Whats the best option here?

Hi,

Maybe out of your league (maybe not, if go 2nd hand and bargain like a armenian rug seller), but the principle behind it may be not, I'm suggesting basically really good 2-Channel sound, plus using the TV as "fill in" center (see also Jimmy Hughes on doing this even for music) and ditching the rears.

Having two front channels that offer great dynamics and resolutions with a little fill-in in the middle is in my not so humble opinion MUCH BETTER for conveying the intent of the movie and the sound you get in the cinema than five mediocre channels.

BTW, my Media Center PC cost around £ 700 in parts (from mailorder places in the UK) and several weekends, mostly spend on getting the PC's noise levels down to "whisper quiet" and to getting all the software to give the best results. For that the way in which it works is well compensation.

A friend has £ 500 DVD Player/Recorder with a Harddrive and dual tuner, it's well down on picture quality and much worse to use...

Ciao T

 

True, and fair enough, but I happen to like 5.1 for movies... I've watched movies many times on 2.0 systems and to me the 5-channel is much better for this... but each to their own.

I'm not after anything too flash, I dont have a lot of money to spend on things like this as most of it gets ****ed up the wall, and my stereo probably does not see as much use as most, all I want is good sound for the tightest budget.

Mind you, once I get it up and running, I shall be able to try it for movies once again and compare them. If I found the stereo amp kicking the yammy's arse on movies then i'd consider cutting my losses, although i cant imagine that happenning based on my past experience of movies on 2-ch versus 5-ch.

Having said that if I started again and had the Pioneer SE-DIR800C headphones that I now own i would probably not have bothered with the speakers at all - wireless dolby headphones that are pretty nice TBH.

 

Hi,

Given your comments you probably like 5.1 mainly for the "ambience", the general feeling of spaciousness, not the actually steering of specific effects.

If you use a Dolby Pro Logic downmix (not a 2.0 traditional one) speakers that throw a really good three-dimensional soundfield do that at least as well, as all the "ambience cues" are included and are decoded, except the soundfield is all ahead of you and not partially wrapped around the back (which I find disturbing and not interesting).

Ciao T

 

Well yes the ambience is good, but i also like that i can hear things like helicopters moving around the room - that would count as steering effects would it not?

I dont deny you can get good sound in movies from stereo, but from what i have personally heard, i prefer 5.1.

 

To be honest my limited experience with HT has been that you can get pretty good surround using cheapish speakers since AC3 determined which speakers got what effects rather than needing a good decoder. You need to spend A LOT more on good stereo speakers to get imaging and soundstage that compares to speakers that are physically placed differently for effects.

But, I don't really care about quality for films anyway. I just want to hear the dialogue and if I get a few effects behind me thats cool too. I don't sit there and go hmmm... that was a bit muddy sounding.

Hence if I were to go for movie stuff I would probably do as I think Julian has and get an all in one move thing and speakers and stick to good stuff for stereo. At the moment I am happy using stereo for films as well though.

 

Just watch the capacitance isn't too high. Maplin balanced microphone cable is good over long runs. Good quality satellite installation cable also works very well and usually has low capacitance per metre.

 

Now you make me think about it, with microphone cable they sometimes specify ‘high’ or ‘low’ impedance. Ones marked high impedance are for microphones with a high internal impedance and should usually have low capacitance to avoid excessive loading. Ones marked low impedance are for low impedance microphones will often concentrate more on low resistance.

As Hi-Fi components usually go from low impedance to high impedance I would think that cable capacitance is not such an issue and that low resistance is more important. Is this not right?

 

Hi,

Those are exactly the kind of effects that spoil it for me.

In a huge cinema, there is some believability to this, as you could at least fit a helicopter inside, in my living room the conecpet of a russian Mil MI-24 (Hind) combat helicopter flying around in my living room is quite ridiculous. The resulting cognitive dissonance completely spoils it for me and forces me to forgo the gimick. Never mind the fact that they never get the engine noise right.

I do like the feeling of somewhat "being there", the "atmosphere" surround sound can generate, but really good DPL downmix via 2.0 is not far behind and keeps to me the action more centered on the screen, where it happens.

I guess it's different strokes for different blokes.

You might need to try to get a set of 5 or 6 identical, really decent identical small HiFi speakers (miniatures are both easy to place AND cheap - eg small Missions) with a serious or better two (downmix LFE & low bass into the subs in the Amp and set all speakers to small).

That set up right, with a good analog signal into a modern surround sound Amp/Receiver should give both reasonable music in "2.1" and good effects of Helis flying around your room and all the rest. As in Films a lot of energy is pumped into the center I normally recommend buying three pairs of speakers and doubling the center speakers up (on their sides, tweeters facing each other and ideally each speaker angled outwards somewhat).

The next step would be a better stereo Amp and using the preamp (front) feeds from the amp to drive that, if no preamp outputs exist you can wire up a handfull of resistors to use attenuated speaker outputs for movies and to use a seperate player or the analog outputs of a better DVD Player to drive the stereo Amp on music.

Ciao T

 

Funny that is exactly what we have at my Dads. Yamaha DSP1000 amp which was their absolute top one of the pro-logic stuff and mission surrounds and centres. Large missions for the fronts until they blew up. It sounded VERY good in the old house before my parents got divorced. In the smaller room of the house he has now it just doesn't compare.

 

surely that's more down to setup then - fiddling with delay and level settings for the rear channels should improve the situation surely?
i find that i can get away with very low quality kit for a/v duties. i went from a dsp e-800 with a b&w cdm 7/ cnt front setup and mission 78ds rears to a cheap all in one boom and tizz panasonic ht in a box thing. no it's not as good but it's not terrible and it does the job.
paul,
i'd go with a squeezebox 2 , it's cheap, small, decent quality, convienient and fits in with your music storage / format philosiphy. i wouldnt bother with a dac yet - save up and get a decent one if you decide to go that way but do get a good psu for the squeezebox asap.

 

flog the lot, get a nait 2 and a rega planet.

Job done.

Yamaha!

 

I think some of you lot are wrongly assuming i'm unhappy with the surround side of things. I'm not

Thanks for the suggestions so far anyway though, plenty to think about...

Gary i've got an onix amp on its way - should be similar enough to a nait.

 

Similar but better in every way.

 

Yay! My Onix OA21 amplifier came through today, and my god is it just so much better than using an AV amp - much sweeter and more detailed, and faster punchier bass, its just so much better. In fact I reckon it probably sounds just as good, if not better than the Exposure - it has that same PRATTY sound but it sounds a bit less harsh TBH.

Glad to be back

 

Hmm, these guys who are telling me that perhaps my yammy amp aint that good for movies either, well i'm not saying anything yet, but perhaps they might be on to something...

i've just listened to some Jean Michelle Jarre (sp?) and I actually honest to god heard sounds coming from behind me. How is this possible? I've had plenty of two channel systems and i've never, ever heard them do that before. Admittedly i've got my speakers set up far better than I've ever had them before.

Even so, i can almost see me perhaps considering to maximimise my 2-channel system for both at this rate... i mean i cant have massive bass in here anyway, and if this thing can chuck sounds around the room like it just has been doing, well........