New amplifier?
Discussion
I'll assume that your speakers are 752s. These are quite easy to drive and therefore 50w per channel should be sufficient to get them playing nicely.
Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
TEKNOPUG said:
I'll assume that your speakers are 752s. These are quite easy to drive and therefore 50w per channel should be sufficient to get them playing nicely.
Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
Always easy to spend other people's dosh.Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
I'd be surprised if the telly doesn't have at least a headphone jack.
Is using a USB DAC an option? That might offer some more choices?
OutInTheShed said:
TEKNOPUG said:
I'll assume that your speakers are 752s. These are quite easy to drive and therefore 50w per channel should be sufficient to get them playing nicely.
Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
Always easy to spend other people's dosh.Your TV only has an optical out, no RCAs. Your laptop will have at a minimum a USB out. Therefore I would suggest you buy a separate DAC with optical and USB input, such as https://www.richersounds.com/catalogsearch/result/...
Then buy a 2 channel amp with a minimum of 50w at 8ohms. Consider a second hand amp initially. You can them upgrade the DAC and amp individually in future if you wish.
I'd be surprised if the telly doesn't have at least a headphone jack.
Is using a USB DAC an option? That might offer some more choices?
I have the Marantz amp mentioned and it is a great bit of kit. Plenty powerful enough, lovely sound using with my turntable or with the TV through an optical cable, A nice pair of Wharfedales on one channel and a pair of Maurdent Shorts on the other for the other room and a Tannoy sub. I am more than happy with it.
OutInTheShed said:
TEKNOPUG said:
There is a 3.5mm headphone socket, sure. But the optical out is a far better solution. The DAC I suggested is only £150, leaving another £150 of the OP's budget to source a second hand 2 channel amp. Should be doable.
far better?How many dB is that exactly?
TEKNOPUG said:
A dedicated external DAC will be far better than the one included in the TV. This one is better than the Cambridge example earlier: https://www.schiit.co.uk/Modi_plus
A bold statement.Can you put any numbers to it?
How 'bad' is the DAC in the telly? Are the errors and noise it introduces audible in the real listening environment?
Spending half the OP's budget on a DAC might compromise the amplifier if he wants good distortion performance at fairly high volume.
£150 does not go very far on an amplifier.
You could buy used, but a secondhand amp won't have much warranty and could be a false economy.
One could look for middle ground between the cheap external DACs (such as the £15 one which sounds fine to me) and those with 3 figure price tags, but it's a bit of a bipolar market with not much middle ground?
Maybe people just shouldn't bother if they can't afford proper money?
Not in my belief system, there's normally an affordable way forwards!
I don't know the OP's Telly, but some TVs I do know have excellent sound available at the headphone jack. It's (mostly/often?) the speakers which let TV's down it seems. For a reality check, plug some decent phones into the jack and see what the clarity is like.
Depending on what people watch, a lot of people start seeing value in multi-channel sound, a stereo DAC isn't upgradeable in that direction.
Pay your money, take your choice.
OutInTheShed said:
TEKNOPUG said:
A dedicated external DAC will be far better than the one included in the TV. This one is better than the Cambridge example earlier: https://www.schiit.co.uk/Modi_plus
A bold statement.Can you put any numbers to it?
How 'bad' is the DAC in the telly? Are the errors and noise it introduces audible in the real listening environment?
Spending half the OP's budget on a DAC might compromise the amplifier if he wants good distortion performance at fairly high volume.
£150 does not go very far on an amplifier.
You could buy used, but a secondhand amp won't have much warranty and could be a false economy.
One could look for middle ground between the cheap external DACs (such as the £15 one which sounds fine to me) and those with 3 figure price tags, but it's a bit of a bipolar market with not much middle ground?
Maybe people just shouldn't bother if they can't afford proper money?
Not in my belief system, there's normally an affordable way forwards!
I don't know the OP's Telly, but some TVs I do know have excellent sound available at the headphone jack. It's (mostly/often?) the speakers which let TV's down it seems. For a reality check, plug some decent phones into the jack and see what the clarity is like.
