tiggers

OK, another high end Hi-Fi thread I'm afraid.

Just wondered how those of you with high end systems went about integrating surround sound with your systems.

Do you have a separate system for AV needs, do you integrate a cheapish set of front/rear speakers and decoder with your pride and joy or have you gone high end with the AV as well?

Do you find your chosen solution has detracted from the sound of your music system in any way?

Regards,

tiggers.

Chip

What sort of thing are we talking about when you say high end.

Chip

tiggers

See this thread for details:

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthread.php?t=382107

Cheers,

tiggers.

Chip

Bit out of my league at 20k I'm afraid.

Chip

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I just bought a Yamaha DSP-A1 and use it for both music and movies.

Five years later it's still a treat to listen to it, and still there's no nagging little voice in my head telling me to change it. So, IMHO it was exactly the right thing to do.

Chip

Andy,
Like Johnathon Ross then!

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/arti...25_install.php

Chip

TelBoy

Personally, home cinema isn't really my thing, as i'm not a big film fan. The speakers are hooked up via the pre-amp, on decent interconnect from the telly, but that's about it. Nothing to add on this thread i'm afraid!

Jye

It wasnt that long ago that Hi-Fi boffs (mags etc) were shunning the thought of even having a TV in the same room as 'real' Hi-Fi as they considered that it detracted from the sound. I've done a few 'blind listening' tests over the years and fwiw I'd agree with them. Hardly practical in your average home mind and never seems to go down well with the missus.

Most 'decent' Home Cinema kit I've heard, while sounding OK, is just too damn OTT and loud to really enjoy imo. Most people seem to subscribe to the, 'it should sound just like a real jumbo jet flying above your head, bomb exploding, battlefield etc' camp while playing the intro scene from Saving Private Ryan 'yet again'. Not very subtle and personally I think it can be an anti-social menace. I got rid of my home cinema, including a Tag Mclaren AV32R and Calliope speakers as I found I never used them to full effect for the above reasons.

If I watch a DVD movie now I listen to it in stereo only via the Hi-Fi, and tbo I dont miss the full blown home cinema 'experience' but then I pretty much always did prefer listening to music.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I think that's where the original 'music or movies, but not both' argument comes from - the two do indeed demand rather different abilities and maybe there is an inevitable compromise to be made.

That said, I'd happily give up a little subtlety to be able to experience the battle scene at the beginning of Gladiator in all its DTS glory. Hearing the blazing fireballs being hurled diagonally across the room from one corner to another and exploding on impact is just awesome, and so's hearing the mothership approach the moon at the start of Independence Day. It also helps that I have a big subwoofer and live in a detached house on the corner of the street!

Let your hair down - loud can be fun

Jye

Andy, I did and it was (for the most) fun, soooo

tbo I wasnt using the AV kit anywhere like enough to justify the cost and other 'hobbies' soon took precedence.

Jye - no hair left....

what would scooby do

This weekend I purchased the Pioneer VSX-AX5Ai-S amp and the Pioneer DV-868AVi-S DVD player to replace my Arcam which went bang.

What's the big deal you may ask ?

Well I'm using I-Link (firewire) to connect the source to the amp which apart from replacing 6 odd wires with a single cable, I'm now 100% digital from the source disk to the amplifier.

DVD audio/SACD and movies are now AWESOME!

I'm also using the two rear surround channels to bi-amp the fronts as I've just got 5.1 speaker setup not 7.1

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I thought there was some paranoid conspiracy amongst record companies and equipment manufacturers to never put out a SACD signal digitally, lest anyone figures out how to record it? Or has that idea finally been dropped now?

Are you sure you're getting the SACD signal into the amp, and not just the 44.1kHz/16 bit CD audio?

what would scooby do

indeed only 1's and 0's down the firewire. I'll need to confirm exactly what it does with SACD to be 100% sure.

what would scooby do

YUP SACD is deffo digital down to the amp now, I know that the last generation players had SACD disabled through the I.Link, but now it's ok.

hades

Got to admit, I've taken a slightly original route to fitting AV capability into what has always been a music-driven system. As my pre-amp is one I built myself, I fitted an AV input which bypasses the pre-amp volume control. This I feed with the AV amp's left and right pre-out. The main hi-fi speakers therefore run via my main power amp as front left and front right. The centre is bi-amped off my previous power amp. The rears are my old front speakers running off the AV amp. The front speakers and amp in particular handle the sub channel, and give more than enough bass that I don't feel any need for a sub to be booming away in a corner.

Two advantages help me do this, I guess - I've kept my old speakers and power amp, and the AV gives them a chance to do something useful. Secondly, I built my own pre-amp, as I wanted (a) the right sound quality and (b) to do whatever signal switching I felt like - achieved both rather nicely. Perhaps the third advantage is a detached house, as it allows me to enjoy music or movies at reasonable volumes without the neighbours ever having heard it.

The greatest benefit of my set up is when it comes to listening to 5.1 audio, or concerts etc. For example, the DVD version of J-M Jarres Aero - music re-written for 5.1 - is really quite something, in a way "conventional home cinema" can't get close to. It isn't as "cinema like" on normal movies as an equivalently expensive AV specific set-up, but I'm quite happy with it that way.

Pbr

You had Mclaren gear? When did you pull off the bank job?

hades

P.S. Not convinced necessarily by the "music or movies, but not both" argument. I have heard the argument that where compromises have to be made, movie set-ups try to keep volume, power, bass extension, hi-fi tries to keep tonal accuracy, timing, detail etc. However, once you get up to good (expensive) enough gear, you can have it all to a very large extent. Think it's true that high-end hi-fi does have power, bass extension etc, so I find it difficult to argue against that theory.

tiggers

I like the way you're thinking here. I have my system set to do both music and movies by using a separate decoder. I take the DVD signal direct into the decoder and feed the L/R signals to my music system via a standard pre-amp input. I then have separate amps for the surround and centre channels. These aren't quite up to the standard of the music system, but it works pretty well. The detached house thing helps quite a bit as well

Funny you mention this as I was just about to do a post about Aero. I listened to it properly for the first time yesterday and it is stunning. If anyone wants a demo disc for their surround system this is it. Not sure about the visuals though.

Regards,

tiggers.