My Home Cinema Setup

[Loriculus]

Hey,

I've been following these forums for sometime, so thought it was about time I made a post. This is my current home cinema setup, its all kit I bought years ago with the exception of the blue ray player. I've not been pleased with the sound recently, specially for music - being bright and lacking mid and bass. Apart from trying many different speaker positions I've tried several small upgrades to try and improve the sound. I bought some polipods to isolate the cd/bd and replaced the speaker cables from QED Silver Anniversary to Chord Carnival Silverscreen which has made a huge difference. I only upgraded the speaker cable a couple of days ago, so still need time to burn in so hopefully more improvements to come Have also tried Kontak cleaner on interconnects and speaker terminals and denson d-magic demagnetiser cd .

• Pioneer VSX-D2011 7.1 THX Receiver
• Arcam CD72
• Sony BDP-S760
• PS3
• Sky+ HD
• IsoTek Mini Sub w/ IsoTek power leads for minisub and CD
• B&W 602S3 Fronts on Atacama speaker stands (sand filled, spiked and atacama isolation gel pads)
• B&W LCR600 centre
• B&W ASW 675 (output stage blown - need to get repaired asap. Using Sony sub from Pascal sat/sub package I had before atm)
• Sony Pascal Satellites x4
• QED Performance and Chord connects
• Samsung LE40M87BDX
• iPod Touch 16Gb and apple dock

I'm looking to upgrade possibly the receiver, CD player and TV. As I mainly watch TV and films I guess I should probably upgrade the TV first as the motion stutter on slow panning scenes is really bugging me. But obviously a receiver that has HDMI in/out and can decode HD audio will be beneficial, but for now multichannel connects will suffice.

For music I listen to alot of heavy metal/rock, so the current harshness of the sound wasn't enjoyable to listen to. Some acoustic music sounded great, but with rock and metal it wasn't long before it got fatiguing to listen to and wasn't long before I turned it off - not ideal But recently my tastes have been changing to more mellow music and even listening to classical so would like to improve the listening experience for all my music tastes (if possible). I try and listen to everything on direct without any EQ as I can definitely tell the difference once the sound processing is turned on. But I'm still missing the elusive soundstage I hear people talking about, although I think I'm close. Hopefully the new speaker cable will improve things once its run in, or maybe I'm just expecting too much from the gear I have.

I think I've ranted on long enough. Any thoughts on upgrades and advice welcome.

Cheers

 

[Tom Moreno]

Hi Loriculus,

Nice looking setup. Regarding your comments about soundstage, what's the size of the room you have this all in? From the pics it seems as though your speakers are wedged quite closely in to the walls without much wiggle room for adjustment. It's not a an optimum starting point but in my previous flat I had a similar problem and using the Audyssey room EQ on my Denon amp did quite a bit to offset this. Perhaps in upgrading your AVR you might be able to claw some performance back using room correction. I know that using less processing is always the preferred route, and my system sounds quite a bit better in the new house with a larger lounge to breath in, but when you can't change the room it can definitely make positive steps.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Nice equipment. But the room looks very cramped.

Thx.

 

[Anonymous]

fantastic reciever you got there, i had one for 5 years before making the mistake of selling it and buying a denon2809 without a demo - i thought the denon would be better because it was 5 years newer same rrp £900, new hd sound formats etc, how wrong i was! the pioneer was in a differant class with sound,build quality nearly everything - the only negative for me is it lacks hdmi switching. i didnt realise i could get hd sound if i got a blu ray player doing the decoding lol.for a step up in sound quality from your pioneer you will have to spend about £2k in my opinion.

 

[Tom Moreno]

fowler:fantastic reciever you got there, i had one for 5 years before making the mistake of selling it and buying a denon2809 without a demo - i thought the denon would be better because it was 5 years newer same rrp £900, new hd sound formats etc, how wrong i was! the pioneer was in a differant class with sound,build quality nearly everything - the only negative for me is it lacks hdmi switching. i didnt realise i could get hd sound if i got a blu ray player doing the decoding lol.for a step up in sound quality from your pioneer you will have to spend about £2k in my opinion.

You could be right about the amplification from the AVR, but if the room is having a serious influence on the quality of the sound then the best amp in the world isn't going to help make things sound better unless you start employing some acoustic correction technology. From the picture it seems that the B&W speakers are within inches of the side walls and not far off from the rear wall. This is very likely producing high amounts of boundary interference and side reflections. All too often people overlook the influence of the room acoustics when trying to ascertain the causes of their system's shortcomings. As I said before when you don't have any choice but to work with a challenging room such as this might be, you might have to take a reduction in quality to utilise extra processing in the way of room correction technology in order to achieve an overall net gain in final system performance.

 

[Loriculus]

Thanks all for your comments,

Yeah the room is cramped unfortunatly, only 2 metres across by the window, but stuck with it until i can move. The room is a loft conversion with a sloped ceiling on the back wall and opens out to a kindof L shape. I have been looking at room acoutics and have tried hanging heavy curtains behind the speakers and behind, and have been researching acoustic treatments for the side walls (foam tiles etc.) but havent committed to any yet.

I moved the speakers in the corner to try and improve the bass response. But I found out something interesting today when talking to my local hifi shop. When I bought the speaker stands I filled them with sand - to the top. I didn't realise this has a negative effect on the bass so I'm going to reduce the amount and hopefully that will improve it. Then i can move the speakers further from the wall, but as you can tell they still won't be that far from the wall due to the lack of space.

I'll experiment this weekend and let you know how it goes

thanks

 

[Tom Moreno]

Good luck with that. It'd be great if you can get it singing without having to replace you current gear as you've got some proper quality kit in there. Incidentally for HD audio from Blu-ray are you using the Sony's analogue outs into the Pioneer's 8-Channel analogue ins?

 

[ear]

I love the look of the pascal sub

 

[Loriculus]

Removing roughly half the sand from the speaker stands has improved the sound quite a lot. Bass and mid have more weight and punch and sounds... i dunno... more musical. Can't believe i've had it this way since i brought them.

I know its down to personal taste... but i'd like to hear someone else's setup to compare... unfortunately i don't know anyone with a better setup... will have to see if i can get some time at audio-t in brighton and listen to their setups.

Tom - yeah i do use the analogue outs from the dvd player and can certainly tell the difference between that and the ps3 optical out i used to use.

 

[Anonymous]

Very nice setup. That must be fun to watch a movie with a good soundtrack.

 

[Anonymous]

Great Equipment and seup, would sound perfect in a larger or treated room, But with the room you have could not have done better for sure.