home theatre set up - dolby digital?

2

Comments

  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    Less than £200 for an old amp with at least three inputs and a pair of speakers. Unfortunatly, all the second hand amps on ebay seem to be from the '70's and are putting out 25w per speaker which isn't quite enough.
    As for the speakers, I'd hope to get a descent enough pair as eventually I will get a full AVR rather than just a crappy old amp with more orange squash inside than tubes... I'll update the receiver to do more justice to the speakers. I was going for a £300 Onkyo AVR and 5.1 speakers but there's no need right now so I've scaled down a bit.
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    why not look at powered speakers? great for the garage later on.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Less than £200 for an old amp with at least three inputs and a pair of speakers. Unfortunatly, all the second hand amps on ebay seem to be from the '70's and are putting out 25w per speaker which isn't quite enough.
    For a proper hifi amp, 25W is actually surprisingly punchy. Completely different league to so called "25 watts" computer speakers or (ahem) mini-hifi systems.

    I used to have a rather nice little NAD c320 BEE, which was only 50W per channel, but when paired with some B&W DM330s, is was properly fahooking loud.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    nicklouse wrote:
    why not look at powered speakers? great for the garage later on.
    He'd need some sort of mixing desk or input selector to switch between 3 inputs though.
    If you can get such a thing for a decent price, then yeah, powered speakers would be a good choice.

    Ii haven't heard these myself, but I've heard good stuff from guys with little home studios about M-audio's BX5As

    I'd go for a set of Genelecs myself, but that's sadly not achievable below £200.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    nicklouse wrote:
    why not look at powered speakers? great for the garage later on.

    Yup, got a little three speaker bluetoothable all in one powered speaker jobby which gets moved around the house where music is needed. This AV set up really is to get the most out of music and film though.

    Good to know 25w is adequate as that's all I've found so far in amps that will leave me enough budget for speakers! Choices currently are;

    This Cambridge is still available but would need speakers to go with.
    Or This denon which includes speakers but is top end of my budget and is also the 5.1 system the OH help me see told me so that we don't really have enough room for.

    Any preferences?
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Cambridge audio one for £35!!
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Descent speakers are crap, they just fall towards the centre of the earth. What you need I reckon is some decent speakers.
    Look out for B&Ws, sometimes you get silly bargains on them - and they're also very loud for a given electrical power.
    Stay well away from ATC, unless you have a gigawatt amplifier.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    I'm not sure I agree with you Yeeha... Now I don't know anything about the centre of the Earth, But I imagine placing my speakers inside it whilst I'm watching Band of Brothers would be a mighty fine way to avoid the rising fuel costs.

    Last noob question then as I'm still learning about home theatre / cinema systems.... and life in general come to think of if. The Cambridge is rated as 25w at 8ohm speakers - am I limited to speakers that do not go above 25w or below 8ohms? so If a speaker is rated at 10 - 50wats, is that bad?

    egthese wharfdales which are rated as 15 - 75 with 6ohm impedance
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    The speakers will be fine, the impedance (ohm) of the speaker is complicated, but generally speaking, it is very hard to buy a HiFi speaker that won't work with a HiFi amp.

    It's also worth noting that if you have a speaker rated at, say 30W, but are driving it with a 100W amplifier will not specifically do it any harm. In fact, a lower powered amplifier driven too hard, until it is distorting will do far more damage.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    Pair of Wharfedale Achromatics is now mine! I'm sure they will fall into the Earth being descent speakers and all :) Next year, it'll be a full 5.1 AVR upgrade when the house grows.

    Just need a final few components for the media PC and to drill a hole through a bloody thick wall to get the aerial to it for it's new location!
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    If you're after a good dual tuner freeview receiver card, I can wholly reccomend the Compro line of stuff. Ignore Hauppage - I had nothing but problems with them, and their tech support pretty much denies any issue.
    Terratec are good as well, but the card I had never got decent drivers for vista (or win7) 64-bit, sadly.

    (the card I have now is a Compro E700 Vista. The vista version is exactly the same as the normal one, but doesn't include their garbage TV tuner software - it relies on media centre instead)
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    My old Cyrus One amp is rated at 'just' 25 watts - but is a genuine 25 watts RMS into an 8 ohm load at very low THD. I hate these over-inflated ratings we get with some stuff.

