New hifi system with home cinema expansion in mind

[admin_exported]

I'm looking at getting into the (very exciting) world of hi-fi with a simple budget system of, most likely, a Marantz 6002 CD player and amp. My intial thought was to pair these with some nice shiny Dali Lektor 1s (by the way, are you guys bored of us newbies quoting this stuff?!) but I've also got my eye on the B&W 685s with the view of getting the rest of the B&W set when I upgrade my TV system next year.

Q1: Is there an easy way to hook up a hi-fi system with a Blu-ray/AV amp setup so that the front left and right chanels of the AV system are the stereo speakers linked to the hi-fi? If I want to listen to 5.1 DVD-Audio discs using this kind of setup is there anything I especially need to consider with regard to the hi-fi amp or other components? If anyone can provide a link to a schematic of such a system that would be ace.

Q2: Given that I mainly listen to symphonic/power metal/rock (Nightwish, Within Temptation, Kamelot, etc.) would the 685s give me a more powerful bass than the DL1s without exposing any major shortcomings within the (cheaper) CD player or amp?

Q3: Does bi-wiring give noticable results? It seems like a really inexpensive upgrade!

My listening room at the moment is about 6m square, and fairly softly furnished. Obviously I'll audition before buying. Any further comments/advice are more than gratefully received!

Many thanks,

Rain

 

[Lost Angeles]

To answer Q1 you need a A/V amp/receiver with Front pre-outs then

1) The front left and right preouts of the A/V Receiver go to an input on the stereo amp (Tape 2 for example)
2) Some stereo amps (not many) have a fixed-level input especially for this purpose so you can miss this step out: set the volume of your stereo amp to about half and run your speaker calibration routine on the receiver. Then always use this volume setting on the stereo amp whenever you watch AV - overall volume is handled by the receiver.
3) When watching AV, have both amps on - the stereo amp will handle the front speakers, the AV amp will handle the rest.
4) When watching stereo, the AV amp is out of the equation so won;t degrade the sound

Q3 will have people arguing on here all night.

 

[Lost Angeles]

Q2 The Jan 2009 WHF mag puts 685s with the Marantz CD6002 and PM6002 as an instant upgrade to there one make hifi system group test so it must be worth a demo

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, LA, got a way forward now.

 

[the record spot]

Lost Angeles:

Q3 will have people arguing on here all night.

But it'll be nothing compared to the bloodbath that ensued on the Steve Hoffman forum when someone asked what was better between a P3-24 or a Technics 1200-series deck...!

 

[Anonymous]

the record spot:Lost Angeles:

Q3 will have people arguing on here all night.

But it'll be nothing compared to the bloodbath that ensued on the Steve Hoffman forum when someone asked what was better between a P3-24 or a Technics 1200-series deck...!

A bloodbath would be putting it modestly; a bloody great big masacre of a thread would be more realistic! You could tell it was going wrong when bojno came in!

 

[Andrew Everard]

 

[Tonestar1]

Hi,

Think about goin for an arcam AVR350 (£600 reduced from £1550) and the DV135 (£250 reduced from £900) IMHO will give you a far better musical performance than the componets you mention and will also have you home cinema ready as soon as you add speakers. If you want to add bluray at a later date you can feed it via analogue outs to the amp.

Hope this helps!

 

[Tonestar1]

Also you can use the 350 to bi-amp your stereo speakers which will give a far better sound than bi-wiring,

ps. I have bi-wired for years at expense but still not sure I can tell the difference lol. Like a lot of hi-fi stuff its a bit like the emperors new clothes!