Depending on what people watch, a lot of people start seeing value in multi-channel sound, a stereo DAC isn't upgradeable in that direction.
Pay your money, take your choice.
And seeing as you haven't mentioned it, should we presume that you also advocate connecting the laptop via 3.5mm headphone socket and utilising the onboard DAC to the new stereo amplifier that does at least 50w into 8ohms and is within his budget of £300?
Which doesn't exist.
And then some talk about upgrading to multi-channel sound - even though only 2 channels are available via 3.5mm headphone out? So the OP would actually have to buy an optical lead or more likely an HDMI lead to connect the eARC socket on the TV to an eARC socket on a multi-channel AV receiver. So throwing away everything that he had already bought and replacing it with new equipment?
That all seems like a very sensible, high fidelity and cost effective way to meet the OP's requirements and budget.....I don't know what I was thinking.....
TEKNOPUG said:
So just so we have this straight, the OP wants to play stereo music videos from his TV to his 2 floor-standing speakers AND his laptop and your solution is a 3.5mm jack from the TV headphone socket to RCAs on a new stereo amplifier that does at least 50w into 8ohms and is within his budget of £300? Which doesn't exist.
And seeing as you haven't mentioned it, should we presume that you also advocate connecting the laptop via 3.5mm headphone socket and utilising the onboard DAC to the new stereo amplifier that does at least 50w into 8ohms and is within his budget of £300?
Which doesn't exist.
And then some talk about upgrading to multi-channel sound - even though only 2 channels are available via 3.5mm headphone out? So the OP would actually have to buy an optical lead or more likely an HDMI lead to connect the eARC socket on the TV to an eARC socket on a multi-channel AV receiver. So throwing away everything that he had already bought and replacing it with new equipment?
That all seems like a very sensible, high fidelity and cost effective way to meet the OP's requirements and budget.....I don't know what I was thinking.....
What I'm saying is that the world of 'Hi Fi' doesn't actually seem to offer much in the way of solutions in the £300 budget.And seeing as you haven't mentioned it, should we presume that you also advocate connecting the laptop via 3.5mm headphone socket and utilising the onboard DAC to the new stereo amplifier that does at least 50w into 8ohms and is within his budget of £300?
Which doesn't exist.
And then some talk about upgrading to multi-channel sound - even though only 2 channels are available via 3.5mm headphone out? So the OP would actually have to buy an optical lead or more likely an HDMI lead to connect the eARC socket on the TV to an eARC socket on a multi-channel AV receiver. So throwing away everything that he had already bought and replacing it with new equipment?
That all seems like a very sensible, high fidelity and cost effective way to meet the OP's requirements and budget.....I don't know what I was thinking.....
Yet the core parts of a solution, an audio DAC chip and some audio amps, are not fundamentally very expensive.
Maybe there is a choice here. Either understand what you want from 'HiFi' and pay what it costs, or look at cheaper options.
Like many people I've been surprised by how good bargain Class D amps can sound. I've been impressed by high-rate Bluetooth kit too.
Ebay is knee deep in 50-100W amps, mostly with Bluetooth, but also some with USB. I wonder how good any of them are?
Somehow there aren't any serious reviews of this genre of product, or I've not seen them.
Is there any middle way in buying, between ebay and Richer Sounds?
Or you can go for secondhand stuff, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who's gone down this route and has had an amp develop a fault after a few months, mine's now in the loft awaiting repair. Then again what real warranty is there on bargain ebay kit?
There are pitfalls in playing expensive games on the cheap....
We need to nail down OP's 'functional requirements'. What do they need it to do?
Two speakers, or more than two?
TV / Youtube source only or others too?
TV input- presumably wired connection?
Laptop input- wired or wireless?
Remote control?
It's not worth getting wrapped up in the finer points of sound quality as long as Youtube is the source.
