HIFI Speakers V Home Cinema Speakers?

[admin_exported]

L&G, not sure where this topic should have been placed (in this forum or Home Cinema). My question is relating to upgrading my current KEF Home Cinema speakers (KHT 2005.2 + PSW 2010)? Whilst the main use will be for watching BR movies, I also want to enjoy HIFI. I intended to upgrade the front L & R, center and subwoofer speakers and keep the 2005.2, "eggs" but would appreciate thoughts on just upgrading to a more true HIFI speaker set up (budget £600 - £800)? The Zig !

 

[BenLaw]

If you're happy with kef, the logical place to start would be q300s as fronts at around £360 and the Q600c centre at around £400, if you have the space. The fronts will be very capable for hifi as well as av, assuming a decent source and amplification.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Many purchasers of KHT packages have gone on to upgrade the front left and right, and sometimes centre as well, in order to get better 2 channel quality. They've found that the small KHT speakers work very well as surround speakers. There's the option of using the old front pair to go to a 7.1 system.

Upgrading the front pair vastly improves the system's 2 channel abilities, and obviously helps with movies too, as most movie soundtracks tend to be reproduced by the front pair.

Upgrading the centre keeps the quality of the centre channel in line with the front pair, to help create uniformity to the front soundstage. This also makes large improvements to the whole 5.1 system, as most of what happens on the screen will be reproduced by the centre channel.

All speakers in a 5.1 system can be improved with a better subwoofer. A better sub adds depth, but also punch, giving greater authority to the system as a whole.