Advice for Home Cinema setup with popcornhour

[admin_exported]

I recently bought a Panasonic 42" Plasma TH-42PZ70 and am very happy with the picture. I purchased a Humax FOXSAT-HD and popcornhour media player, both offer amazing picture quality, now I just need a decent sound set up.

My room is 4.5m long and 2.3m wide, so an odd shape. I want a AV receiver and 5.1 set up, can anyone recommend something for around £500 not including cables (I have already run these under the floor) and as I dont have much space need speakers which are small.

I have been looking at the Jamos as a possible package but want the AV amp to have DD/DTS HD audio so in the future when I have more space I can add speakers. We listen to music and prefer an amp to have half decent music capabilities.

The popcornhour only has a coax rather than optical output, so any recommendations on cables for this would help.

Sorry for the long description!

ps I highly recommend the popcornhour!

 

[Anonymous]

I guess no one has the time to read my long thread 🙂

 

[professorhat]

You don't have a lot of choice at that budget to get DTS HD and Dolby TrueHD - the new Sony STR-DG820 claims to be able to do it for £230, but I have no idea if it's any good or not. With the Jamo's I think that just comes under your budget. Again, this may well be a compromise on your musical system, but it depends what you have at the moment really.
I think you'd be better off looking into a Dolby Digital / DTS 5.1 only set up at that price (maybe the Marantz SR3001 or the Cambridge Audio Azur 540R for home cinema and a reasonable music performance) or upping your budget if you can...

 

[fr0g]

Agree with Prof.
Whatever you do, make sure the receiver has stereo preouts...so you can add a proper music amp in the future, for music.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, very useful replies. I will have to make a compromise and probably go for a refurbished Onkyo 605 for £250 and the Jamo's. Does anyone have this combination?

I've seen the Sony mentioned on the other popular forum but have a dislike for their products, but will try to find a dealer who is demoing it.

 

[fr0g]

RakeshP:
Thanks, very useful replies. I will have to make a compromise and probably go for a refurbished Onkyo 605 for £250 and the Jamo's. Does anyone have this combination?

I've seen the Sony mentioned on the other popular forum but have a dislike for their products, but will try to find a dealer who is demoing it.

The 605 has no preouts.. I would seriously look for that if the music is the most important.

Maybe a Denon 1908 (available under £300)

 

[Anonymous]

The Popcorn Hour website says it has HDMI v1.1 (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?module=onlinestore&pluginoption=catalog) so you can get better than coax.

I was looking at 5.1 amps last week and what I noticed was that (bear in mind I'm in Australia) is that the new digital formats (Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio) haven't really made it into the receivers in your price range (considering you need to add speakers) for £500. You will also need to make sure your a/v receiver has at least 3 HDMI inputs too (for your Popcorn Hour, Humax and BD Player) to get the best quality from all your equipment, entry level models usually have only 2 HDMI inputs.

I had a look at the Yamaha a/v receiver line-up recently and some of their newer models (in Australia anyway) have support for BD players at reasonable prices (in-store prices, not RRP, eg the RX-V663 RRP is AU$1099 but could be had for around AU$850), the Yamaha DSP-AX763 looks to be a similar UK model, though not sure of UK price on that model. Onkyo and Sony also have models with these features in this price range.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks iSilver. The Coax is for the sound from the popcornhour as it does not decode DTS and can only output DTS through the Coax output. Would have preferred Optical but it does not offer it.

Will have a look at the Yamaha range on the weekend 🙂

 

[Anonymous]

After debating on what to get, I got a Onkyo 605 (onkyo now), Jamo 5.1 (lambdatek) and QED cables (OT, HDMI P and Coaxial from hificables). Total was £530 and it sounds great!

Thanks for the assistance...

 

[professorhat]

Excellent - glad your happy with the system - that's the main goal!

 

[Anonymous]

Although being a newbie not sure what to set the crossover on the sub to, anyone have a similar system? So far left the controls half way apart from the phase.

 

[Anonymous]

Set the crossover all the way to the left and now the sound is much fuller. Had to turn down the sub level on the Onkyo to +5