It will definitely be possible to provide all the functionality within the budget, but SQ as a consideration is going to have to take third place.
Two speakers, or more than two?
TV / Youtube source only or others too?
TV input- presumably wired connection?
Laptop input- wired or wireless?
Remote control?
It's not worth getting wrapped up in the finer points of sound quality as long as Youtube is the source.
It will definitely be possible to provide all the functionality within the budget, but SQ as a consideration is going to have to take third place.
I would always advocate an holistic approach to avoid wasting money or buying things twice. Yes a 3.5mm to RCA lead would work. But it's not the best sounding solution. If you spend some sensible money on a decent external DAC, that will have all your digital sources taken care of; TV, PC, Phone, CD Player etc. You can even buy DAC's with Bluetooth/Wifi (although I would be wary of using wireless audio with video, as there is always a delay which can effect the enjoyment of the video) even DAC's that act as pre-amps, which mean you can use a power amp instead of an integrated amp, which widens the choice further. You will then be confident that the input source is beings delivered to the amp at the highest quality.
If you skimp at the connection between source and amplification, how will you ever know what effect your chosen amp is having? If you don't like the sound or feel that it could be improved upon, do you buy a different amp? Or is the cheap components in your TV/PC etc the cause? The OPs £300 budget is not going to get him what he wants brand new, unless maybe a no brand Chinese Class-D amp (that's not to say that you can't buy good Chinese amps but they aren't giving them away) with 1 year warranty that you have to send back to Shengzhou and the cheap DAC in the component. But as the OP has just spent ~ £1500 on one of the best TV's on the market, I expect they want something that sounds comparable to the images the screen can produce.
So the answer is always going to be a secondhand amp unless the budget increases, but if you able to maximise the quality and power of the signal, you can get away with a simpler, less powerful and cheaper amp without losing too much quality. Until such time as the need or desire is there to buy a more powerful / better / feature-laden amp.
If you skimp at the connection between source and amplification, how will you ever know what effect your chosen amp is having? If you don't like the sound or feel that it could be improved upon, do you buy a different amp? Or is the cheap components in your TV/PC etc the cause? The OPs £300 budget is not going to get him what he wants brand new, unless maybe a no brand Chinese Class-D amp (that's not to say that you can't buy good Chinese amps but they aren't giving them away) with 1 year warranty that you have to send back to Shengzhou and the cheap DAC in the component. But as the OP has just spent ~ £1500 on one of the best TV's on the market, I expect they want something that sounds comparable to the images the screen can produce.
So the answer is always going to be a secondhand amp unless the budget increases, but if you able to maximise the quality and power of the signal, you can get away with a simpler, less powerful and cheaper amp without losing too much quality. Until such time as the need or desire is there to buy a more powerful / better / feature-laden amp.
trashbat said:
Lucid_AV is right but we might lose sight of the fact that you're currently listening on laptop speakers.
The specific question though was whether an NR1200 sound as good as a PM6007. It wasn't "Will an NR1200 sound better than my laptop speakers?"trashbat said:
The question to my mind is whether you will want more in short order, like 5.1 or better surround sound, or whether you'll be connecting anything else to this arrangement like a games console. That should inform whether you want an AV receiver - and what spec - or whether a classic two channel amp will do.
Me, I would look at the classifieds on AV Forums and see if anything jumped out at me for your budget.
A quick trawl through the classifieds at AVForums is a good shout, but the buyer needs to know what they're looking for and whether it will fulfil all their needs. Me, I would look at the classifieds on AV Forums and see if anything jumped out at me for your budget.
OutInTheShed said:
What I'm saying is that the world of 'Hi Fi' doesn't actually seem to offer much in the way of solutions in the £300 budget. Yet the core parts of a solution, an audio DAC chip and some audio amps, are not fundamentally very expensive.
The chips and amp parts might not be that expensive, but once they're integrated into a whole amplifier with decent design then we're looking at a whole different ball game, aren't we? OutInTheShed said:
I've been impressed by high-rate Bluetooth kit too.