    Worth picking up on ebay if in good condition.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    supersonic wrote:
    My old Cyrus One amp is rated at 'just' 25 watts - but is a genuine 25 watts RMS into an 8 ohm load at very low THD. I hate these over-inflated ratings we get with some stuff.

    Worth picking up on ebay if in good condition.
    True that. I swear some of the cheap and nasty amps measure electrical power consumption, not the output power.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    That or peak power into a low load at high THD. Not that these things can handle low loads very well lol.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    bamboozaled...

    Frankly I wish I knew more about electricity seeing as I'm surrounded by it and things that rely upon it.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Basically when certain manufacturers measure the power output of a device, they do so with non standard parameters. Most will measure into a standard 8 ohm load (most speakers are nominally this) and a low level of measured distortion (when you turn a amp up, it will eventually distort and clip). You may see with the amp:

    25 watts RMS, into 8 ohms at 0.01% total harmonic distortion (THD)

    Other, more unscrupulous manufacturers may measure into 2ohms, and as much as 10% distortion. 2 ohms is a lower resistance, so draws more current from the amp and a higher power rating will be given.

    But some amps may struggle with low resistance (speakers are very dynamic and can dip low) - a good amp can give a continuous ouput into a set load, not just drain it's capacitors and be done.

    An amp rated at 10watts continuous into 8 ohms at 0.01%THD is probably a lot more flexible than an 100watt max rating into 1ohm at 10%THD. You usually see these silly figures on car equipment and cheap computer speakers.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    10% harmonic distortion is just bonkers. May as well use an overdriven guitar amp :lol:
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    My Cyrus two is nice piece of kit - will output 70w into 8ohms: uses a huge 500VA toroidal transformer for the power stage, and a 200VA for the preamp.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Don't start a nice amp contest, Sonic... you know you won't win :wink:



    :lol:
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Hehe, for the home this is is great, drives huge speakers with absolute ease! Definitely handles loud bass better than the One. Don't need much more!
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    I miss that old NAD C320 BEE. My ex has it now :cry:
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    I need to pop the lid and get the soldering iron out mind. Pretty sure some of the caps have gone on one channel.
  • shoddy
    shoddy Posts: 63
    low frequecy sound is non directional so you can put the sub anywhere (although if its an active speaker you may have to put it somewhere where it doesnt overheat). I have a big AE sub and i bought a small table from Ikea which fits over the top of it to hide it a little bit.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    The Cambridge amp arrived this morning! Ooooh it's gorgeous.

    Doesn't have sub output (which I knew before I bought it) so will be making do with a pair of descent speakers.
    Though not amp-orientated, in the summer I might upgrade the case of the boring HTPC tower to an Antec so it stacks nicely with the amp / AVR:
    front.jpg
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Wwo, that CPU usage chart must be useful eh :lol:
    Looks nice though, but i thought those things were hideously expensive.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    Wwo, that CPU usage chart must be useful eh :lol:
    Looks nice though, but i thought those things were hideously expensive.

    Look. it's way more useful than that, you can get it to display... err... current news headlines from the net :) totally worth the money.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    No, I meant the cases are hideously expensive. We've got an old Coolermaster desktop case at work here somewhere that actually would look quite nice in an AV setup. It's all polished aluminium, and looks like a piece of AV kit, but was only £30 or so.
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    Yeah, facetious doesn't translate very well via font :o

    at £130 it's quite a bit of money definitely! As always though - I'll try and find the cheapest option to get a moderately expensive outcome :lol: The problem with the current case is that the drives would be sideways when the tower is laid flat beneath the amp. not an issue for quite a while though.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Most drives are just fine sideways though. Just like the PS2, Xbox 360, and PS3.
    That's why (almost) all DVD drives have those little tabs to hold the disc in when it's on it's side.

    Another way you could do it is to stick the puter in a cabinet, or behind the telly or something, then just have an external DVD drive next to the amp etc.
    My media centre remote came with a ridiculous lead about 5 metres long, so the PC doesn;t actually have to be near the telly - as long as your HDMI/DVI/VGA/whatever you're using is long enough.

    Oh, and in all this talk of amps and stuff, I have to say, I'm having a great time listening to music in the dubbing suite whilst I wait for the client to turn up. 2xGenelec 8050s, with a 7070A sub. mmmmm, tasty :D
    Most home cinema setups just do not have this level of bass extension :wink: