my home av setup (slowly updating)

[rigors]

planning on slowly improving this over the next year... just got the 683's... next step is getting an HTM-62... then a bigger TV.... then a new AV Receiver.... maybe some coloured LED lighting along the way... and some surround speakers... maybe a sub (although the 683's have plenty of that - perhaps more than my neighbours like already!!)... not sure what else...?!

all opinions appreciated! 🙂

 

[Messiah]

Nice

Do you have any surround speakers at the moment?? I would probably sort out the centre and get some surrounds first of all.

 

[rigors]

Messiah:Nice

Do you have any surround speakers at the moment?? I would probably sort out the centre and get some surrounds first of all.

no surrounds at the moment, but once i get the HTM-62 i will have a spare M1. might try it out as a rear on one side to see how it sounds. M1's are cheap as chips, so not a big deal to get another one, and i've got around 20m of speaker cable leftover from a big roll i bought from ebay, so not too big a deal to set it up.

all that said... not sure if you can see from the pics, but the room is kinda L-shaped, so there isn't much room behind the main sofa to position rear speakers. so i think adding rear speakers would produce very inconsistent acoustics for the various seating positions available - more so than i think i'd be comfortable with...

 

[ear]

how do you find the sound of that entry level yamaha and those big speakers?

 

[rigors]

ear:how do you find the sound of that entry level yamaha and those big speakers?

yeah, i know what you mean - i was worried about that too. certainly it does seem a little odd to run £900 speakers from a £120 av receiver.

but to be honest - it's fine. i might not be getting all of the detail that i could be getting out of the 683's, but i am getting a heck of a lot of detail. while watching "Aliens" the other night i couldn't have felt happier - the sound was big and full, with excellent detail. and during the scenes where the ships are flying to or from the alien planet, there's this incredible deep bass that you almost feel rather than hear.

i might change my mind about this once i upgrade the av receiver, but i certainly don't feel anything too negative about the current setup at the moment.

 

[Anonymous]

V. nice!

 

[rigors]

* * * update * * *

now with HTM-62

 

[ear]

is is strange that the amp can control the 683,just proves that cheap amps are not that bad

 

[rigors]

i've been wondering about the cheap amp thing too... and i think tomorrow i'll have a definitive answer on it.

my friend just bought an almost indentical setup - pair of 683's, the slightly bigger centre speaker - the HTM-61 - and a whathifi "best buy" amp - the Denon 2310. that's an £800 amp compared to mine that i bought for £140.

might be unfair to judge it totally tomorrow before the speakers have become a little worn in. but will be very interesting nonetheless...

will post what i find... ;-)

 

[ear]

do post.yamahas and denons have differnet character sonically.bet his goes louder.

 

[matengawhat]

keep the tv and add a projector and screen - best improvement you could ever make - ceiling mount the screen and will pull down in front of both those windows then recess when not needed

 

[rigors]

so... maybe a bit unfair as my friends system hasn't been broken in yet... but comparing my £120 Yamaha receiver with my friends £800 Denon receiver... and it's really hard to say whether i noticed a big improvement.

would be easier if machines were side by side...

what does make a big difference is the source obviously. a dolby feed sounds a million times better than a tv feed.

 

[Anonymous]

nice little set up there , a pioneer kuro or even panasonic 50v10 in the middle would be the business...

 

[rigors]

thanks! will get there very slowly but surely... need to try out some bigger tv's... right now i'm tempted to get a cheap 40" or 42" - you can get them between £400-500 i've seen... just not sure if it's worth saving up for an LED LCD or one of the Pioneers that everyone always raves about. 🙂

oh, and a couple of chrimble grille off shots. happy new year peeps!!

 

[rigors]

couple of updates...

added a 40" Samsung LCD, and a Denon 1910....

 

[Anonymous]

whats the tv model ? how do you find the denon in relation to your yam ?

 

[rigors]

updated my signature now so the tv model is there... it's bottom of the range, but its a really nice improvement... for me it's the perfect size when playing films that are 16:9... for the 235 letter box stuff it's maybe still a little small...

i'm not too sure about the denon yet... i just got it... not quite sure how to describe this, but it seems like there's more complexity to the sound now if that makes sense? still fiddling with it though...

hey, talking about the denon, does anybody agree/disagree with this guy: http://www.batpigworld.com/fadq.html

i found it today while trying to work out why the denon didn't seem to be decoding anything from my PS3...

 

[Anonymous]

yea time will tell , but the denon should be a nice improvement , lovely setup there

if your unsure about any ps3 denon stuff , just start a thread in the home cinema section , someone will be able to help ...

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Very nice! Slowly and, most importantly, surely indeed!

 

[ear]

lately some posts have been mentioning many probelms with denon amps...this kind of puts me off.but i love their sound

 

[007L2Thrill]

Nice speakers mate!

What's the balance of sound like with the B&W's as these are speakers I was thinking of buying (when I have saved enough of course

), what's the HF unit like?

