Hi end home cinema speaker recommendations

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

TonyRPH said:

gizlaroc said:

hyphen said:

How much is it worth today?

About £200.

I just sold a Meridian 568 for £200, which was twice the price of the Tag at the time.

£200 a tad low - cheapest I can find on "Buy it now" is this one at ~£430

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

Good job I didn't spend £1-2000 on it then. It's an upgrade to a Yamaha DSP592, so in that context I'm sure I'll be delighted with it. RE Tag tax Andy at Nottm HFC said not, that Tag positioned themselves at the same level as Audiolab, but they got their marketing all wrong, going lifestyle (GQ etc) instead of going after hi-fi fans. Apparently spent a fortune on R&D and marketing at the time too.

Understood - also the DSP592 was a relatively low end processor. The DSP-E800 was the one to have back then.

Pricewise TAG placed themselves quite a way above Audiolab pricing IIRC.

Please don't get me wrong; I'm not disputing that the kit is good - all I'm saying is that by way of comparison, most relatively cheap (by comparison to the TAG) current (£500 - £1k) A/V receivers will kick the TAG into touch with regard to processing - however there will always be differences - some will be better with music, others better with surround sound.

Additionally - trying to run a modern HDMI based system with a receiver that has no HDMI facilities can rapidly turn into a frustrating experience.

If your primary focus is music playback then less so - but you will still have lip sync issues when alternating between SD and HD content, and even in some cases across different channels (and certainly different sources).

I know - I ran a NAD T762 (IIRC) for a long time and that was a brilliant receiver, but no HDMI...

In fairness (without wanting to appear pedantic) it's 100%+ out. My earlier recollection of approaching £1000 out was wrong, I'd need to check historical eBay but I think it was actually £600ish, from a dealer, and it is virtually as new cond.

I've quite enjoyed the Yamaha. I also really enjoyed a Celestion centre, it really gave some clout, and great detail. NHFC suggested it shall make a nice pre-amp, and were knowledgeable about the model, with some great insights. I hear that modern kit for similar, or a bit more £ can equal or possibly better it, but consider, this is a set up I've long wanted, and I want as much matching (boxes wise) as possible.

The way to maybe look at it; 'You' want an E-Type. Modern stuff has overtaken it in many ways. But it still wont be crap. You'll still love it. This is where I'm at with my Tag/AL set up. Maybe if buying an E-Type you tried a top of the range F-Type you'd then be underwhelmed with the E, but I haven't tried current flagship stuff, or even mid/v good current stuff. Hence, for me, happy days.

Edited by Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah on Sunday 26th March 22:20

EDIT - the place selling the AV you linked is actually who I bought my TAG CD player from, a really nice bloke/ hi-fi dealer in Germany, a seller I'd happily recommend.

Edited by Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah on Sunday 26th March 22:24

[gizlaroc]

One on eBay last week for £119...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAG-Mclaren-AV32R-sl-bp-...

Feb 2017 at £253....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAG-Mclaren-AV32R-Phono-...



He asked what they were worth now, hence why I said around £200.


I didn't realise you had bought it recently, I thought you had it from back in the day and were looking at a cheap way to get it up and running again, hence linking to the £500 speaker packages.
Sorry if I offended suggesting other ways of getting up and running, I didn't mean to.

[legzr1]

I'm not surprised the TAG bettered the old Yam - the 592 was a prologic device designed to get a limited bandwidth matrixed mono signal for an attempt at 'stereo'.

Don't be offended with comments on here - if you like the Tag sound then that's all that matters (personally I've never 'got it').

There's a DP with 5.1 bypass and all the add-ons gone for around £400 on AVF - a single processor model would struggle to get near that price but it doesn't matter if you're keeping it. I've a Krell HTS sitting spare that cost a previous owner over £7000 - I paid around 5% of that but that's what happens when consumers demand the latest and greatest in surround formats.

Have you decided what you're going to do then?

I honestly think you're missing a trick by not selling the power amps and replacing them with the matching TAG 5 channel power amp - less boxes, smarter looking and twice the power if you go for the 250R model.

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

gizlaroc said:

One on eBay last week for £119...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAG-Mclaren-AV32R-sl-bp-...

Feb 2017 at £253....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TAG-Mclaren-AV32R-Phono-...



He asked what they were worth now, hence why I said around £200.


