5.1 system for a leaving room (4x5m)

[madeinstein]

Hiya,

I've recently purchased Pioneer 508XD + PS3 and I'm looking for AV Receiver and 5.1 speaker set. (I will get proper blue ray player when they come to the market at reasonable price)

AV Receiver requirements:
- more than 2 HDMI inputs (PS3+SKYHD+future BD player)
- 1080p or 1080i upscaler for SD sources (how good is this? Is it worth paying for it?)
- DNLA compatibility (nice to have to access home music library on Buffalo NAS drive, PS3 does it already)

The only thing I found so far is Denon 3808 or Pioneer VSX-LX70 but this comes at £1k price! The new onkyo 606 looks like it's gonna have the first two features but not DNLA, it's a shame that even onyo 875 doesn't have DNLA!

Speakers
- I like B&W 685 Theatre but I'm not sure how good these speakers are for 5.1 setup. I know they are good stereo speakers so I assume should be ok for movies as well as stereo. Alternatively Monitor Audio BR2 AV setup. I don't really like small speakers like KEF 530.

How does it sound? Any alternatives?

Thanks

 

[professorhat]

Hi, you'll struggle to get an AV amp with all those features for less than £800 - £1000 I think. The 606 I think it's still unconfirmed on the scaler at the moment? If it does, this is probably the closest you'll get - and just carry on using the PS3 for your DNLA stuff.

On the 685 Theatre, I have the 685 fronts, HTM62 centre and M1 rears (as can't fit the 686s into my living room the way it's set up). It's a fantastic sound and, once set up properly, the timing on the surround is superb - far better than my old system. The 685s are very good musically as well, even through my Denon AV amp.

 

[madeinstein]

Cheers! It's good to hear that you're happy with B&W 600 series.. I'm definetly going to get 685s for front (I can hook them up directly to TV) and maybe wait a bit to get more info about upcoming Onkyo 606 and buy the rest of the speaker set when I get AV Receiver one day.

Do you know if the scaler for SD is any good? I pushed some SD source via DNLA to my PS3 and honestly I can't image how can you upscale VHS source (250lines?) to 1080 lines! It just sounds imposible.. You have to get 3 extra pixels for each line! With DVD's (520lines) you only have to get 1 extra pixel per line and some upscalers struggle with that.

Does anyone know what's the resolution of SKY SD programs? Same as VHS? They look much better somehow.

DNLA would be nice to have in AV Receiver although I'm not sure how do you browse your library? Do I need to have TV switched on or front panel of av receiver can be used?

 

[professorhat]

Just in case you missed this post on the 606 upscaling.

AFAIK, all the SD sources you mentioned are PAL (whether it be VHS, DVD or Sky) which is 576 lines, although VHS and Sky I'd imagine are both interlaced rather than progressive. I've no idea how the scaler is in the 606, we'll have to wait and see...

 

[madeinstein]

That is actually very interesting.. I always thought that DVD is better resolution than TV but you're right both are PAL so the only difference can be P vs I.

That means that upscaled SKY SD should look comparable to upscaled DVD and buying AV Receiver with upscaler would make a big difference!