Stereo recommendations for TV and music
Discussion
Perhaps I'm getting old, but I went into House of Fraser yesterday to have a look through the stereo offering as I'm after something a bit more substantial for the new house and I was both bewildered and disappointed at the offerings! We have an open-plan kitchen with a sofa and TV area at one end. I have no interest in multi-room or surround sound offerings (CBA with wiring or positioning of multiple speakers), I just want a fairly 'traditional' setup, ideally something along the lines of the following:
Thanks
- Two large floor-standing speakers to sit either side of the TV. I'm happy to pick up second-hand speakers (my dad has some lovely old 60s units which I rather covet!)
- A central unit which will take a sound feed from the TV
- Presumably an amp of some sort to provide the speakers with enough power?
- DAB radio
- Bluetooth connectivity to play music off phones (nice but not essential, a line in would be enough)
- Something that looks fairly understated would be nice
Thanks
Edited by BenWRXSEi on Tuesday 28th October 20:29
You need a home cinema AVR to power the floor standing sstanding and the centre speaker. Your centre speaker needs to match your floor standers (aurally) so it makes sense to use the same make. Most AVRs will let you use airplay to send music from your phone or tablet.
Some will have Dab or internet radio built in too.
I like Denon kit.
Some will have Dab or internet radio built in too.
I like Denon kit.
You could use a standard stereo receiver such as this Onkyo
It has digital inputs (both optical and coax) so you could feed the digital output of your TV into it (assuming your TV has such a thing) - or - feed the digital output of a Sky box / PVR etc. into it.
You would need to set the digital output to 'PCM' to avoid getting a Dolby encoded feed which the receiver wouldn't know what to do with.
TV through stereo speakers actually works rather well, because 99% of TV broadcasts are in stereo as a minimum these days, so the voice placement (dialogue) is centered anyway.
This would also negate the need for a center speaker.
It has digital inputs (both optical and coax) so you could feed the digital output of your TV into it (assuming your TV has such a thing) - or - feed the digital output of a Sky box / PVR etc. into it.
You would need to set the digital output to 'PCM' to avoid getting a Dolby encoded feed which the receiver wouldn't know what to do with.
TV through stereo speakers actually works rather well, because 99% of TV broadcasts are in stereo as a minimum these days, so the voice placement (dialogue) is centered anyway.
This would also negate the need for a center speaker.
Good suggestion, thanks Tony! I've asked similar questions on a couple of forums and the answers all seem to involve spending many hundreds of £££, this looks like far better value
I realise it probably won't be the most exciting system in the world, but currently I have a £50 iPod dock performing the music duties so anything will be a big improvement!
The TV is a three-year-old Samsung Smart TV so I would hope it has the required outputs. I'll have a check.
I realise it probably won't be the most exciting system in the world, but currently I have a £50 iPod dock performing the music duties so anything will be a big improvement!
The TV is a three-year-old Samsung Smart TV so I would hope it has the required outputs. I'll have a check.
I have just acquired a Cyrus Streamline V2 to do just this. Creative Audio have some ex dem stock for about half price, so say £700 rather than £1400. They won't drive a centre channel, but then again you don't really need one, and you would need to make sure they can drive your floor standers to the required level in your room. But they are pretty good, i.e. very good with music and with movie soundtracks, at least those which do not depend on special effects.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
This is a neat little stero system that does it all. I heard it paired with some new B&W bookshelf speaker the other day at SSAV and it sounded great with compressed MP3 and lossless higher quality sources.
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-11053-m...
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-11053-m...
Neil G60 said:
This is a neat little stero system that does it all. I heard it paired with some new B&W bookshelf speaker the other day at SSAV and it sounded great with compressed MP3 and lossless higher quality sources.
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-11053-m...
"Powerful 60 W x 2 channels (6 ohms, 1 kHz, THD 10%)"http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-11053-m...
That's far from powerful...
60W x2 @ 10% distortion... Probably a realistic 40W x2 @ 1% - this might be a bit limiting if the OP wants to drive large speakers at party levels.
I notice that even on the Marantz site, they are coy about the actual power spec. For the money I'd avoid that.
I was in the same situation as you so I bought one of these: http://www.whathifi.com/sony/str-dn1040/review and 3 Proac studio speakers from Fleabay, I also have a Cambridge sub and a HTPC running XBMC. The surround speakers are a pair of old Mission 733 floor standers I had laying about.
Whole lot cost about £1500 to put together and in PLII mode it works great for music and video. All my Blurays, DVDs and music live on a 3TB NAS so I can access them all over the house.
Whole lot cost about £1500 to put together and in PLII mode it works great for music and video. All my Blurays, DVDs and music live on a 3TB NAS so I can access them all over the house.
Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 1st November 11:07
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