Home Theater Questions and Surround sound vs Music

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I have a 13m2 living room (4m x 3.5m). The living room is open - that means that it has 3 walls, but no fourth wall. I want to get it setup with a home theater system but also want good music quality from my mp3 and CDs.

First question, what size flat screen TV should I have for a viewing distance of 3 - 3.5m (9 - 10) feet away?

Secondly, B&W MT-30 are rated as good speakers by Whathifi. They look rather small like satellite speakers. Can they deliver for a surround sound movie. How are these speakers for music? What are good alternatives for a surround sound speaker set that can also perform nicely on music for a smallish living room?

Thirdly, has anyone heard of Teufel (German company). I do not see them being reviewed here, so I wonder if they are even worth considering.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Schlange, My living room is almost exactly the same as how you have described yours, so I hope that my comments might be able to help you out.

Screen-size wise, I would say 46-inch, although I have a 52-inch TV for essentially the same viewing distance.

Speakers-wise, the MT-30 is a very good package, and produces a very cohesive and fairly large soundstage. The sub-woofer does work a fair bit, because the speakers are satellite speakers after all, and don't extend down low in the frequency range. To fill your room, these loudspeakers won't have any troubles at all; they are fairly sensitive for their size. Just ensure that your amplifier or A/V Receiver has enough oomph to power them. I would probably recommend something like an Onkyo TX-SR875 (recently replaced by the more powerful TX-SR876). Otherwise, if your budget doesn't stretch that far, the Onkyo TX-SR606 would do a fairly good job of powering these B&W's.

For good music reproduction, I would personally recommend listening to 2-channel stereo. In general, the more 'conventional', box-type loudspeakers are better because they have larger internal volume, better bass extension, are more sensitive (provide greater amount of sound volume in dB, given the same amount of wattage from any given amount of amplifier power), etc. However, these B&W's would provide fairly good music reproduction. If your budget will stretch, though, and provided you don't mind having fairly chunky 'box' loudspeakers around, try the B&W 685 package.

I have not heard of Teufel, unfortunately.

 

[Anonymous]

Based on my experience with a smaller room than yours, I would recommend that you stick to 36'' LCD TV unless you can afford a 150Hz+ 42'' HD LCD TV. Following is my specs for you(sorta based on my own)

AMP: Onkyo SR606 (I have a 605 and its pretty good for stereo in "pure audio" mode , so this one shd be even better)

Speakers front: Elac FS127 floor standers (german make...very good speakers for the budget,pretty good sound stage and good compatibility with Onkyo)

Speakers rear: Mordaunt short bipole or 902i

Speakers center: Elac center or Mordaunt short 905i (Mordaunt short is somewhat better and cheaper but if you want timber matched speakers then you might wanna go with Elac)

Sub: Not sure about this one. iam unhappy with mt wharfedale...sorry

Cables: fronts surely go for QED Silver anniversary XT Biwire if you are going to listen to lot of music. Rears...mmm, I have a cheap one from Japan so not sure about that...

Hope that gets the advices pouring in for you...

--Roy