Home cinema/ surround systems (QUICK ANSWER NEEDED)
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Evening gents ,

What are people running, im just in the process of doing the livingroom (well all the house) and theres that many decitions my head is spinning.

Ive got on with the most important bit first though, the garage for the mini, lol

So while am waiting to finish that im trying to sort the room. My plan was to mount the tv on the chimney breast but sink it into the wall ,im just conserned about heat??

Onto the surround, i carnt decide what to get as im not completely up on gadgets, ive got some old kef floor speakers that have been great so i was considdering geting some surround ones. My amp is an old denon , but dont i need an AV amp now??.

Can anyone help, i definitly dont want to spend a fortune but would also like quality gear??

thanks rick

Edited by cossierick on 3rd Jul, 2011.

I would recomend kef all day long, but alass they are abit pricy. Only ever had one problem with the system and that was due to running everything through an amp (i do recomend this for quality) and my dad and i didnt set it up properly and i manages to blow the centre speaker listening to very very loud music once it was replaces and setup again its been perfect.

What sort of price range did you want? If you want a pritty cheap surround system to use on either pc or tv ect then logitec i have found is brilliant, this is what im using in the flat atm, only downside is you need to change the base settings when using it on the tv

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

Searching is all you need on TurboMinis

Will the setup be used for playing music as well as surround from the TV?

If the answer is yes, then chose full range front left and right speakers with satellites and sub, instead of identical small satellites and a sub, but this will push the price up
A decent package would be the Monitor Audio Bronze BR2 at a street price of £699

http://www.whathifi.com/review/monitor-aud...nze-br2-package

http://www.quantumelectronics.co.uk/acatal...nze_br2_av.html

If no, then you could choose the KEF KHT1505 package at a street price of £499, which has a very good write up

http://www.whathifi.com/review/kef-kht1505


or am I off the mark with your price range

I've got an older KEF package KHT2005.2 (£799 new) and it is superb, and can be got used on ebay starting at £250, or the previous model 2005.1 starting at £99

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/KEF-Audio-KHT-2005-2...7#ht_500wt_1413

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/kef-kht2005-1-home-c...b#ht_500wt_1413

i have bought all my stuff off ebay, kef q5, kef q9 centre speaker, with bose cube, onkyo sr 876 reciever and just bought a gemini 2 subwoofer all for under £600 and works a treat. i have stayed away from the kef subs, there appears to be alot of problems with amps. my advice would be shop around find what you want and get on ebay.

Thanks, yes it will be for music aswell but mostley tv.

I would idealy like somthing as descrete as poss as the room isnt big.

Budget wise, same as phil if poss, thinking 600-700 for speakers and amp, i need to stop somwhere.

i have a strange setup

SONY HDMI amp 7.1 surround with all the top of the range gubbins in it. (£130 ebay)

I have a set of 5 egg shaped kef speakers for the surround (small speakers) and i have a set of BOSE 601 series 4 front speakers (can have either have all 4 front speakers on or just either bose or kef for the fronts) and a mordaunt short sub (TOP SUB!!!!)

this combined it excellent for music and cinema. We are going to buy a vcs-10 center speaker by BOSE to replace the kef one as it cant handle loud volume too well. and then put that in the middle at the back :)

i'm using an onkyo sr606 receiver and tannoy speakers. Got the stuff from richer sounds. bought it all about 3 years ago so maybe not so up to date but it does well

We have a Bose setup and its spot on, small cube speakers, DVD player, FM AM, MP3, CD player all in one box under the TV.

And it sounds amazing.

I have started posting on Instagram also my name on there is turbomk1golf

Nothing is impossible it just costs more and takes longer.

Edited by Coupe on 29th Jun, 2011.

thats the sub i have, its brilliant!

I have an Onkyo SR605 amp which is spot on, only drawback is that it's a couple of years old now and only has 2 HDMI inputs. You can also run a second pair of speakers off it with any source (not sure how "unique" that is) or kind of bi-amp your front stereo speakers.

Speaker wise, Acoustic Energy AE109 stereo floorstanders I've had for years and still sound fab, plus Acoustic Energy Aesprit centre & surrounds.