I didn't realise you had bought it recently, I thought you had it from back in the day and were looking at a cheap way to get it up and running again, hence linking to the £500 speaker packages.
Sorry if I offended suggesting other ways of getting up and running, I didn't mean to.

Both with faults.

I'm not sure where your piss on his strawberries tone stems from, but it's quite unnecessary. You've dug deeper than I did when checking market rates for them, and I was fairly thorough. They were as rare as rocking horse st when I bought mine.

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

[quote=legzr1
I honestly think you're missing a trick by not selling the power amps and replacing them with the matching TAG 5 channel power amp - less boxes, smarter looking and twice the power if you go for the 250R model.
[/quote]

Is that the 7 (?) channel amp I posted earlier? It maybe 5, and my memory fails me.

I'll research more, but I'm fairly happy with all I've heard about the M's. If I'm not when up and running I'll sell and revise, but until then I think I'm satisfied.

[gizlaroc]

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

Both with faults.

I'm not sure where your piss on his strawberries tone stems from, but it's quite unnecessary. You've dug deeper than I did when checking market rates for them, and I was fairly thorough. They were as rare as rocking horse st when I bought mine.

I wasn't 'pissing on your strawberries'. I said sorry, I didn't realise you had just bought it, I thought you had it and wanted to get the system up and running again.
I said rather than spending more money on getting Audiolab amps to get the system up and running and then buying cheap speakers, use your Missions which I think are great (even said you would have to spend £1500 on speakers today to equal them) and maybe consider getting something like one of the big Arcams and maybe run the fronts off the amps and rears off the Arcam.


I didn't dig deep at all, I simply guessed at £200. As I have just sold my Merdiain processors, which at the time were the next level up and I only got £200 and £250 for those, so knew it would be about the same.
I searched ebay for finished listings after you came back and said I was out beacuse....well, I felt bad and thought maybe I had got it wrong, but that does seem to be the going rate.

They are not both faulty. One has the sticky volume pot which many had straight from the factory where it feels like it sticks when changing volume on the unit it self.

If they were as rare as rocking horse st when you bought yours then fair enough, the prices of these things go up and down like yo-yos depending on how many out there and what new st has been announced.
I bought a 568 a few months back for £500, suddenly only worth £200 when I need to move it on, that is hi end hifi.
st, my first G68 way £5000 new, this one I bought used for £1800 a few months back and looking around it looks like I will get £1000 at best, more like £700 for it. Why do I know that? I looked earlier as I actually bought that Arcam AVR400 this afternoon, it seemed too good a bargain to miss. Thinking I might put that in the TV room and move my DSP speakers into the sitting room for music. I should have realised having had to let my Meridian 568 go so cheap.

It seems with HDCP 2.2 coming everyone is panicking and dumping perfectly good systems to make sure they have the latest and greatest. Great way to pick up some bargains.

I ran a pair of Mission 752 Freedoms for 15 years on various systems, in the end with a Meridian 568 pre and 500 CD transport and a Parasound power amp for about 3 years, so I know the 752s well, and they are speakers that can take some seriously high end kit. I love them.

Edited by gizlaroc on Monday 27th March 00:04

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

gizlaroc said:

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

Both with faults.

I'm not sure where your piss on his strawberries tone stems from, but it's quite unnecessary. You've dug deeper than I did when checking market rates for them, and I was fairly thorough. They were as rare as rocking horse st when I bought mine.

I wasn't 'pissing on your strawberries'. I said sorry, I didn't realise you had just bought it, I thought you had it and wanted to get the system up and running again.
I said rather than spending more money on getting Audiolab amps to get the system up and running and then buying cheap speakers, use your Missions which I think are great (even said you would have to spend £1500 on speakers today to equal them) and maybe consider getting something like one of the big Arcams and maybe run the fronts off the amps and rears off the Arcam.


I didn't dig deep at all, I simply guessed at £200. As I have just sold my Merdiain processors, which at the time were the next level up and I only got £200 and £250 for those, so knew it would be about the same.
I searched ebay for finished listings after you came back and said I was out beacuse....well, I felt bad and thought maybe I had got it wrong, but that does seem to be the going rate.

They are not both faulty. One has the sticky volume pot which many had straight from the factory where it feels like it sticks when changing volume on the unit it self.

