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 =)

Strongly agree with that

yup,u will continue to purchase once u get poisons.

sigh. once u get addicted very hard to stop... needs $$$ every time u look at a new system.

it's always like that. so best is to try out with decent entry level speakers and listen to them for some time, then you'll know what is acctually missing. it's all step by step and where the fun begins.
but what i meant with entry = some ok ok speakers la .. dun go those "chap pa lang" speakers, you wont know what you are really hearing.
Oh yea I choosed the MS902 over MABR2.
I auditioned on a yammy avr thou .. not sure if that really counts.

i'm using 902i for Zone 2 spk with onkyo 876,not really like it much,maybe should try it with front/rear spk on onkyo ?

how is the comparison between MS902 and MABR2?

i know the MABR2 is good, warm and powerful. But the price also more expensive. U'll also need a more expensive and more powerful amp (at least 60 to 100 WPC) if u want the most from ur MAs.

This post has been edited by Suave: Oct 24 2008, 08:52 AM

i get mine for RM 790 at amcorp mall but mine already mod the speaker sound more better my mod almost 60% of the price of the speaker the internal i change the crossover change better cap and coil. sound more detail

this speaker no need soo high power to run it me just use 40w RMS Marantz is more than enuf due the sensitivity is 90db 15w-100w soo easy to push no worry just matching problem

This post has been edited by abel: Oct 24 2008, 10:45 AM

RM790 for monitor audio bronze 2? that’s a really good price bro, the last time I saw them, they were around the same price as AE evo 1, in fact they were direct competitors, about RM1,250…

RM790 for a MABR2, THAT IS CHEAP.

what price range is the carnivals in?

Dont dream. Thats the price for MSC2.

This post has been edited by yehlai: Oct 24 2008, 06:47 PM

How was the Rotel RA-04? TS mentioned he auditioned it.

MSC2 can get around 650 last I enquired. I chosed the MS instead of BR2 wuz a little bit hard on bass which I never liked, but those babies are impressive.

there's a reason why what hi-fi gave them 5 stars even though it's the most expensive in the budget amp sector. they're that good. what's even better is that in Malaysia, it's almost exactly the same price as the rest of the competition. it was 1,650, now it's dropped to 1,250. 40W, well, it's not too bad. but there could be more power. i auditioned it together with Marantz PM4001 and NAD C315BEE. it's a clear winner.

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Added on October 27, 2008, 10:13 pmi hear it's around the same as MS902i, although it shouldn't be la. carnival is supposed to be a budget speaker.

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Added on October 28, 2008, 4:02 pmauditioned the Cambridge Audio Azur 340A today. I must say, apart from the leanness (not much depth in bass), these are really good. And the price, RM850...

This post has been edited by Suave: Oct 28 2008, 04:02 PM

sorry to bring tis post up~im planning to get carnival 3..is it worth for the price rm700++ any suggestion on this budget for 5.25" ?
and the carnival series nt using kevlar cone rite?