I have a friend ..

that is about to spend a load of money on a
"BOSE LIFESTYLE® 48 DVD home entertainment system", 42" plasma, a projector, an xbox, ps2 and game cube. Shes a girly too

I'm trying to persuade her that she can do a lot better than the Bose. The problem is I know very little about AV systems, in fact I know very little about anything, but I thought you guys (and girls) could offer a few suggestions.

Prerequisites ?

Has to look good with minimum of wiring, but I don't know how you are going to get away from that. Room is 7 x 6m, double height celing with a ruddy great spiral staircase in the centre, which I think detracts from the practical side of things, but then it's not my choice.

Must play DVDs, CDs
5.1, DTS ?
MP3s
PS2, Xbox etc

Must be half way decent for audio. Budget ? 10k gbp I reckon, give or take.

Cheers

 

Firestorm let it go.

There is far to much snobbery surrounding hifi. You girl friend clearly does not give a shit and just wants something that does the job, sounds good and looks good. What she has chosen will fit the bill.

The only way this thread will help is by getting her there cheaper.

 

Gary, I know where you are coming from - I have an excuse, she did ask my opinion, so I reckon I should at least give it a try, but like I said, I know sweet fa about it, btw she likes the way mine sounds, but hates the looks, clunkiness etc. (Old Naim chrome bumper stuff, 417A preamp, old, old, ARcam Alpha with Dyn 50s)

 

This sounds like a similar thread to the 'gorgeous hi-fi' one. How much does that Bose cost? 10K is a lot for a AV system not including the TV if she doesn't really care about the sound!

Try showing her Cyrus, they have an AV processor called the AV 8, then you can add a DVD 8 and a few stereo power-amps to finish off. Monitor Audio Gold Reference surround set-up for speakers. Should be under £10k and sound far far far better than the bose!

 

Actually I just thought... check out the 'Blue Sky System One 5.1'. It is an active sub and satellite 5.1 system, but it is really, really good. They are used a lot in the pro side of things for film sound track production but they sound very good on music as well.

Get a Cyrus AV and DVD 8 plus a Blue Sky System One 5.1 and you have a very competent and minimalist system.

 

me id just get a denon dvd player... a denon amp and a decent sub sat system.

The only thing that need connect the DVD to the amp is one digital cable. and the speakers can just run off some basic wire (i mean the bose is wired anyway.. so it would be just as much cabling)

In fact thats a good point... even a normal hi-fi based cinema system isnt necesserilly gonna have any more cable than the bose.

it still has a cable for sub.. and a whole bunch of other cables for all the sattelites... and within thsoe limits you can probably get a better looking and better sounding system for a lot less money.

god even above denon stuff with the KEF egg system would likely sound better

 

For style and performance it has to be Meridian, as posted on the 5K thread.

Mr Perceptive

 

Hmmm.... Like this idea of a neat active systems. If I were to start all over again...... dreaming...... TMA+ATCs or Linn Unidisks SC+BlueSkys

Some alternative to Bose.
STONEAUDIO UK doing this for £3445 or some nice secondhand Trikan/Takans/Sub in Cherry.




If this girl is my sister I'll recommend these toys.....

Sony DVP955+STR900+Castle Compacts from Hifibitz £1640

 

Firestorm -

I see you are in London.

If she is also in London, then I'd reccomend going with her to a really good shop. If you go somewhere with really decent brands, the chances of coming out with better components will go up, obviously.

She would then be able to see, and hear for herself if the Bose is what she wants, or something else.

One of the bigger London shops is this one:

http://www.kjwestone.com/home.htm

I'd honestly walk in, tell them the budget and ask them what they can demonstrate.

 

nb - check out their 'ex demonstration' section.

She may not want used kit, but Im sure you could sneak in some ex-dem kit to stretch the budget she has further. I saw a 50" plasma there, reduced from about 6k to 3k.

 

How about visiting Cornflake? They do the sort of stuff that is installed into your home too if she really doesn't want wires and stuff!

 

Let her choose her own kit! If you give advice that she acts upon, who do you think will get the blame when it doesn't all end up being 'perfect'?

