Moving house, need advice

[admin_exported]

My current speakers are as follows:

Fronts: B&W 602s3

Centre: B&W LCR60s3

Rears: B&W 600s3

I'm moving house in a few weeks time. Currently my living room is 24ft by 10ft but the new place is just 14ftx13ft.

I'm wondering whether my current set up is too big for the new area I will have. I love my 602s and don't really want to change but i'm wondering if i'd be better off selling them for the space and given the acoustics of a smaller room and getting either another set of 600s or 601s or even some LM1s as rears and moving my current 600s up to the front.

I don't have the money to buy and try before selling a set of speakers.

Any advice?

 

[shooter]

Any advice?

Hang on until you have moved, the current set up may work very well.

 

[chudleighpaul]

+1

You do need to try it in the new place before making any decisions. Its possible that in the smaller room the system could be a bit bass heavy, but the best plan is "suck it and see"

Good luck with the move.

 

[Anonymous]

I was thinking about the Bass but forgot to add that i've also got a B&W ASW300 as well so this is the prime concern other than space.

Hmmm, thanks for the comments might wait and see what its like or might just sell as the 602s are such big bookshelf speakers.

 

[CnoEvil]

A fair amount can be done to offset potential problems.

When doing up the new room, keep potential bass proplems at the back of your mind...ie. if possible avoid very reflective surfaces and try to use rugs, soft furnishings, curtains bookcases etc.

If you end up in a modern, sparcely furnished room with laminate floors, subtle acoustic panels, camourflaged as pictures, can be strategically placed.

If speakers are on suspended wooden floors, they may need to be isolated from it, using granite or Auralex Grammas.

As others have said above, you won't know what your dealing with, until all is set up and running in situ. In all likelyhood, most problems that you encounter shouldn't be insurmountable.

Good luck with the move

Cno

 

[strapped for cash]

If it helps, I've got exactly the same speakers (apart from the rears, which are smaller, and an Acoustic Energy Radiance sub). My room is 12 ft x 14 ft and the speakers are not too big. You just need to be judicious when setting things up.

As above, all room acoustics are different, so I'd experiment with positioning, but I think you'll be fine.

 

[6th.replicant]

Error. (Why is it no longer possible to delete posts?)

 

[chudleighpaul]

The only people who can delete post now are big brother censors if they don't like the direction of a thread!

 

[Anonymous]

ok so had a think and despite advice i'm selling due to the lack of space the new place will have. I've got to make some compromsies on sound but space really is the key issue here.

Currently got the 602s on ebay. Also listed are my Rotel RA-02, Rotel RCD-02 and my Yamaha DSP-AX620. I've always been an audiophile who also liked good movie sound but I won't have room for so many boxes. I'll be ok for speakers as i'll move my 600s upfront and replace them at the rear with either LM1s or more 600s depending on what I find first.

I'm sticking all my CDs on my networked hard-drive and these will then go in the loft. I'm ripping at 192kbs so I'll have some loss of quality there anyway. Now I need to decide what to replace the amps with. Again, I know that whatever AV reciever I buy it won't compete with the Rotel for stereo but compromise is the issue again. Key is which is the best all rounder for stereo and 5.1? I'm not going to be able to test these recievers anytime soon.

So, finally getting to the question...

I was looking at a Onkyo TX-SR608 and at the moment at £299 or Yamaha RXV667 at £279 I think they are both good buys for a well reviewed reciever, or do I spend another £200 and go for a TXNR609 for the network ability to access music via the home network - or shall I just access it through my xbox?Anyone got ideas as to which reciever to go for or any other suggestions. I'd rather not spend anymore than I sell my current amps for.

Too many questions but this is a real change of emphasis for me that can't be avoided. If I change my mind and keep my Rotels i'll have no AV amp and then what do I do with my sub, centre and rears? Shall I just pull out of the house sale?

 

[professorhat]

I'm sticking all my CDs on my networked hard-drive and these will then go in the loft. I'm ripping at 192kbs so I'll have some loss of quality there anyway.

Firstly, is this a good idea? Is space the issue? If you can, I'd really try to get your music ripped in some kind of lossless format. Going from CD quality to 192kbs seems quite a big compromise to me and, once ripped in that format, you can't get that quality back without re-ripping. Depending on the size of your CD collection, this could be a big, big pain in the bottom - I know, I've done it and I only have some 350 odd CDs!

Now I need to decide what to replace the amps with. Again, I know that whatever AV reciever I buy it won't compete with the Rotel for stereo but compromise is the issue again. Key is which is the best all rounder for stereo and 5.1? I'm not going to be able to test these recievers anytime soon.

So, finally getting to the question...

