significant improvements.


This post has been edited by yehlai: Oct 21 2008, 02:58 PM

what u say is true. I’d rather go for a 2nd hand pair, if I can find anyone selling. at the moment, I haven’t come across any sellers.
what amp were u using when u performed the auditions?

maybe you can try find in hifi4sale website.try google it.

i using carnival 2 for my hifi wut i can say sound are warmer than avant 901 due the tweeter is soft dome .....

i am oso a carnival 2 user it is a nice speaker with neutral sounding
and its classic looks nice for me
i try some solid amplifier "a bit" hard and lifeless sounding
the best matching amp i try before is the AUDIOROMY 838a
some audio shop taukea tell me if using a high power amp like 200W to push it will be nice
i am still searching the best matching amp and speaker cable for next upgrade under RM3k like audo space,marantz,shanling,creek,audiolab
sifu here any idea which friendly shop to try?
is carnival stop production edy?

i will vote for tannoy f1.

200W?? crazy izzit the tauke? these speakers can only take maximum 100W

ah because normally highter watt amplifier better in contorlling ~~"

which is true, but these are entry level speakers, they can’t take that much power. a 200W amp might, u know, blow the speaker cones?

Always get speakers with lower watts than your amp.

If the amp's power rating is below that of the speaker, the amp will try too hard to keep up, if you like, with the speaker which means the amp will 'clip' which could possibly cause more damage than over-rating the speakers.

If the amp that is more powerful than the power rating of the speakers, provided the power rating of the amp was not a great deal more than the rating of the speakers (50 watts +) then there should not be a great problem provided you as the customer are sensible when it comes to running the speakers. That means, don't crank the volume up too much, but that's not anybody's intention to have a hi-fi system anyway.

yeah, this is the reason i was referring to. It has a quality of it's own, although it ranks lower in budget range than the 902i and the mission M31i, wharfedale etc.

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Added on October 22, 2008, 1:14 pmbut, not when the power rating is double that of the maximum the speakers can take, I presume?
anyways, I was using a Rotel RA930-AX mkII (good amp, but lacks depth and power) until now, it won’t work anymore. Lasted me a good 7 years. Instead of repairing, I’ve been listening to:

1. NAD C315BEE
2. Marantz PM4001
3. Rotel RA-04

to possibly pair with the Carnival 2, or any of the other 4 I might be getting. anything else in this price range worth considering?


This post has been edited by Suave: Oct 22 2008, 01:14 PM

Acctually I typed something here yesterday, wonder why it didn't came up in this page.
Anyway, I bought the 902i ontop from 9.1 & Carnival. comparing these 3, if you like clean mids and crisp highs 9.1 will never suit your taste (on my opinion)
Carnival and 902i are though to decide well we can just leave the price off as they are quite the same. I found that the carnival tends to give you slighty more bass and less clarity on the vocals, 902i is pretty much the opposite.
Well there's never a final purchase, so no worries if made a wrong choice, they are all good. For my case, I like mine cuz it just sound so clean, but i was only comparing them with 9.1&Carnival .. and also the PSB B1. (*within same price range lo)
Hope this helped.

ah this wht i wanna to tell
amplifier watt rating normally is maximum continuous power output
noramally we wont blast the volume to the max
so the sepaker wont be break by the over driving power from the amp
we can listen to the speaker sounding to get know is it still can go futher volume~

thanks bro. carnival 2 got more bass? really? must be the amp u tried it with. I tested them with a marantz PM4001 and the bass didn’t come out strong at all. in fact the bass came out really weak. just to double confirm it, I tried the mission m31i using the same amp. but carnival’s treble & midrange, wow. SWEET*, although a bit muffled.
oh, yesterday LYN was facing some server problem, so a lot of posts didn’t appear.

go for usher s520

by the way, what price did u get ur Carnival 2 for?
thanks =)