advice next step to surround sound

[admin_exported]

curent system

samsung le40a686 lcd tv (full hd 100hz) audio out to amp via phono same as the 656 as far as i know

marantz pm pm-55 ldps amp (long time serving old friend)

sony ps3 hooked up via hdmi to tv for gaming bluray and dvd

microsoft zune 120 + microsoft av zune dock for mp3 playing (not hooked up for vidieo)

jpw front speeker (unknown model) real ash verneer 10x9x17" 8"cone plus dome tweeter

gale 2i bookshelf speekers rear

im looking to upgrade to an av amp with hdmi to get 5.1, zone 2 would be a nice extra, i was looking at somthing like an onkyo tx-sr576 bonus of been anynet+ compatable with my samsung, not so good codecs (super-fi £195) or sony str-dg820 no zone 2 as far as i know (richersounds £229) i have about £300 to spend on an amp and i have noticed quite a few places are selling well under rrp on most av amps

i listen quiet alot to music and would like somthing that has the omph as well as been able to handle movies as well every now and then

i would also like to know what is the best route to go for speakers

thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Your budget will pretty much decide the amp for you (The Sony 820 doesn't have zone 2 btw). The Onk 576 is available at a good price now and will accept LPCM from the PS3 on HDMI. The Denon 1909 should be given serious consideration.

As far as speakers go, I looked at utilising some existing JPW speakers I had and supplementing them with others obtained second-hand- they are readily available on eBay for about £10 each (as they are no longer manufactured) with options to match regular or 'gold' mini-monitors with dedicated centres and active and passive subs are also available. I have the SW40 active sub and very happy with it too! This would give you a cheap and cheerful set-up for starters and you could look at speaker packages as a later upgrade.

 

[Anonymous]

thankyou rogueelement

i have been looking into the sony manual online

it has front speakers a and b and the ability two switch between one, both or the other

what is the diffrence to this and zone 2 i know some amps have a line out as well as a speaker out for zone 2

all i require is to have a small set of bookshelfs feed from the amp for the dining room

 

[Andrew Everard]

Multizone switching will normally allow you to listen to different sources in different zones - eg TV in the living room, radio in the kitchen.

With speaker A/B switching you get the same sound in both rooms.

 

[Anonymous]

thankyou andrew

multi zone/zone 2 would be a nice option over a/b switching all i need to do is workout whitch way to go?

is there anything that has both the higher codecs and zone 2 inside my budget? i also want a Built-In Tuner

 

[Anonymous]

just found out the onkyo only outputs anlog on zone 2

witch is disapointing so no digital sound for room 2.

can any onkyo tx-sr606 oweners confurm this eg if i had a cd player runing an optical link or coaxal digi, would it have any sound output in zone 2

im still stuck on witch one to buy

 

[Andrew Everard]

I think you'll find most AV receivers that output extra zones do so as analogue, either using two of the internal amps (when the main system is run in 5.1-channel configuration form rather than 7.1) or via line/preamp-level outputs.

Any source input to the receiver in digital form will go through the digital-to-analogue conversion before hitting the multizone switching, so you won't have any problems playing your CD player into Zone 2.