Help Needed By A Complete Newcomer Living In Kenya

[admin_exported]

All,

I have spend the last couple of days reading this and other forums and have come back to here as everyone seems the friendliest to a novice (creep creep

). I have been out of the UK for 15 years and my wife and I have just moved into our own house and want to set up a decent hi-fi and a nice tv set up. I would like music in the tv room, kitchen, lounge and bedroom.

I need some help and clarification that I am working along the right lines as I am slightly confused and there obviously isn't the ability for a home trial out here.

I want my main source of music to be an apple mac. Due to limited availability I tend to download a lot of music from i-tunes. Having read this forum I will now redownload all my old cds in apple lossless.

For the hi-fi set up is this correct?

Airport Extreme (I do not have a seperate wireless router at present. Will I need one?)

Connects to External Hard drive (from reading around I was looking at the Drobo External Hard Drive. However will the apple time capsual not do the same job?)

Connects to Apple Mac

Connects to DAC (from recommendations here the Cambridge Audio DacMagic looks best). This should be connected with a toslink cable?

Slighly confused now ). How does the DAC sent the signal to the airport express? (this is probably a stupid question but have been out of the loop for a long time)

For good quality in each room I would then have an airport express connected to an amplifier (Yamaha DSP-AX763?) connected to speakers (Q Acoustics Q-AV?). Are there any wireless speakers or would these be connected to the amplifier through cables (in which case you recommend any?). Would I need the same for the kitchen / bedroom where the quality does not need to be as good or are there any speakers with build in amps?

Alternatively would I be better off going for the Sonos system and foget the apple airport express etc?

For the tv I was thinking Sony KDL-40W4500 with B&W 685 Theatre speakers. Do I need a seperate amplifier for this?

I would then want an apple tv as I download a lot of tv from itunes. Would this wirelessly connect to the mac?

The balance would be local Mnet and Gtv satelite and a Playstation 3. Would the playstation be a good enough blu ray player or would I need another seperate one?

Finally I understand that I can control all of this through an i-touch.

I am sorry that this is a long post, but I obviously need to get this right as I will have to import some of the items so need to know what I am doing ) Also if there are any additional cables I will need I would again appreciate assistance. I have read about items not coming with the required connections, but it is more difficult to pop down the shop here and find exactly what you need.

Thanks so much in advance

 

[drummerman]

Hi Slammerkenya

For the hifi side I'd probably suggest AVI's ADM9.1. Go on their website and you find all the info. In my opinion they are hard to equal for sensible money but you may find it impossible to find them where you are. They can also be used in 2.1 as there is a sub output, an option which I would recommend using.

I can't help you with the HT side. I have a similar 'problem' as I just purchased a tv set but can't think of anything that would satisfy my (mostly) stereo listening without spending huge amounts of money, plus I don't like to have several huge boxes in the living room. So I am working on that one. I might end up with one of the more 'high end' all in one compact cinema systems such as the one Pioneer makes and trade in some sound quality for an unobtrusive and elegant set up, instead using the AVI's for stereo.

I understand there are several solution for multi room systems, such as the sonos you mention but don't know if there's one that caters for everything you mention without seriously sacrificing sound quality.

Regards

 

[Anonymous]

ADM9

Apple TV

Sonos

The above will be the things to look at.

- - -

The Airport Extreme is a router but doesn't include a modem, so you'll have to purchase separately.

The PS3 is a fine BluRay player and excellent value.

Be aware that if you buy any music from the iTunes music store that is DRM'd it won't work on Sonos. If you rip your CDs losslessly you won't have these issues.

A Sonos or Apple TV or Airport Express into the digital input of the AVIs is effectively giving you "wireless speakers".

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for the advise

. I will get on to looking at the websites now.

 

[Anonymous]

SlammerKenya:
Connects to External Hard drive (from reading around I was looking at the Drobo External Hard Drive. However will the apple time capsual not do the same job?)

Hi,

To add to what has already been sai, whilst principle of the Time Capsule and the Drobo os the same they are inherently different. Time Capsule works like a RAID 1 (mirrored) storage set up for your selected folders to a maximum of 1TB(?). The Drobo is a 4 disk enclosure that performs in a similar way to RAID 5, protecting against 1 drive failure, plus it has the benefit over traditional RAID set ups of being able to make use of drives of different sizes. The only problem with Drobo is the fact you have to buy the ethernet adaptor separately in order to install it onto a network.