New Home Theater whilst repurposing old gear

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › New Home Theater whilst repurposing old gear - advice please

red89mx

79 posts

Master Geek

#56821 24-Jan-2010 22:58

Ok - I have held out for a number of years and now need to sort my Audio/HT as about to get new TV and want to have all audio in one spot. Saw Mr Flower thread and this is a similar query.

Currently have TV/Video and Audio totally separate. Running a Sony Bravia 32" Freview LCD with Tivo and a Sony 42" rearpro with vantage PVR (sometimes hooked into an old TEAC AV Amp and my old B&W CM1 bookshelveas) and a couple of basic DVD players (Phillips/Sony). TV setup is focused on giving deaf partner access to text and captions - no Audio bias. ( 2 x tellies as I hate Coro street etc). Have good collection of CD's and DVD's (not blueray).

The old Sony rearpro is about to go (owner returning from O/S), probable replacement is Panna 50" V series plasma (but may change mind yet).

Audio is a bit of a mix and kept separate. Sources are NAD Tuner and a 20yr old Mission PCM CD coupled to a NAD 3020A Amp (debridged to provide pre only) feeding a Plinius SA50 Power amp and Mission 703 floorstanders. Have a Yammy SW415 Sub floating arround - but not using yet as more of a HT rather than Audio unit.

When getting new telly looking to set up a basic home theater with an Audio bias. Looking to keep 703 speakers but not sure what else can be used without complicating everything.

Current thoughts are;

Front Sp - Use Mission 703's (see how they go)
Center - purchase new speaker (What?)
Rears - us B&W CM1's (but only 89db efficiency - may be hungry?) - may just go 3.1
Sub - Use Yammy SW415 (to start with - but only for HT...not good enough for Audio)

Big questions are CD/DVD source and Amp.

CD/DVD - Possibly a slightly older grunty unit that can handle Audio (Denon 3800/Marantz 9600 or 70001) as there are some good deals on older non blue ray units at moment (new & second hand)

Amp ? possibly something with audio pre out that allows the Plinius to be kept? but this may overcomplicate things (Again - Onkyo/Dennon/Marantz/Yamaha? A&R etc). Tend to like warm sounds as have had english amps for a while now.

Happy to trade of some Picture for 2 channel Audio in the AMP/DVD and want to keep relativelty simple without going overboard on $$$.

Thoughs and advide appreciated

Cheers

richms

26419 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#292962 25-Jan-2010 20:00

I have never had much luck mixing and matching centers with mains, and have in both cases just turned the center off and have 4.1 - give that a shot before going and getting one. The need for a center is overstated by sales people because it does all the dialog - only if you have it tho. I find the mains image to the middle just fine for me sitting in the middle of the sofa, and noone else matters ;)

efficiency doesnt really matter when you are not trying to play movies at reference level - most HTITB systems cant even do that and are plenty loud enough to get visits from noise control.

I would go for a cheap onkyo/denon with preout, use your decent amp on the front and the inbuilt amp for the rears, and get a PS3 for a player, so you get all the media playback stuff, the bluray, and games for less than you could do otherwise. HDMI to the reciver means that you are not using anything in the PS3 for audio other than it outputting PCM over the HDMI, and the DA's in all the receivers are plenty good enough, unless you like the overly coloured sound that some of the "audiophile" ones have.

The only advantages that more expensive recivers have is either more power, which you dont need, more inputs, which you dont need, or a media player in them which usually totally sucks compared to the PS3 one.

Richard rich.ms

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red89mx

79 posts

Master Geek

#293221 26-Jan-2010 22:08

Thanks for the input Richard

Was thinking about a PS3 for Blueray latter - do not have any blueray disks yet.....

For transport was considering the Marantz 7001 or even the Oppo BDP-83.

To get pre out need to go to at least a mid range AV reciever I would have thought....The Onkyo 607 has a pre out for zone 2 only I think? has good reviews musically for a mid range HT amp.

I need to investigate the bit about PCM over HDMI.

Ultiimately I can probably optically connect the old Mission PCM to an good HT amp (or feed it direct to see how it performs).

ta Alan