Stereo recommendations for TV and music

Stereo recommendations for TV and music

Author
Discussion

BenWRXSEi

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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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:

  • 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
I was hoping this would be a fairly simple find, but hunting around the net I'm not having any joy. Can anyone recommend some/all of the above?
Thanks smile

Edited by BenWRXSEi on Tuesday 28th October 20:29

NorthDave

2,355 posts

231 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
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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.

TonyRPH

12,962 posts

167 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
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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.


BenWRXSEi

Original Poster:

2,343 posts

133 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
quotequote all
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 smile

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.

ianrb

1,529 posts

139 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
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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.


belleair302

6,835 posts

206 months

Wednesday 29th October 2014
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I would go and splash some cash on a Naim Mu-So.

Neil G60

692 posts

223 months

Friday 31st October 2014
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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...

TonyRPH

12,962 posts

167 months

Friday 31st October 2014
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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%)"

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. spin

I notice that even on the Marantz site, they are coy about the actual power spec. For the money I'd avoid that.



Trustmeimadoctor

12,520 posts

154 months

Friday 31st October 2014
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get a decent class T amp from china for £70 that will do better than that

wormus

14,496 posts

202 months

Saturday 1st November 2014
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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.





Edited by wormus on Saturday 1st November 11:07