Home Cinema setups are fine but..

[Nilsen]

Yesterday i kicked the NAD surround receiver and surround speaker set out the door. Got it all this fall and figured that home cinema is the way to go..

Well all the speakers and the novelty of the home cinema A/V possibilities wore off rather quick. Sold it all to a friend and went for good old stereo

Got myslef a Cambridge Audio 740A stereo amp and a pair of Dali Ikon 2 speakers with floor stands and spent some good money on cables. Cost me less than the surround setup, but oh boy what a sound!! Me and the missus are super happy and Interpol, Maximo Park and Death Cab for Cutie have been playing for almost 24 hours straight and we have done nothing but sit in awe enjoying music like its supposed to.

Surround is "fun", but nothing beats a good stereo.

I would highly recomend both those speakers and the amp for anyone in the market for stereo that wont break the bank.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Nilsen
Yesterday i kicked the NAD...

I got kicked in the nads once... It was not a very enjoyable experience.

[Nilsen]

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
I got kicked in the nads once... It was not a very enjoyable experience.

Guess you are not into leather either then..

[SD67]

whips?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by Nilsen Surround is "fun", but nothing beats a good stereo. [/B]

Wrong, the thing with surround is that you need to spend 5 times the money to get a comparable sound quality in full surround. So if you're going to buy a stereo system for xx amount of money and spend the same to a surround system, you're going to get a very crappy surround system.

One example: You need to spend $1500 MINIMUM to a surround amplifier. Amp alone, speakers cost 2,5 times what your stereo speaker setup cost.

Start adding up from there.

Those 'surround speaker' packages are generally speaking a crime against humanity, nobody should be allowed to manufacture them.

[Nilsen]

Well I cant say i found the concept of surround very good either really. If i have to spend that kind of money to get a surround receiver to get within spitting distance of the amp i just got then its not worth it. The cables and the additional speakers that needs room just adds to the pain. Before i got surround i never really missed having sound comming from all over but I figured it was the way of the future, but maybe its not for us.

Over the last decade sales of pure stereo has gone down alot and a few companies have put all their efforts into surround and skipped 2 channel stereo. That trend has halted and are now slowly going towards 2ch again. I doubt it will catch up with surround though.

People who are mostly into movies will without a doubt find surround more interesting, but for us it is and has always been music. We havent even been to the movies in about five years

 

[Thruster]

Did you mention your A/V habits when you bought your original gear? To date there are so few records being mixed in multi-channel that it just seems a waste to try to make a surround system function as a music playback system. The few boxes that do a good job of delivering, through different speaker matrices, both stereo and multi-channel still need loudspeakers that are designed for music to really sound proper. That and the channel race are making the idea of a one box solution impractical for most consumers who really care about fidelity....AUDIO fidelity that is.

[sluggish]

HTIB is a rip off.  I use a Pioneer 150 x 5 DD/DTS receiver with vintage (1992) Verwin Vega DX-9 front and DX-1 rear and center speakers.  I don't need a sub and the fidelity is fantastic for surround, two channel and matrix surround (flat down to 20hz).  The real test is when you are playing DVD audio with 24 bit/92khz sound.  many audio CDs are now being released in 5.1 24bit/92khz audio.  Remember when they said that CD was as good as audio could be? they lied.

There is no way that modern plastic enclosured speakers can compete with vintage wood boxes (without costing an arm and a leg).

and everyone knows Bose is a scam....

[Nilsen]

At the time i thought A/V was what i wanted and i knew that pure music performance was gonna suffer somewhat. After a few months i have just realised that we listen to music in 99,9% of the time so getting a system that was optimised for movies was a bad idea. The difference in music performance between these two systems is amazing really.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

For music I have full range electrostatic panels (which produce incredible surround to the absolute center spot by the way). But for home theater and more than 1 person, there's no replacement for surround unfortunately.

[Thruster]

Well the key obviously is to optimize for both. It can be done but it takes more gear and the result can cause a divorce.  Problem is we're still chasing channel count. Now we're looking at 8 discreet outputs for mid-range units and I don't know of a one box solution that employs speakers tuned to music playback.
The way to go is discreet amps, switcher, separate decoders and tuners. that way you can add amps and speakers as we move to 20ch surround and just switch out decoders as the standard evolves.

[Reschke]

Just about to get a 42" LCD HDTV Sharp Aquos this week and I am trying to decide on which route to go. I have an old sound system that does an adequate job for my music (I haven't updated it in about 10 years) and I am not sure I want to go down the surround sound road. I do want to pass this one down to my 11 y/o son since he is getting into music that I listen to and I don't want it to disappear totally.

So if someone wants to give a few recommendations on current setups, costs, etc...  I would appreciate it. Thoughts are to stay under $1000 since it would be a Christmas gift to myself and would allow expansion for me to make a new stereo system for the future.

[Raptor]

Thats what I have. Hooked up a Sanyo stereo to the TV with 2 phillips speakers with subwoofers in them. I have another spot in the sanyo stereo to hook up a subwoofer but with 2 already in the philips speakers I don't feel the need.Then I have 2 small sanyo surround sound speakers I ran to the back of the room. Can play DVDs, CDs and PS2 on this setup.

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by Nilsen
Yesterday i kicked the NAD surround receiver and surround speaker set out the door. Got it all this fall and figured that home cinema is the way to go..

Well all the speakers and the novelty of the home cinema A/V possibilities wore off rather quick. Sold it all to a friend and went for good old stereo

Got myslef a Cambridge Audio 740A stereo amp and a pair of Dali Ikon 2 speakers with floor stands and spent some good money on cables. Cost me less than the surround setup, but oh boy what a sound!! Me and the missus are super happy and Interpol, Maximo Park and Death Cab for Cutie have been playing for almost 24 hours straight and we have done nothing but sit in awe enjoying music like its supposed to.

Surround is "fun", but nothing beats a good stereo.

I would highly recomend both those speakers and the amp for anyone in the market for stereo that wont break the bank.

Dali's are nice.  

I'm happy with my KEF's.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Unfortunately few things in this world are free and audio is no exception.

With $1000 you can expect to upgrade one component in your system. If you spend it all on a quality PAIR of speakers, the money is most likely best spent.