I want to beef up my AV - Would these help?

[chris watton]

I have a Pioneer AV receiver right now (which has SKY, BR, PS4, PS3, HTPC and record deck attached), with a 5.1 speaker system. The receiver is on its way out, it keep overheating and turning itself off, so I was thinking about getting this:

https://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/...

And these, to help beef up the sound, especially for my vinyl record deck:

https://www.richersounds.com/product/floorstanders...

I already replaced the sub for something more substantial (a Tannoy), which helps. Would the above items be a good investment?

Cheers

[chris watton]

Cheers

I went to Cheltenham today to pick up the Denon receiver, and a pair of Tannoy Eclipse Three speakers:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/floorstanders/...

Instead of the MERCURY V4i floor standers. was £100 more for the Eclipse speakers, but they sounded great in the showroom, so had to have them instead.

Just got to set it all up now..

[chris watton]

OK, all set up. The Denon receiver was a lot easier to set up (with a much less complicated remote) than the Pioneer VSX-920-K it replaced. It has a smaller footprint but is taller by about an inch.

It took a while to find the option to have the sub-woofer on all the time (wasn't working when I played vinyl), but once I found my bearings navigating the options, it's quite easy to allocate each separate unit for sound. The SKY HD box doesn't seem to allow full digital sound if I just plug the HDMI into the receiver, so I had to plug that into the TV and use an optical cable for the receiver to get the surround sound - fine with PS3/4 with a single HDMI, but not the SKY HD box.

The speakers pack quite a punch and the difference to the two fronts they replaced is 100% noticeable, they sound great whatever the volume - very clear with zero distortion, even at near-full volume.

In short, very happy with purchase, and more than good enough for what we use it for.

[chris watton]

Ok, had this set up for just over a month now, and love the new hi-fi speakers that replaced the smaller fronts. So much so that I seem to have doubled my vinyl LP collection in the space of a month, they sound so good!

When watching TV and movies, I have the AV receiver in 'Movie Mode'

When I first tried it with vinyl, I left it in Movie Mode, and the volume was restricted. However, when I used 'Pure' mode, all of that changed. What a difference! I tried to increase the volume as loud as it would go, but it was simply too much, even for our large double-size lounge. What impressed me the most was the fact that the sound had zero distortion at very high (near ear-splitting) volume, very punchy with plenty of clarity (at least, that what is sounded like to me).

For the first time, I can now easily distinguish the difference in sound quality between my huge MP3 library and vinyl - it really is like night and day. Am yet to try CD's, but so far, am very happy with this set up - so glad our house is a detached!

[chris watton]

legzr1 said:

On your Sky HD box select settings from the top menu, down to sound tab , digital audio output -HDMI select DOLBY D rather than NORMAL.

This should give you DD over HDMI

Thanks for that, will check that out later!