Running a home cinema system through my Spendor speakers - sensible or not?

[admin_exported]

I'm just about to both upgrade my hi-fi, and have a home cinema system installed.

The former will be based around a Naim amp and Naim CD player, run through Spendor S6e's, at the far end of my living room.

The plasma for the latter will go on the same wall, above a Denon receiver and Panasonic blue-ray.

It seems a waste of money to buy front speakers when the Spendors are sitting either side of the plasma, and I am tempted to buy the little B&W M-1 speakers for the rear, with the FMP4 on the wall as my centre speaker. I'll also cut down the cable count.

Can anyone see snags to using the Spendors in this way though?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello, are you asking if you can use the Spendors for both hifi and home cinema?

 

[Anonymous]

Indeed.

 

[Anonymous]

Which Denon?

 

[Anonymous]

The 1909.

 

[Dan Turner]

If you go this route then I imagine in home cinema mode you are going to be using your Naim amp as a power amp for the front L&R speakers (because you can't connect 2 amps to the same pair of speakers at the same time). You can connect the pre-outs for the front L&R channels from the Denon to an input on your naim amp. Not sure if the Naim has a 'processor mode' on one of it's inputs - this is effectively a mode which fixes the gain on the integrated or pre-amp, making it a slave to the processor/home cinema amp connected to it. Even if you don't have this mode you can accomplish the same thing simply by setting the volume on the Naim to a certain point (mid-way for instance) whenever using it for home cinema duties. You can theoretically pick any centre and rear speakers you like and these obviously are connected to the Denon.

In a previous incarnation of my hi-fi/HC system I did exactly this, and it worked just fine. However just a few words of caution, because there are distinct compromises to the home cinema sound and you need to try to minimise them and ultimately decide whether you can live with it.

The Naim amp in use for the front L&R channels will have a different sound to the Denon, which will potentially introduce differing tonal characteristics between your front L&R speakers and the rear and (most critically) the centre speakers. If you go this route then there's no getting away from this, and my impression (not via direct knowledge) is that the Naim sound will be quite different to the Denon - It could be a case of trying it to see.

The other element is the choice of speakers - this is even more critical. Your centres and rears need to match your main front pair tonally. Ideally they would be from the same range and this is especially critical for the centre, slightly less so for the rears.

I had this configuration for quite a while - Denon HC amp, Arcam stereo amp, PMC speakers. I got the matching PMC centre speaker and different, cheaper, rears. In general the sound was good and I enjoyed it this way for quite a while. However ultimately I could discerne the slight tonal differences in sounds accross the front speakers because of the different amps, and the more noticable one in sounds panning front to back because of the different rears. In the end I just wasn't happy with that so I eventually changed and now have completely separate hi-fi and home cinema systems.

Good luck finding the right solution!