If they were as rare as rocking horse st when you bought yours then fair enough, the prices of these things go up and down like yo-yos depending on how many out there and what new st has been announced.
I bought a 568 a few months back for £500, suddenly only worth £200 when I need to move it on, that is hi end hifi.
st, my first G68 way £5000 new, this one I bought used for £1800 a few months back and looking around it looks like I will get £1000 at best, more like £700 for it. Why do I know that? I looked earlier as I actually bought that Arcam AVR400 this afternoon, it seemed too good a bargain to miss. Thinking I might put that in the TV room and move my DSP speakers into the sitting room for music. I should have realised having had to let my Meridian 568 go so cheap.

It seems with HDCP 2.2 coming everyone is panicking and dumping perfectly good systems to make sure they have the latest and greatest. Great way to pick up some bargains.

I ran a pair of Mission 752 Freedoms for 15 years on various systems, in the end with a Meridian 568 pre and 500 CD transport and a Parasound power amp for about 3 years, so I know the 752s well, and they are speakers that can take some seriously high end kit. I love them.

Edited by gizlaroc on Monday 27th March 00:04

I'm not looking for a fall out, so we'll leave it there. Hopefully as friends.

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

gizlaroc said:

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

It seems with HDCP 2.2 coming everyone is panicking and dumping perfectly good systems to make sure they have the latest and greatest. Great way to pick up some bargains.

Edited by gizlaroc on Monday 27th March 00:04

On a side note. Is that not like saying ' I love my (faithful, tolerant, best friend, sex mate) wife of 23 years, just because an 18 year old with long legs, a tight vagina, and tits that eddy the eagle could ski off has just come along?

Edited by Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah on Monday 27th March 00:48

[legzr1]

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

On a side note. Is that not like saying ' I love my (faithful, tolerant, best friend, sex mate) wife of 23 years, just because an 18 year old with long legs, a tight vagina, and tits that eddy the eagle could ski off has just come along?

Edited by Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah on Monday 27th March 00:48

No.

But you're not going to get HD atmos sound, DSD decoding, 4K HDR pass through/switching, thoroughly decent media streaming etc etc in a box for £400.

Up to the buyer how much that matters.

I can't be arsed / find the time to wire up some perfectly decent dipole surround speakers so I listen to 'surround' in 3.1 without 'surround'!

[hyphen]

legzr1 said:

No.

But you're not going to get HD atmos sound, DSD decoding, 4K HDR pass through/switching, thoroughly decent media streaming etc etc in a box for £400.

Up to the buyer how much that matters.

I can't be arsed / find the time to wire up some perfectly decent dipole surround speakers so I listen to 'surround' in 3.1 without 'surround'!

Unless OP has a huge screen, I understand 4k won't matter so much.

I'm currently deliberating and probably deciding against Atmos, as tv channels/Amazon/Netflix etc showing no signs on adopting it soon so not sure worth the price of 4 speakers plus hassle of installing.

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

In fairness (without wanting to appear pedantic) it's 100%+ out. My earlier recollection of approaching £1000 out was wrong, I'd need to check historical eBay but I think it was actually £600ish, from a dealer, and it is virtually as new cond.

£450 inc postage for this pristine one. Don't know if same revision as yours, but have better things to do then go read up on some old dinosaur
https://www.avforums.com/threads/tag-mclaren-av32r...

Probably the only way to settle this is if you get a home demo of a current high end amp and compare directly.

[gizlaroc]

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

I'm not looking for a fall out, so we'll leave it there. Hopefully as friends.

Me, neither and of course.

This will make you feel better, the Arcam I bought yesterday doesn't fit in my rack, not only is it too deep, but it is also too tall and I won't be able to get a centre speaker in there, not a problem I would have with much sleeker processor, something like............an av32r.



So, the obvious choice is to move it on.
However, just on my way to pick up a pair of Quad speakers for it instead.

[VEX]

gizlaroc said:

Me, neither and of course.

This will make you feel better, the Arcam I bought yesterday doesn't fit in my rack, not only is it too deep, but it is also too tall and I won't be able to get a centre speaker in there, not a problem I would have with much sleeker processor, something like............an av32r.



So, the obvious choice is to move it on.
However, just on my way to pick up a pair of Quad speakers for it instead.

And there Ladies and Gentlemen is a perfect example of both ManMaths and PHLogic in perfect harmony!

