new extension... new speakers

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Hi all

I am hoping for some advice on buying 2 pairs of speakers for our new kitchen extension. The room in approx 6m x 8m and I have a budget up to £450. The builders have put wiring at one end of the room for a pair of wall mounted speakers and at the other end of the room for a pair of in-ceiling speakers. The speaker cable will be wired to an amp through which we will listen to radio (most of the time), vinyl and an Ipod. In addition a TV will also be wired to the amp although I imagine that we will only watch things like sport or the news in the room.

I bought What Hi-Fi as it's guided me through all my previous Hi-Fi purchases but they didn't seem to focus on smaller speakers. Boston Soundware have been suggested... is this a good option??? And what else is worth looking into???

Any help gratefully recieved

Jessie
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hello... I posted the following message last week and have had no response.... do you need more information? Is it a boring topic? Has the issue been addressed elsewhere on the forum? Help please!

New Extension.... New Speakers

Hi all

I am hoping for some advice on buying 2 pairs of speakers for our new kitchen extension. The room in approx 6m x 8m and I have a budget up to £450. The builders have put wiring at one end of the room for a pair of wall mounted speakers and at the other end of the room for a pair of in-ceiling speakers. The speaker cable will be wired to an amp through which we will listen to radio (most of the time), vinyl (decks played through a mixer) and an Ipod. In addition a TV will also be wired to the amp although I imagine that we will only watch things like sport or the news in the room.

I bought What Hi-Fi as it's guided me through all my previous Hi-Fi purchases but they didn't seem to focus on smaller speakers. Boston Soundware have been suggested... is this a good option??? And what else is worth looking into???

Any help gratefully received

J
 

scene

Well-known member
Firstly, welcome to the forums jfine
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Secondly, a little patience, someone will reply, it can just take a little time, as apart from the likes of Mr. Everard et al., this is our pasttime, not our jobs...

Thirdly, just a little extra information from you. From what you describe, I guess you've got a two channel amplifier, with two pairs of speaker outs, what make and model? Is this right? If so are you planning to go to a surround sound 5.1 model down the line? (Or have you already got an AV amp?) Are you planning for both sets of speakers to be full range, or are you considering a sub as well?

Sorry if this all sounds a lot of random questions, just trying to gauge what your looking for - i.e. two pairs of stereo speakers or four speakers in a 5.1 set up...
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Thank you very much for your welcome and your response, I don't quite know enough to answer your questions... but I'll give it a go.

My amp is in storage and as far as I remember it's a Nad C340, which also as I remember does not have 2 pairs of speaker outs. I hadn't considered the number of speaker outs, do I need a different amp? It might also be worth mentioning at this point that I am planning on linking this amp to an amp in the room next to the extension and in preparation for this the electrician has inserted some phono leads between the 2 rooms. I don't have a second amp and will need to buy one.

I'm not clear of the difference between the surround 5.1 model and the 2 sets of speakers I discussed... would you recommend the 5.1 model as a superior way of listening to music? There are currently speaker cables in 4 corners of the room, does that give me the flexibility I might need to have either system? I'm afraid I'm not clear how to answer your question about full range speakers/sub... so again would be very grateful for guidance.
 

scene

Well-known member
You're welcome, and I hope I haven't confused you more!

Firstly 2 sets of stereo speakers vs. 5.1 surround sound. With stereo speakers, you have two channels (left and right) giving you a stereo soundstage in front of you, with left-to-right separation. 5.1 surround sound was designed for movies, to give an immersive soundscape, with the viewer at the centre of the effects. The left-right front speakers are still there at the front, but a centre channel is added, over, under, or behind the screen. This is used to anchor speech to the screen. To these front three channels, are added a pair of rear speakers, the so-called surround left and back, allowing sound effects to be steered both left to right and front to back. (The plane now sounds like it is really flying overhead, just like at the cinema
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). Finally, to give the low frequency effects (LFE) a real bit of visceral punch, a low-frequency channel is added - serviced by a sub-woofer, that typically runs upto about 120Hz. Because the sub channel typically only requires one tenth the bandwidth of the main channels, it is referred to as ".1". So the front three (L-C-R) plus the rear surrounds give five channels, and with the ".1" sub channel you have a "5.1" surround sound system. See this "link" for a much, much more in-depth explanation...

If most of your music is on vinyl, and you're not going to get a DVD or Blu-ray player for movies, then a stereo amp is probably best - this is what your NAD is. Typically a stereo amp of £300 will beat a surround sound amp of less than £1000 playing two-channel music.

So you're going to connect the pair of speakers to your NAD and then hook your NAD up to another Amp using the pre-outs on the NAD? That works, you'll end up with two stereo systems at each end of the room with the ability to run them in sync

To give surround sound, you'd need to add a centre speaker and a sub-woofer. You'd probably also need a new amplifier... Probably not what you want to do, only if you want to watch movies. For vinyl, stick to the stereo amp.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Thanks for explaining the difference. It sounds like the 2 pairs of speakers is the way forward as its mainly music that we'll be listening to in that room.

The 2 amps I'm linking are actually in different rooms... so that we can hear what's being played in the other room. Bearing that in mind will I need to buy a stereo amp for the extension that has 2 pairs of speaker outs? Also, can you recommend speakers, 1 pair will be wall mounted and the other fitted in the ceiling?
 

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