Toshiba SD-370E

[strobo]

I bought one of these earlier in the week. I finally got around to sitting and watching a film last night, and was pretty impressed, I have to say. Especially when comparing it to our earlier non-upscaling DVD player.

Blood Diamond looked crystal clear. The scenery scenes looked fantastic. For the bargain basement price, this machine is pretty darned good.

My next plan is to buy a reasonably priced CD player, but that isn't too urgent. I also want to change the front speakers to some just a little more musical, but which are still very small. This would allow me to move the existing front satellites and create a 7.1 setup.

I'm thinking along the lines of Mordaunt Short 302's or Tangent Evo's. Anybody got any experience of either of these? The current fronts are Tannoy EFX5.1 satellites, so I'm guessing either would be step up.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Hi Strobo

Are all your speakers EFXs? And what's the receiver?

 

[strobo]

Hi Andrew, I see you're doing overtime again... ;-)

At the mo all speakers are EFX's, and the receiver is a Denon AVR-1707 (no surprise to say it's midway in spec between the AVR-1507 and '1907). The front left is wall mounted, and the centre and front right are on my own bespoke stands (The stands are in turn mounted on the shelf holding the TV).

To be honest the current speakers sound great with lightweight stuff. Give them a singer and guitar and loads of ambient atmosphere and they sound great - the stereo imagery is such that if you're reading What HiFi whilst listening to music, you have too keep looking up to check it's not coming from the TV (exactly mid-way between the speakers). The snag arises as soon as the music gets a little busier - they just seem to bog down a little. I know I'm still expecting a bit too much as the current source for CD's is still only a DVD player (until pay-day anyway), but even when I had a true CD player plumbed in last week, the front speakers just aren't what I'd call musical. And it definitely seems to be the mid- and high-frequencies that are letting them down. The bass remains pretty strong and taught, so I'm happy with the sub.

I'm looking at the two speakers I mentioned mainly due to size. The TV isn't really ideally placed, as we have it in the corner of the room in a fully fitted unit (the room is an odd shape, so moving the TV has never been an option either). This limits what can be placed either side of the TV. The EFX's are great size-wise, so I don't really want to go for anything much bigger. I like the idea of a pair of Q Acoustics 1010's but they're just too deep. The left one would stand off the wall much too far.

Right, I've babbled on far too much. Your suggestions are welcome Andrew.

 

[Anonymous]

Here's one for you that you may not have considered, Dali Ikon On-Walls. They use the same drivers as the Dali Ikon 2 and they sound really rather nice! They're also very shallow so don't stick out into the room too much. Seriously worth a look, though not exactly cheap at just shy of £500 a pair. What do you think Andrew?

 

[strobo]

Cheers Will, I'll take a gander at some of those.

The biggest snag I have is that my left speaker ideally needs to be wall mounted (being as close to the side wall as it is), but the right hand speaker is a reasonable distance from the wall, but without a clear drop to the floor, so needs to be mounted on a small stand. Quite a hotch-potch really. If I think about it later I'll get a pic or a diagram online so you can see the problem.

For now, I'll take a look at those Dali's Will.

 

[strobo]

Sorry Will, the Dali's are too big.

And assuming they need to be flat against the wall, then the sound would be firing off in the wrong direction from the left speaker, crossing the front of the TV. This is turning into a right old pain to be honest. I might have a word at the local Richer Sounds and see if I can try out a pair of Tangents first and see if they do the trick.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Yes, a pic or a diagram would help me get my head around the system...

But in the meantime, if you're considering 1010s, why not Tannoy Mercury F1 Custom speakers, which would give a better tonal match with the EFXs?

 

[strobo]

Hi Andrew. The I think Tannoy Mercury's are too big. The snag is always the depth and/or the width. However, I have a pair of old Tannoy M1's (about ten years old and still going strong in my bedroom stereo setup), which are about the same size, so if it comes to it I'll plonk them in roughly the right place and see how they look.

The TV is at 45 degrees in the corner of the room. The left hand side of the TV is closer to the wall than the right hand side. There's only about a foot of clear wall before the window on the left hand starts to mess things up - I'm not allowed to place anything in front of the window, so the two front speakers have to be pretty close to the TV. This isn't too much of a problem, especially if I go along the 6.1 or 7.1 route to straighten things out in the movie sound, but it clearly doesn't help stereo imaging.

I'll dig out me camera and let you all see what the problem is.

 

[strobo]

I've hosted a pic here http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5649/p1030315sw5.jpg on Imageshack. (Wasn't sure whether it was acceptable to link through the WhatHiFi forums, so decided against it).

Please also excuse the messy cables and other stuff. It's all a work in progress at the mo, so it's all still in a bit of chaos.

The TV might be increased to a 32" sometime soon, so I don't want anything too wide in the front speaker positions to allow room for this expansion. Size-wise the EFX's are just right, but they just don't have the stereo quality I would've liked. Maybe I'm just expecting too much with the speakers being so close together.

If I were to use speakers too deep, then they would start to stand too proud of the TV screen and won't pass the Feuhrer's strict acceptance policy. Ideally I want something to sing just a little better than the EFX's but without being too much bigger. I don't want much do I...???

If I had my way I'd have gone for the Mercury's first off (I like the Tannoy sound), but with size being the issue, I've had to look elsewhere.

So, over to you all...

EDIT - Sorry the text is all bunched together - the board seems to be overriding my formatting.

 

[strobo]

To add to my last post (any more I can think of...?), I know the amp and sources will benefit greatly from being seperated with better racking - this is also in progress, but until I'm certain what space I have to work with, it's got to wait.

 

[strobo]

Yet another post.

I fetched my Tannoy M1's downstairs, and plumbed them in, just to prove to myself that the DVD acting as CD really isn't the limiting factor in this setup. The feuhrer was so impressed with the sound she has given me permission to use a pair of something similar as fronts. So size is now not quite the issue it was (she has accepted a little window loss in return for the extra sound quality). The right hand speaker won't be ideally positioned (it'll be a bit boxed in), but we can't have everything can we?

So, I might be heading down the Tannoy Mercury Custom's as per Andrew's post. The front bass-port will also make the shelf-mounting less problematic. My old M1's have rear ports so are a little more sensitive to reverbs from behind.

I'll keep you all posted on how I get on.

By the way, are we still supposed to break-in new speakers by reverse-phasing one, pointing them at one another, and giving them a good caning? Or has that all gone by the by nowadays?