Well Done, we can all learn from you.

V.

[gizlaroc]

Cheers.

All up and running and even sounding rather nice with a Chromecast audio going into the digital in on the Arcam.

Even though it is quite a chunky amp the missus will 'probably approve as it is just one box still so quite neat, with DAB, internet radio, dac all built in.

I have not tried their Musiclife, do you know if it is worth setting up Vex?
99% of my music is through Tidal these days, is their interface any good?

[VEX]

gizlaroc said:

Cheers.

All up and running and even sounding rather nice with a Chromecast audio going into the digital in on the Arcam.

Even though it is quite a chunky amp the missus will 'probably approve as it is just one box still so quite neat, with DAB, internet radio, dac all built in.

I have not tried their Musiclife, do you know if it is worth setting up Vex?
99% of my music is through Tidal these days, is their interface any good?

Not tried it tbh. As a small installation company, without shop or demo suites we struggle to get stuff on test. Personally I would stick with Tidal, I would expect them to have a far better choice and catalogue that an own brand package. Happy to be proved wrong though.

V.

[gizlaroc]

Reading the Arcam site, it seems their network input for streaming NAS stored material now also includes quite a few streaming services....

http://www.arcam.co.uk/advice/blog,musiclife-v140-...

But it is ethernet only so I would have to think how to get ethernet in the sitting room, if it is pants I won't bother.

I am with Sonos, but been disappointed recently as many tracks from the Connect digitally to my Meridian DSP5200s have sounded really flat, I borrowed Meridians MS200 (their connect) to test out Roon and the difference on some tracks was startling. I joined the Sonos forum to ask if there was anything like an 'audiophile connect' on the roadmap and turns out they added Volume Normalisation a couple of firmwares back which would explain why some of the tracks I know that are dynamic now sound flat.

I love Sonos for use, but I know I am seriously missing out when it comes to audio quality after having the Meridian MS200 in my system for a couple of weeks.

The obvious thing to do would be swap my Connect amp for another Connect and go into the Arcam with that, but because of the above I was considering Bluesound or something similar, but then saw the Arcam can stream from Spotify, Tidal, Deezer etc. and thought if it is half decent I would give it a whirl, but have to consider it has taken my wife 3 years to get used to Sonos.

[page3]

gizlaroc said:

I joined the Sonos forum to ask if there was anything like an 'audiophile connect' on the roadmap and turns out they added Volume Normalisation a couple of firmwares back which would explain why some of the tracks I know that are dynamic now sound flat.

I love Sonos for use, but I know I am seriously missing out when it comes to audio quality after having the Meridian MS200 in my system for a couple of weeks.

Good luck getting anything but abuse in the Sonos forum. Bunch of self-deluded vipers there.

I've a ZP90 but am interested (read desperate) to improve on it as Sonos has many failings and appears to only be getting worse. How easy was it to integrate the MS200? Does it work without other Meridian gear?

I tend to use a mix of local files, Deezer and Apple Music. Unfortunately this mix isn't well supported by anything other than Sonos, although as alluded to above that support is actually quite poor once to start using it and seeing the cracks. I use a lot of Car-play so that ruled our Qubuz and Tidal (no CarPlay support).

[hyphen]

page3 said:

I tend to use a mix of local files, Deezer and Apple Music. Unfortunately this mix isn't well supported by anything other than Sonos,

Yamaha announced yesterday that Deezer is now supported by MusicCast. Im assuming Apple Music is too?

[Too Late]

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

Interesting....

I have a BK sub - P12-300SB-DF and its immense
http://www.bkelec.com/HiFi/Sub_Woofers/P12300SB-DF...

[hyphen]

Too Late said:

I have a BK sub - P12-300SB-DF and its immense
http://www.bkelec.com/HiFi/Sub_Woofers/P12300SB-DF...

Glad to see more and more audio companies are moving to switched power supplies at last.

[Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah]

Too Late said:

Fermit The Krog and Sexy Sarah said:

Interesting....

I have a BK sub - P12-300SB-DF and its immense
http://www.bkelec.com/HiFi/Sub_Woofers/P12300SB-DF...

I bought one of these off them on Saturday, apparently they bought up the last of KEF's stock at a discount. I haven't heard, but I know and trust them that if it doesn't cut the grade they'd not sell it.