House set up help

[Sbloggs]

Hi all. Appreciate any help.
Setting up a house hifi system.
I’m looking for a turntable and streaming in one room. Just streaming (but good quality) in another room. Other rooms streaming and don’t mind too much about quality.
I’m not 100% sure what I need so any advice appreciated. Here’s what I currently understand:

For streaming only:
Streamer
Amp
Dac
Speakers
Will be hard wired

For vinyl+ streaming:
Turntable
Phono stage
Streamer (link from room above or just get another stand alone?)
Dac
Amp
Speakers
Hard wired

Rest I’m thinking just get WiFi speakers eg sonos

Have I got that broadly right? Budget would say mid range overall

Many thanks, and Happy New Year all

 

[daytona600]

What Budget
£695 Project
£100,000 DSP8000 Meridian

Project Stereo Set E1 For Instant Vinyl Action | The Ear

At the helm of the Stereo Set E1 system Is the Project’s E1 turntable, which is included here in standard form, sans the built-in phono stage or Bluetooth

the-ear.net

 

[Sbloggs]

I’d say 10k for the two main rooms but some flex if its worth it…

 

[Sbloggs]

10k total

 

[daytona600]

£10k#
Piega Connect + 2 sets of Premium 301 Wireless Gen2 for multi-room
+ £3000 For Technics / Project / Rega turntable

PIEGA | PIEGA connect plus

Wireless connection with PIEGA connect plus and Premium Wireless series

piega.ch

PIEGA | PIEGA Premium 301 Wireless Gen2

Best wireless speaker with premium sound and modern design

piega.ch

 

[Sbloggs]

Many thanks for the reply.
Would the turntable (I was looking at Rega) would be well served by that set up?

 

[Fandango Andy]

Hi all. Appreciate any help.
Setting up a house hifi system.
I’m looking for a turntable and streaming in one room. Just streaming (but good quality) in another room. Other rooms streaming and don’t mind too much about quality.
I’m not 100% sure what I need so any advice appreciated. Here’s what I currently understand:

For streaming only:
Streamer
Amp
Dac
Speakers
Will be hard wired

For vinyl+ streaming:
Turntable
Phono stage
Streamer (link from room above or just get another stand alone?)
Dac
Amp
Speakers
Hard wired

Rest I’m thinking just get WiFi speakers eg sonos

Have I got that broadly right? Budget would say mid range overall

Many thanks, and Happy New Year all

Hello and welcome.

When you ask for setup advice many people will start throwing product recommendations at you. It doesn't sound like you are at that stage yet.

Start with the end result, what do you hope to achieve? you have already done this to a large extent, but there is one final question to answer. If you are looking at streaming do you want a multi-room setup? this would let you play the same music in multiple rooms at the same time. It could be as simple as using one brand of streamer WiiM for example has this option.

Then decide on elements you need. again you have kind of done this, but lets refine it a little:

Streaming only room:

• Streamer (this could be inbuilt to amp)
• Amp (how close is the room to the other room. Some amps can run two pairs of speakers. Is there an option to just have speakers and run cables from the next room?)
• DAC (most amps and streamers will have a DAC, do you need a separate one?)
• Speakers (how much space do you have? will they be floorstanders? if not you will need stands. Unless you are going to put them in on shelves, in bookcase, or on other furniture. if that is the case, you need to look into speakers especially designed for this. if you have smaller speakers, will you want to add a sub?).

For vinyl+ streaming room:
Amp, Dac, Speakers, and Streamer. (all things mentioned above also apply)
Turntable (is this a fashion accessory designed to look nice, and will occasionally play music, or will it get lots of use, and how is sounds is most important?)
Phono stage (many amps have the built in, you may or may not need a separate one)

Is the £10,000 for all rooms or just the main two? How many rooms are there and is space an issue?

Once you have decided on above you can start working out how to budget. To rough things out in advance of that, lets say for arguments sake the £10k includes the other rooms. Take £3,000 to cover the other rooms, plus cables a for the main rooms. This gives around £1,000 per product if you use internal DACs and phono stages, but have separate streamers. You may wish to favour one room over the other for £1,200 in one room and £800 in the other (you can get easily a great sounding system for £400 per component)

Given the speakers will have the greatest impact on the sound, that is the best place to start, and the place you don't want to skimp. Therefore, (given the parameters I set out above) you want spend £2,000 total on two sets of speakers. Then decide what other components work with them.

If you want advice on products, it would be worth sharing the dimensions of the rooms, what they are used for, and where the speakers would be placed.

 

[matt49]

A lot will depend on the size of the rooms that are going to house your two systems. For one thing, it'll influence what size of speakers you'll want, even if only because for aesthetic reasons people generally prefer smaller speakers in smaller rooms etc.

Another thought: do you want your bits of streaming kit to all use the same hardware/software/GUI? It's worth considering, not least because it makes everything user-friendly for the whole family (if you have one). Also if your home has any open-plan space that might contain two systems, it's handy to be able to link them.

In order to make your budget go further, you might consider buying second hand. For instance there's a big market in s/h Sonos gear.

Another way of stretching the budget is to buy active speakers: active speakers tend to outperform passive systems at the same price, and brands like Genelec, Neumann and Mesanovic make oustanding speakers at reasonable cost.

 

[Fandango Andy]

A lot will depend on the size of the rooms that are going to house your two systems. For one thing, it'll influence what size of speakers you'll want, even if only because for aesthetic reasons people generally prefer smaller speakers in smaller rooms etc.

Another thought: do you want your bits of streaming kit to all use the same hardware/software/GUI? It's worth considering, not least because it makes everything user-friendly for the whole family (if you have one). Also if your home has any open-plan space that might contain two systems, it's handy to be able to link them.

In order to make your budget go further, you might consider buying second hand. For instance there's a big market in s/h Sonos gear.

Another way of stretching the budget is to buy active speakers: active speakers tend to outperform passive systems at the same price, and brands like Genelec, Neumann and Mesanovic make oustanding speakers at reasonable cost.

All good points. Except, a would advise caution with second hand Sonos. As much as they claim otherwise they are second only to Apple when it comes to inbuilt obsolescence. Across three systems I have products from each of the past five decades. If you buy a Sonos product today they will hope you have updated it by the end of the decade, by the end of the next decade you will have an old fashioned looking plastic doorstop.

 

[matt49]

All good points. Except, a would advise caution with second hand Sonos. As much as they claim otherwise they are second only to Apple when it comes to inbuilt obsolescence. Across three systems I have products from each of the past five decades. If you buy a Sonos product today they will hope you have updated it by the end of the decade, by the end of the next decade you will have an old fashioned looking plastic doorstop.

Yes, fair point. In particular Sonos caused quite a bit of upset with their move to the series 2 firmware, which is imcompatible with the older kit. Having bought in to Sonos when it first came on the market in the UK (2005?), and having a quite extensive Sonos set-up, I've never moved to series 2 and have just bought second-hand pieces of the series 1 kit when my needs have changed. Also, all of my original pieces of Sonos kit are still working and doing what I need them to do.

There's a more general point. All digital hardware is subject to obsolescence due to technological progress. It's hard for consumers to avoid ending up with obsolete kit, though there are ways to mitigate the financial damage, e.g. by avoiding all expensive items that contain proprietary software (esp. streaming and music server kit), and instead by having streaming/music server functions done by a (cheaply upgradable) PC rather than a dedicated hi-fi streamer/server, or by buying relatively inexpensive and scalable equipment like second-hand Sonos.