Question Hifi set up living room

[Priest]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are looking for a hifi set for our living room of 30 m2 (5,5m by 5,3m). We would use it for music and movies, although if we had to choose we prioritise music. We listen to all, r&b, pop, raggae, bachata, soul, country, bollywood, rock, instrumentals, hip hop, rap etc.

Budget would be around 2-3k. Behind the couch we will leave around 1m to walk and open the window there. We were also thinking to add cabled rear speakers to be able to watch movies if necessary. Sources would mainly be tv, laptop and phone ( youtube, spotify etc)

We have no clue wat to look at so wondered if you could help us with that. How do we start?
Please ask quetions if i didnt provide enough info.

Thank you!

 

[James105]

Well you need to demo to see what you like but Peter Tyson are selling the Denon 3800 AVR with a DALI Oberon 5 5.1 speaker system for £2400 so I'd start there.

Denon AVC-X3800H 9.4 Ch. 8K AV Receiver with Dali Oberon 5 AV Speaker System

When you buy the '3800H as a bundle with the Oberon 5 AV speaker package as a bundle, you'll make huge savings. Not only that but we also offer Finance and free next working day delivery to most UK regions.

petertyson.co.uk

 

[skinnypuppy71]

I'd say forget about the rear speakers if music is the most important thing to you guy's....
I cannot recommend highly enough the Acoustic Energy ae1 active speakers on their dedicated matching stands paired with the new WiiM ultra, it's a killer, simple set-up with plenty of connectivity, although airplay has been omitted from the menu, personally it's not a issue for me, I use this setup in my summer house for watching movies from amazon and listening to music via Spotify /tidal etc.

 

[Priest]

Well you need to demo to see what you like but Peter Tyson are selling the Denon 3800 AVR with a DALI Oberon 5 5.1 speaker system for £2400 so I'd start there.

Denon AVC-X3800H 9.4 Ch. 8K AV Receiver with Dali Oberon 5 AV Speaker System

When you buy the '3800H as a bundle with the Oberon 5 AV speaker package as a bundle, you'll make huge savings. Not only that but we also offer Finance and free next working day delivery to most UK regions.

petertyson.co.uk

Thank you for the suggestion. I will start to demo also with the denon.

I'd say forget about the rear speakers if music is the most important thing to you guy's....
I cannot recommend highly enough the Acoustic Energy ae1 active speakers on their dedicated matching stands paired with the new WiiM ultra, it's a killer, simple set-up with plenty of connectivity, although airplay has been omitted from the menu, personally it's not a issue for me, I use this setup in my summer house for watching movies from amazon and listening to music via Spotify /tidal etc.

If we need to skip the rear speakers, so be it. With my limited knowledge i thought it was just as simple as adding some speakers from the same brand if not another.

Thanks for the suggestion, we will check that one out.

What would be helpful is some points to take into account when choosing, like what would you guys look at to filter down and/or choose. Like how many watt, seperate amplifier, connectivity, brand, standing or wall mount, cabled or wireless etc. Probably there are more variables. Not knowing what to look at makes it a bit hard. For laptops for example i know to look at, storage, processor, ram, screen resolution etc.

By the way i still have to buy the tv, i saw that hdmi narrows down the choices ( i didnt know).

 

[Priest]

By the way above an artist impression pic. At the back behind the "photographer" there is another room as wide as the living room and around 4 meters long open space mainly without a lot fo walls in between except for the staircase. The carpet would probably be gone

 

[twinkletoes]

For that sort cash I’d be looking at a set of active speakers jbl, kef.

Avr’s are a proper hassle especially if you don’t have the inclination to set them up correctly and take the time to hide all the cables.

At just a touch over budget I’d look at the jbl 4329 no subwoofer needed loads of bass come from these boxes and no speaker cables just power plugs, you can hook them up to you tv with a simple toslink cable from Amazon, I bought 5meters for 7quid. No hdmi needed. That’s it plug and play.