Sure. But do we know that the OP's laptop can output high bit-rate Bluetooth? It takes two to tango. OutInTheShed said:
Maybe there is a choice here. Either understand what you want from 'HiFi' and pay what it costs, or look at cheaper options.
Isn't that part of the reason why the OP is here? To find out if their original idea is feasible. 
HustleRussell said:
We need to nail down OP's 'functional requirements'. What do they need it to do?
Two speakers, or more than two?
TV / Youtube source only or others too?
TV input- presumably wired connection?
Laptop input- wired or wireless?
Remote control?
It's not worth getting wrapped up in the finer points of sound quality as long as Youtube is the source.
I've perhaps been a bit vague. Two speakers, source Youtube from my laptop and CD/DVD player. Optical connection from the TV. Remote control. Laptop connection to amp wireless. Not sure if the amp needs optical inputs for the TV and CD player? As CD is one of the inputs, sound quality is a factor, so I've pretty much given up on the £300 budget. Two speakers, or more than two?
TV / Youtube source only or others too?
TV input- presumably wired connection?
Laptop input- wired or wireless?
Remote control?
It's not worth getting wrapped up in the finer points of sound quality as long as Youtube is the source.
Lucid_AV said:
OutInTheShed said:
What I'm saying is that the world of 'Hi Fi' doesn't actually seem to offer much in the way of solutions in the £300 budget. Yet the core parts of a solution, an audio DAC chip and some audio amps, are not fundamentally very expensive.
The chips and amp parts might not be that expensive, but once they're integrated into a whole amplifier with decent design then we're looking at a whole different ball game, aren't we? OutInTheShed said:
I've been impressed by high-rate Bluetooth kit too.
Sure. But do we know that the OP's laptop can output high bit-rate Bluetooth? It takes two to tango. OutInTheShed said:
Maybe there is a choice here. Either understand what you want from 'HiFi' and pay what it costs, or look at cheaper options.
Isn't that part of the reason why the OP is here? To find out if their original idea is feasible. Personally I'd go for a secondhand amp and not worry too much if it died, but I hesitate to tell others to do the same. It's worth looking around for bargains, I got a reasonable amp for £20 last year. But the OP is seeking quite a lot of power, which whittles away a lot of the bargain market.
OR am I wrong about wanting north of 50W/ch?
I suggested looking at USB amps, that should work well with the laptop, I don't know about the TV though?.
It's one of those things where if you can't afford what you'd ideally like, you either compromise or take chances with well-used stuff.
If there was a perfect answer for the Op's 2-300 quid, it would kind of suppress the market for £1000 solutions.
Then of course, as per my multi-room/CD jukebox ramblings, what might people want in the near future?
If spending a fir chunk of money, it's good to future-proof a little if you can.
If going the secondhand route, I'd consider favouring certain brands which seem to hold some value on ebay as 'spares or repair'.
legzr1 said:
Agreed.
AVForums is a no-brainier for formally good to excellent amplifiers being moved on by those that need the latest codecs. The OPs budget would easily get a former £1000+ amp from the likes of Denon, Yamaha or Sony etc.
Worth looking on Facebook Marketplace too. I picked up a Pioneer VSX-LX70 for £50. AVForums is a no-brainier for formally good to excellent amplifiers being moved on by those that need the latest codecs. The OPs budget would easily get a former £1000+ amp from the likes of Denon, Yamaha or Sony etc.
It's currently used as an amp for my Echo Dot in the kitchen. Bit overkill though
tonyg58 said:
Try one of the Yamaha RN series amps.(RN402,RN602 etc).
It would probably have to be second hand now.
Decent amp with loads of inputs (Optical,stereo and bluetooth which you need, but can also play online music services).
There's an RN803 not too far from me, but they want £600 for it...It would probably have to be second hand now.
Decent amp with loads of inputs (Optical,stereo and bluetooth which you need, but can also play online music services).
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