Budget Introduction to Home Cinema Seperates Required...

[admin_exported]

I am looking to upgrade my current system to Home Cinema Seperates but find that the receiver/speaker options available are quite confusing. I require an AV Receiver with a 5.1 speaker arrangement. I prefer the bookshelf style speakers to the smaller speakers (like the QAcoustics 1010).

I am looking at the Onkyo 505 but wonder if a cheaper older receiver (Yamaha or Sony) would suffice. I would ideally need 2 optical inputs for Sky+ and HD-DVD.

I need a decent system (for cinema and music) but on a budget as investing in PS3 and Sky HD. My room is not that big and sound quality rather than volume would be preferable.

Current system: Panasonic TH42PZ70, Toshiba EP-30 HD-DVD, Sky+, Sony DAV DZ100 (DVD with 5.1 but no inputs!)

 

[Andrew Everard]

Really depends whether you want to move on to Blu-ray, and thus HD Audio, any time soon.

If not, then yes a cheaper older receiver would get you going, as would the new Onkyo TX-SR506 (£250), while the 2006 Award-winning Sony STR-DA1200ES, which is still a cracking piece of equipment, is available for the same money.

If you wanted a budget buy with HD Audio capability, then I'd take a look at the Sony STR-DG910, which can be found for around the £300 mark.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the quick response Andrew.

Never heard the benefits of HD Audio before but not got a huge budget.

My ideal choice would be to select an Onkyo TX-SR505 (£199), Q Acoustics 1010 (£299) and add PS3 and possibly Sky HD at a later date. Am I going down the right routes with the receiver and the speakers? I have been recommended the KEF 1005 speakers. Are the KEF's better than the Q Acoustics package above?

 

[Andrew Everard]

No, with the provisos I gave in my previous answer, I think you're on the right track.

I'd go for the Q Acoustics, as IMHO they'll give a bigger sound than the KEFs.

 

[Anonymous]

Bigger sound, is what I am after.

The Onkyo TX-SR605 is available for £299 now, which is tempting. Are the benefits of the 605 over the 505 simply HD Audio? I believe that the 605 also upscales. What effect will this have on Sky+ picture for instance? I already have HD-DVD which upscales to 1080p and I believe the TV will upscale as well. Will I notice any other benefits from stretching to the 605?

 

[Anonymous]

The 605 does not upscale... the 606 does... beware of sellers getting this all mixed up. The 606 is a bit more than the 605 which is a bit more than the 505/506. If you can stretch to the 605, it think it is worth it, just to be future proof and reduce the amount of connections as it supports HD audio over HDMI. With regards to upscaling, if you are getting a PS3, that will do the scaling for you. The WHFSAV team will have to correct me if I am wrong here, but I doubt that the upscaler in the 606 is that much better than the upscaler found in most sources these days... unlike the upscaler found in the bigger Onkyo receivers.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="dmroberts"]Are the benefits of the 605 over the 505 simply HD Audio?[/quote]

Basically, yes.

[quote user="dmroberts"] I believe that the 605 also upscales.[/quote]

No, it doesn't.

 

[Anonymous]

Is HD Audio really that much better? I have been very impressed with Full HD Picture over DVD or SD Sky+, but not sure if I will notice the benefits of HD Audio? In what way is the sound improved? Is it only Blu-ray that offers HD Audio?

Cheers for both your help with previous posts. I feel like i've almost made my mind up about the Home Cinema setup but just need to clarify these points with HD Audio. I may need to pop down to the local store to have a listen to the HD Audio Home Cinema etc.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 605, and have only just started using the HDMI to transmit the sound from my PS3. I have found it to be smoother and clearer, with the added bonus of not having to use another optical cable. I think HD audio is just a BluRay thing... for the moment at least.

 

[professorhat]

Basically HD audio formats use less compression and are therefore closer to a lossless format. Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio compress lossless signals so nothing is lost (in theory) whereas older formats of Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 are more like MP3 - they compress a lot more and hence lose details.

The new formats will basically add a lot more detail to the sound and you should definitely notice this. Blu-Ray is the only format to currently offer this as Blu-Ray has the space on its disc to include these soundtracks (in fact, some have PCM soundtracks which aren't compressed at all). HD-DVD also offered this but has now been dropped by Toshiba. No doubt though, at some point, other formats will catch up (e.g. you can now get standard Dolby Digital 5.1 films through Sky so the new formats will no doubt follow once the bandwidth has been found to transmit them via satellite / cable).