 

yes i'd suggest Cornflake or Audio T or someone like that to do a custom install. Mordaunt Short Genies would be a good starting point maybe with that Linn Classik Movie or something and a 50" Pioneer plasma, or even better, something like a Infocus or Panasonic PTAE700 projector

 

Plasma
Pioneer 435XDE £2900
Panasonic TH-42PV500 £2500

Dvd player
Pioneer 868 £699
Denon DVD 3910 £720
Marantz DV-7500 £700

Amp
Pioneer VSX-AX5Ai £999
Denon AVR-3805 £799
Marantz SR 8500 £999

Projector
Panasonic AE700 £1100
Sony HS50 £1700

 

For a good looking home cinema setup at a good price, this advert on pinkfish by central audio looks interesting:



Central Audio
Trade: Central Audio

Registered: Mar 2004
Location:
Posts: 4
Densen B200 Bx340

Both items are new and have never been used.

BX 340 4 CHANNEL POWER AMP RRP £1850 NOW £895
B200 PRE RRP£1000 NOW £495

No takers and they go on ebay.

All the best Tony.

 

right guys, this is what I have said :

Me ? I'd go for the Panasonic plasma. PC based MP3 system, as you will get so much more for your money, records TV programs on to HD or DVD, plays DVD, MP3, CD ... so you can get the screen, multichannel amp and speakers and miss out the other boxes. May be just a cheap DVD player if you want to watch DVDs without the PC. Take a look at the summary on http://www.elonex.co.uk/digitalhome/

Panasonic th-42pv500 http://www.panasonic.co.uk/plasma-tv/th42pv500ped/index.htm
Speakers ? B&W MT30 http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/products.ranges/label/Range Mini Theatre
Amp ? Arcam Diva AVR250 http://www.arcam.co.uk/diva_prod_range.cfm
Media PC - Evesham ebox2
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=496 - roku soundbridge
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=80 - squeezebox2

roku looks nicer, but the squeezebox is more versatile.

Take a look at the websites.

Decide if what I've suggested is what you want, if not, tell me what you'd like to change. Once you've short listed what you want, then you need to see and hear the stuff you're considering. There are a few decent dealers in central London and in Epsom that are worth spending a morning or afternoon in, to see the kit and to hear what they have to say.

 

Take her to Harrods (she'll be less intimidated than a real hi-fi shop) and have a scan at the Linn classik movie. I dem'd one there, much better than I expected and looks fairly mug proof and pretty nice.

 

In my experience so far, definitely not.

I think the usability of my htpc - presently based on Windows MCE - is utter crap. It is still fundamentally a PC and when it throws a tantrum, or needs some additional feature/tweak, it expects to have a keyboard and mouse.

This is the prime reason why I still haven't yet installed it in the lounge; I get enough stick from the number of remote controls without having to explain why you now also need a remote keyboard and remote mouse, and I don't fancy the thought of dragging the keyboard out from between the cushions of the settee.

I'd been hoping to put an article/thread on here comprising a slick guide to building/using an htpc, but as I said, from my experience to date, and my expectations of how easy consumer goods should be to operate, I'm very cautious about recommending it even to the technically astute and masochistic.

The other reasons for steering you away from this concept...

Audio user interface:
by default, htpc's use the screen as the track selection user interface. Why should you turn on a 42" plasma to seelct your track and see what's playing?

DTV:
Windows MCE does NOT support the red button on freeview. There's no interactive buttons, no interactive channels, no teletext and no subtitles

E4 on freeview
You have to hack the registry to get E4 to appear. The number of times I've had to retune all channels - and reboot the mahcine to get it to retune all channels - is ridiculous

Seriously disapointing

On the plus side, what it does it does well. Recording and time shifting live TV. Making sense of a jumbled mass of audio tracks.

But there's then no inherent way of archiving TV to DVD, for example. So it's back to the mouse and keyboard...

 

Squeezebox is much better than the Roku, having owned both it is well worth paying the little extra for the squeezebox (and it is available in silver)

Has web interface, better visualisations (analogue VU!!), it is more reliable and never seems to need to buffer tracks which the Roku did.

Andrew

I can get the Squeezebox in either colour for £185+postage if you decide to go down that route

 

ChrisPa,
points noted - what would your suggestion be for basically a flac/mp3/ogg server that can stream music to the Roku or squeezebox2 ? Assuming we can drop the other 'not so slick' functionalities ?

Perhaps a low end pc with 3/4 large hard disks (raid 5?) kept out of the way once the cd library has been digitised ?

From my experience of pcs and multimedia I think you are right. Too many variables, poor interface and not enough development -unless the latest XP Media Edition overcomes these issues ?

Andrew
Are the dacs on the Roku and SB2 usable in their own right ?

Any one know if its possible to rip more than one cd at a time with multiple cd roms ?