I was looking at a Onkyo TX-SR608 and at the moment at £299 or Yamaha RXV667 at £279 I think they are both good buys for a well reviewed reciever, or do I spend another £200 and go for a TXNR609 for the network ability to access music via the home network - or shall I just access it through my xbox?Anyone got ideas as to which reciever to go for or any other suggestions. I'd rather not spend anymore than I sell my current amps for.

Unfortunately I've not heard either to help, but I would say it's not worth paying that much extra for the network facility in these amps. From my experience, they're clunky, with very bad user interfaces. For much less than £200, you could buy something like the Apple TV, the Sony SMP-N100 or some other streaming device which would be much easier to use and which would offer a number of benefits as well as streaming music (e.g. iPlayer). Or, you could get something like the Western Digital WD TV Live - again, less than £200 but also with 1 TB of storage built in, potentially eliminating any space issues you had with my first point!

Too many questions but this is a real change of emphasis for me that can't be avoided. If I change my mind and keep my Rotels i'll have no AV amp and then what do I do with my sub, centre and rears? Shall I just pull out of the house sale?

I know where you're coming from - I will definitely be moving soon and there's a very real danger of me having the same issue with my system - my front room is currently very large (about the same size as yours) and the chances of finding another house with a similarly large room that ticks all the other boxes looks remote...

 

[duaplex]

No, Not at all I have a 14x12 room and check out what setup i have in there. Works like a dream. I have seen smaller rooms then ours with big speakers so dont worry.

 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately I've not heard either to help, but I would say it's not worth paying that much extra for the network facility in these amps. From my experience, they're clunky, with very bad user interfaces. For much less than £200, you could buy something like the Apple TV, the Sony SMP-N100 or some other streaming device which would be much easier to use and which would offer a number of benefits as well as streaming music (e.g. iPlayer). Or, you could get something like the Western Digital WD TV Live - again, less than £200 but also with 1 TB of storage built in, potentially eliminating any space issues you had with my first point!

Ok so I'll be honest and say that I don't know much about these media streamers. Currently my MP3 files can be played through my xbox which connects to my NAS drive. What is the advantage of one of these over that? I've also got a Humax Foxsat HDR which has a USB input on the back, can I attach a hard drive to it and play files off it?

Lastly, you also mentioned the poor quality of 192kps. I'm only riping via media player. Is there better free software out there that I can use to rip to a lossless format? If so what is it and what settings would you recommend. I've got a few thousand Cds but I'd happily re-rip them to get better quality.

As you can tell i'm a bit out of the loop with the latest developments in this area as I last replaced all my hardware in 2003 and haven't kept up to date.

 

[duaplex]

I just googled, How to rip cd to flac, loads of sites explaining how in easy steps with software they recommend. Soundforge can do it but it is pricey.

 

[professorhat]

Unfortunately I've not heard either to help, but I would say it's not worth paying that much extra for the network facility in these amps. From my experience, they're clunky, with very bad user interfaces. For much less than £200, you could buy something like the Apple TV, the Sony SMP-N100 or some other streaming device which would be much easier to use and which would offer a number of benefits as well as streaming music (e.g. iPlayer). Or, you could get something like the Western Digital WD TV Live - again, less than £200 but also with 1 TB of storage built in, potentially eliminating any space issues you had with my first point!

Ok so I'll be honest and say that I don't know much about these media streamers. Currently my MP3 files can be played through my xbox which connects to my NAS drive. What is the advantage of one of these over that? I've also got a Humax Foxsat HDR which has a USB input on the back, can I attach a hard drive to it and play files off it?

No advantage really (in terms of streaming music) - you just mentioned you were thinking of upgrading the AV receiver to one with networking facilities - in my opinion this wouldn't be worth it. By all means look into upgrading the AV receiver for other reasons (sound quality, connectivity etc. etc.) but not for the networking facilities. If you already have the means to play these music files via another device, then there would be no need to look into any of the devices I mentioned unless either you'd like to look for a different interface or you look to change to a different format for your music other than MP3 which is then not supported by the Xbox. That then becomes another matter!

Lastly, you also mentioned the poor quality of 192kps. I'm only riping via media player. Is there better free software out there that I can use to rip to a lossless format? If so what is it and what settings would you recommend. I've got a few thousand Cds but I'd happily re-rip them to get better quality.

Plenty - I use iTunes, but if you're a PC user and have no Apple products, you may well prefer something non-Apple related as, good though Apple are in their own respect, they do tend to work best with their own products which restricts your choice. Lots of people use other software, so they'd be best to advise on this. I believe MediaMonkey is a favourite as I remember, though I've not used it personally.