You will have to factor in stands as you would for the avr.

best wishes

 

[Priest]

For that sort cash I’d be looking at a set of active speakers jbl, kef.

Avr’s are a proper hassle especially if you don’t have the inclination to set them up correctly and take the time to hide all the cables.

At just a touch over budget I’d look at the jbl 4329 no subwoofer needed loads of bass come from these boxes and no speaker cables just power plugs, you can hook them up to you tv with a simple toslink cable from Amazon, I bought 5meters for 7quid. No hdmi needed. That’s it plug and play.

You will have to factor in stands as you would for the avr.

best wishes

Thank you for your thoughts

We are redoing the floor and walls, so i have an opportunity to have the cables disappear. For setting up im not sure with what you mean with correctly. Like hanging them and listening which direction works or like changing the room furniture and materials.

I dont know how active speakers compare to avr. pro and cons wise . Like do you cut back a lot on audio quality? Ill try to read about it online.

 

[twinkletoes]

Thank you for your thoughts

We are redoing the floor and walls, so i have an opportunity to have the cables disappear. For setting up im not sure with what you mean with correctly. Like hanging them and listening which direction works or like changing the room furniture and materials.

I dont know how active speakers compare to avr. pro and cons wise . Like do you cut back a lot on audio quality? I’ll try to read about it

No not at all! In fact the audio quality will probably be far beyound what the package mentioned above can produce. If you want something less intrusive the kef meta wireless with a k62 subwoofer is formidable combo putting systems many times more to shame. Worth an audition I’d say. And let you ears decide easy to setup and live with.

Set up wise AVRs require a level of understanding to get everything just so, though largely automated these days if something goes a little south with the automation (they’re not perfect and often happens) and you don’t understand it, it can be troublesome to troubleshoot. Also some of those systems are not completely free and require subscriptions to get the most from Dirac live for instance. Distances, levels standing waves and all that jaz are handled by these systems. I’m not trying to put you off just be aware of the commitment level needed, this won’t be Sonos level easy to install and set up lets put it that way.

Have a listen at a few dealers and see what you think most dealers can also do the install of surround sound for you for a fee.

 

[Witterings]

I'm not sure if you've had a surround system before or not but I think you need to listen to one and compare it to to see how much you want one and the effects it brings to movies but also listen to it in stereo mode with music you know to see what you think and if it's good enough quality.

The general concensus is that a dedicated amplifier is better for stereo than an AVR ... how much better is debatable so a decent AVR may be enough for your needs.

I had just an AVR for both duties for many years and I really enjoy the effect surround has on films, and whilst there's a bit of a learning curve there's loads of information available on google so they're really not that hard to set up.

A couple of years ago I decided I wanted to elevate the quality of stereo so I bought a seperate amplifier which has HT Bypass (Home Theater) built in .... this means you take a feed out from the AVR (preouts) into the amplifier for your main front L/R speakers and then feed anything else for stereo (streamer, CD, turntable etc.) directly into the amp .... this offers the best of both worlds.

Providing you buy the right equipment from the start, there's no reason why you couldn't start with a surround system, something like @James105 suggested in post 2 and is a very capable system .... you could add an amplifier later on if you wanted, £1000 would buy good, £2000 would buy excellent.
OR you could go the other way and buy a stereo amp 1st and add an AVR / more speakers later.

My priority nowdays is very definitely stereo but I do still enjoy surround for movies,
I also play quite a lot of music concert DVD's and some of these sound better in stereo mode and others sound better using the surround.
if I was buying everything from new today I'd go for a lesser quality AVR as long as it had the functionality I wanted and put any saving towards the amplifier / speakers.

Whichever way you go you may want a streamer for playing your music / spotify etc. the WiiM streamers are very good, either their WiiM Pro if you buy an amplifier with a good DAC, or a WiiM Pro Plus if the amps DAC isn't great.