Surround Sound and Hi-Fi help needed!!!

[admin_exported]

Hi....

I really want to get surround sound and want to be able to use the same system to play music on but I'm not exactly sure what I need (amp and/or receiver) and how it will fit in with what I've got at the moment.

I do not have a DVD or CD player and do not want either. All the movies and music I listen to are on a networked hard drive which is plugged into my router. I then have a netgear EVA8000 HD media streamer plugged into the router and also into my 50" HD TV by HDMI cable. I'm really pleased with the output but would like to get surround sound instead of just using the TV speakers. I also currently listen to music this way through the TV or through my PC so would like a better way of doing this.

I don't really want to get one system for the music and one for the TV and I'd also prefer wireless rear speakers. My room is fairly big (about 7 metres by 5 metres although the TV is towards the corner). Would I just need to buy a receiver that I could plug the netgear straight into and then plug the receiver into the TV and into some speakers? Would that work?

As for music, will I need some sort of interface to listen to it if the TV is off, given the music is on a hard drive? Will it all have to still go through the netgear?

I'd rather not spend too much more than £1000 but will if thats what it takes. Can anyone point me in the right direction or recommend anything?

Many thanks.

 

[professorhat]

Hi there, just saw no one had replied to your post yet so thought I'd give it a whirl! I'm not familiar with the Netgear EVA8000 HD, but looking at the specs on Netgear's website, it says it has both an optical and a coaxial digital output. This means you can plug this into virtually any amp / receiver you buy today, which answers one question i.e. the Netgear can output the sound direct to your amp, therefore you wouldn't have to have the TV on for music (assuming the music is being played from a hard drive through the Netgear).

This then leaves us with the tricky question of an amp and speakers for £1000... Let me first say, this is such an individual thing, and therefore, you probably need to read what I say, have a listen (for god's sake, don't buy without listening!) and see what you think. If you hate it, you can always ask a good dealer his opinion, and (if he is a good dealer) he'll get you the sound you're after.

Anyway, I'd have a look at the Yamaha RX-N600D. It seems to fit in with your digital music perfectly. In a way, it bypasses the Netgear (probably not for everything though), but this could be a good thing as it's one less device in between the hard drive and your ears which could improve the sound quality (I know it's all digital, but I still firmly believe, whether through the digital or analogue domain, the less processing has to be applied to the signal to make it sound great in my ears, the better!). Also, as it's an older model, it can be found cheap (just saw it for £300 and it got 5 stars in WHF at £600).

Other than that, both the Onkyo TX-SR505 and TX-SR605 would be on my shortlist to audition.

On the speaker side, it looks like you want a style package (given you want wireless rears, I've assumed you want unobtrusive speakers as well). The only wireless set I know of is the KEF KIT series (see this post, though I'm sure there are others). However, given your room size, I'm not willing to recommend anything for this as it's bigger than my front room, and I wasn't convinced by any of the style packages I heard for about the same price. Hopefully someone else can add to give you a shortlist to listen to here.

And finally, I've been thinking about all of this, then just read your original post again and saw you don't want a DVD player (and from that I assume a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player). Can I then just ask, why do you want a surround system? For music, you would be much better off (IMO) getting a stereo amp and speakers (plus a sub maybe?). For that money, you could get something very special I think.

Last but not least, please please please please please, take any suggestions from this forum and then audition them yourself. Even if someone says a system is the best thing they've ever heard, your taste might be completely different so you must listen to it first before you buy.

I hope I've been helpful!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, thanks a lot for your reply.

I don't particularly need to play music through the netgear EVA8000, I was thinking I could take it from the NAS and into the receiver.....but I'd need some sort of audio player (as an interface to do this as opposed to having the TV on) and looking through the web, it looks like I need to put some sort of media server (like firefly) on the NAS (maxtor shared storage) if I want to use something like Roku Soundbridge with it. Do you know anything about this as I'm not sure I'm getting it right?!

I guess maybe I don't need surround after all. I just checked most of my movies etc I have and the audio on them is mainly 2 channel mp3 so maybe surround sound is unnecessary. Perhaps better just getting speakers and a sub and a decent receiver then maybe i could add surround speakers in the future if needed?

Thanks for your help with this, I'll have a look into the amps and speakers you suggested.