All in was about £1,200 but guess you could Ebay it for much much less nowadays. Or even try Hyperfi, they often have amazing deals

I'm running an old Denon AVR-3801, 4 mission 774's, a 77 center and 2 77ds dipoles at the back and a Rel Q100 sub. Bought ages ago but imho still up to par (who needs an HDMI amp when you have optical?). My current TV is a Samsung 40b550; very nice pic but crappy sound, but the Denon cs take care of that. Pretty much everything came off the bay or freeads.

1963 Cooper
1975 Pick Up

I went for the cheapest 5.1 bluray I could find - LG. It does everything I need it to like the last DVD 5.1 suround - Sharp, which lasted about 6 years. I did have to fix it twice due to dry joints on the power relay, but we finally decided to get rid when the speakers started to 'crackle' so likely other dry joints.

What's your budget? That's the key to the whole thing.

I run a yamaha surround amp with naim amplification.

And run monitor audio silver speakers all round.

You really needto think about how much you want to spend. You need to spend 10% of that on cables as a minimum. I can't stress that enough. Its like having a 200bhp mini with 145 re moulds, leaking dampers and drum brakes. You don't get out what you should.

Let's say you have £1000. If it were me I would go buy a dust hi fi magazine look at the winners of last year and spend £400 o. The amp. Spend another £400 on the speakers, £100 on a blurray player if needed and £100 on cables.

Or if you have something to use already then rearrange the budget spending more on the item your likely to keep the longest (surround amp).

I would go and audition the speakers then buy them online - much cheaper. Although ice had very good deals from my local seven oaks recently.

I'm in the middle of doing my front room. I wanted all the home cinema kit to be able to be controlled by my central home automation Pc running homeseer. This limited my choices somewhat as each device either had to have the ability to be controlled of ethernet or serial.

I went for the LG 50 PX990 THX 3D Plasma, and the Onkyo TX-NR808 AV receiver.

I plan to use my old speakers for a while, a mixture of JPW front floor standers, Celestion front / Dialog speaker, mordaunt short rears, and a paradigm active sub. When I have some spare funds then I'll look to upgrading the speakers.

I planning on making a false floating wall to sink the tv into, this will be my job on the weekend.

Now the question is what todo with my previous 11 year old plasma screen?? Pub in the garden, workshop or ebay??

Team Racing

Ignore the shit floor, carpet is ordered.

The TV is a Samsung 46" thing.

We're running KEF Eggs and a KEF sub, and an Onkyo SR606 amp. For media we use a Sky+HD box, and a BoxeeBox.

:) Nice budget setup.

Jim, I didnt understand any of that contolled by pc stuff, lol.

Ive had the tva few years now, its a philips 42" lcd. Was going to run the playstation for bluerays etc, not really sure what else to do with it.lol

Alex, yours sounds the key to what im after, i dont wana be completely stupid but whats a boxeebox?

So gents whats the deal on cables? ive got shit loads of oxygen free car speaker cable from my brothers install days. Will this be overkill or not the properstuff for the job anyway? not that im tight but if ive got somthing i can use i will.

rick.

ps, as my room isnt very big i dont want to over power it with the size of speakers, so the smaller the better to be honest

Edited by cossierick on 30th Jun, 2011.

We have an onkyo sr606 amp, with mordaunt short bookshelf speakers and centre speaker with a yamaha sub. Ps3 for bluerays and sky hd. all seems perfect for what we use it for, good for movies and some music.

Edited by george91 on 30th Jun, 2011.

Edited by AlexB on 1st Jul, 2011.

Team Racing

Jim, what are you using to backend it?

On the av front, again I'd recommend onkyo, they do some with spotify built in as well now.

I'm using a pc running homeseer pro for the backend. www.homeseer.com all the custom bits I wrote myself in VB, using a mixutre of technologies from x10, home easy, and custom built hardware.

Team Racing

Fantastic jimster, I would love to do that - in fact I had the perfect chance when we bought a new house three years ago, but the missus is hopeless with technology - she can't turn on the tv.... So I had to give that a miss.

Oxygen free copper is old hat now! It's 99.999999999% silver now. Saying that I run some very interesting speaker cable that defys all the laws of sound and capacity. I use some cable from a guy called Les worstenholm he runs and owns Avondale audio. I've not found a better cable yet... For interconnect I use millitary grade pure silver core with a pure silver shroud. It's fantasticily detailed although can sound a little bright so careful mating is required. I buy it off of us eBay.

The speaker cable I use...

http://avondaleaudio.com/store/#ecwid:cate...product=1623957

you have money to waste. pointless spending that much on speaker cable.