What speakers did you have before them and how do the B&W sound compared to them.

Cheers mate.

 

[Anonymous]

have you solved the issues with the denon as i have the Ps3 denon setup and have had no problems, and the sound I really love it, very musical and warm sound, a lots of punch.

 

[rigors]

xon501>
Well, seems i didn't really have a problem with my PS3 Denon setup. Or at least the problem was just in my mind. I was expecting the Denon amp to say things like "DOLBY DIGITAL" or "DTS" or whatever so i knew is was happily decoding away. But in that link i put above, the guy says this: "If you have set everything up correctly with the PS3, the display of the Denon will read "MULTI CH IN" indicating that it is getting decoded, multichannel PCM audio from the PS3." So how do you know if you're getting pre-decoded data, and what that data is? He goes on to say you can check this easily: "just hit the "Select" button on the PS3 remote and it will call up the info display"

Here's another thing he says which i didn't know was true, but i just did the PS3 "Select" thing while watching a BluRay of "No Country for Old Men" and it turns out he's right:

Make sure to check that you have actually selected the TrueHD or DTS-MA track on the Blu Ray, if available! Many Blu-rays will not have the highest quality track set up as the default option, and unless you check there is no way to know because the Denon AVR display will read MULTI CH IN either way. To select a different audio track, you will have to open up the "language" settings on your Blu-ray to find the actual audio track listing. Then, select the HD audio track and you are good to go!

If you do the PS3 "Select" thing and toggle the available english language options you can actually see the different rates of data being sent to your Amp....

 

[rigors]

007L2Thrill>
before i just had a pair of blueroom minipods.

the sound from the B&W's is fantastic in my opinion - a huge improvement in my system. but you should make an appointment at a decent hifi place to go listen to some different options before you commit to what you want to buy.

before testing the 683's i had thought i would either get a pair of 684's or the more expensive CM7's. my dealer made me also listen to the 683's and i'm glad he did. the 684's, 685's and CM7's all seemed to have a more acute range of sound. the 683's really stood out from the bunch with a bigger more expansive field of sound.

As far as the HTM-62 goes, i went with my dealers advice that it would be a fine match with the 683's. He didn't think the HTM-61 was worth the extra money for the job it needed to do within my setup, and i happily agreed, partly cause i don't like the unbalanced look of it's grill, and partly cause it would have been too big to fit into my tv stand...

not sure what you mean by HF unit? you mean the cabinet the centre speaker is in? that i got from ebay, but they're also sold on the web. it's lightweight indonesian wood. It was a darker wood originally but i sanded it down and stained it to match better with my new flat. You can see inside where the centre speaker is that it's still the original darker colour, which i left because i'm lazy but actually works quite nicely to hide the equipment thats in there. if you like the unit i can highly recommend the quality of the furniture from the company that imports them, and cost wise they're really reasonable: http://www.kubufurniture.co.uk/

 

[007L2Thrill]

rigors:
007L2Thrill>

before i just had a pair of blueroom minipods.

the sound from the B&W's is fantastic in my opinion - a huge improvement in my system. but you should make an appointment at a decent hifi place to go listen to some different options before you commit to what you want to buy.

before testing the 683's i had thought i would either get a pair of 684's or the more expensive CM7's. my dealer made me also listen to the 683's and i'm glad he did. the 684's, 685's and CM7's all seemed to have a more acute range of sound. the 683's really stood out from the bunch with a bigger more expansive field of sound.

As far as the HTM-62 goes, i went with my dealers advice that it would be a fine match with the 683's. He didn't think the HTM-61 was worth the extra money for the job it needed to do within my setup, and i happily agreed, partly cause i don't like the unbalanced look of it's grill, and partly cause it would have been too big to fit into my tv stand...

not sure what you mean by HF unit? you mean the cabinet the centre speaker is in? that i got from ebay, but they're also sold on the web. it's lightweight indonesian wood. It was a darker wood originally but i sanded it down and stained it to match better with my new flat. You can see inside where the centre speaker is that it's still the original darker colour, which i left because i'm lazy but actually works quite nicely to hide the equipment thats in there. if you like the unit i can highly recommend the quality of the furniture from the company that imports them, and cost wise they're really reasonable: http://www.kubufurniture.co.uk/

Thanks for that!

What I meant by HF unit was high frequency unit or tweeter, just wondering if the HF unit add a bite to the treble or was it smooth or laid back, as I love detailed treble with a airy sound to it, as I have listened to the B&W 804 which as great mid band and treble, so just wondering if they was similar in sound balance.

Glad you got your PS3 set-up right, as I just checked your pictures out and I can see you have a PS3 fat the same as me and you are right it only decodes everything in to PCM and on the front of my AMP says multi channel PCM, but the new PS3 slim outputs RAW bit stream so that one will say Dolby digital HD and DTS MA etc.

Cheers again.