Surround sound system advice

[wellard]

Help!

I am looking at buying a decent surround sound system this week or next and need as much advice as possible. What to avoid, what to include, mistakes you made. Speakers seem to be the constant weak link. I currently have a pair of near 20-year-old JBL speakers that are sensational. Would it be an idea to incorporate them or just transfer them to rumpus / games room and get a matching newer set of speakers.

[Larry_OHF]

What are you going to use the new surround system for?

Home Theatre, Music, PC, or a combo of the afore-mentioned?

[Thoran]

If you go component... don't fall into the trap of spending all your cash on Amp/Receiver and skimping on speakers.

These days you should spend AT LEAST twice as much for speakers as you do for the rest of your system (Amp/Receiver/DVD Player/etc...), Personally I went with Paradigm, a more affordable but quality speaker... and I still spent somewhere around 4k on speakers and well under 2k on components.

[wellard]

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: What are you going to use the new surround system for? Home Theatre, Music, PC, or a combo of the afore-mentioned?

Just home theatre / music Larry. We already have an excellent DVD player but seeing as the TV blew last week I will be buying a new tv as well. (not plasma or LCD)

[Larry_OHF]

I can only talk about PC surround (Creative) so I will be eager to see what others have to say about TV Home Theater systems because I want one

[wellard]

Originally posted by Thoran: If you go component... don't fall into the trap of spending all your cash on Amp/Receiver and skimping on speakers. These days you should spend AT LEAST twice as much for speakers as you do for the rest of your system (Amp/Receiver/DVD Player/etc...), Personally I went with Paradigm, a more affordable but quality speaker... and I still spent somewhere around 4k on speakers and well under 2k on components.

A couple of people have offered the same advice Thoran, I'm guessing that there is not much difference between decent amp/receivers as opposed to the different qualities of the speakers, is that about right!

5.1 v 7.1 (or even 7.2) are those extra speakers worth it? A separate powered bass seems to be popular, a must have or just nice?

[Thoran]

I think those sorts of decisions depend on your budget. If you have the money for a full 7.1 system with good speakers go for it. If your budget is limited (like mine always seems to be) you might be better off going quality as opposed to quantity. Personally I'd rather get 5 GOOD speakers for a solid HT setup and add the sub and side channel as budget allows. Of course make sure your electronics can do 7.1... these days they all should.

I bought my Sub several years after the initial setup, it's nice but if your front channel speakers are decent full range boxes you'll be quite happy with the system even without the sub (and that will leave you with $500-$1000 bucks to spend making sure those front channel speakers ARE solid). (The vibration from my sub makes my wife sick to her stomach so I have to keep it fairly low most of the time anyway).

Other stuff:

Get side driving rear channel speakers... they cost more but fill MUCH better than trying to get a directional speaker to do fill duty. The Paradigm ADP-370's are a great speaker, but other companies make similar designs.

Center channel is VERY important for movies... the majority of the vocals come from that speaker and they can be overwhelmed by the background sounds if it's undersized. I've got an Infinity center channel that worked well sitting on a TV but doesn't have the oomph to fill a Home Theater space, it needs upgrading.

[Ilander]

I have a small, 100 Watt system that's cheap, but does the job fairly well, in my opinion....

It's also about the volume of space you're trying to spread the sound throughout. For a small room, 500 Watts seems a bit excessive, but for a big room (say, 7 m x 7 m), it wouldn't be that bad of an idea.

Also, get as many inputs and outputs as you can...you never know what you're going to want to try out on surround sound, so you don't want to skimp in that department.

Finally, buy extra speaker wire. Heck, I'd advise not to even think about using the factory wire, as it's pretty much guaranteed to not be long enough, unless you're living in a college dormitory.

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

Hi John.

Do you have a budget in mind? Believe it or not these speakers can become a very costly business if you're not careful (you can easily rack up 5grand if you get yourself the top notch products). A good read that I've enjoyed and has helped me is over at Hexus.over

Before you start to read this though, this guy is reknowned on Hexus for being absolutely loaded, so his budget is fairly wild. Although he did tell me before that he started off with a £1000 spend in mind, but ended up racking it up to over £5000.

Of course you don't have to buy the amp and sub and speakers seperately, you could always go for a 5.1 bundle, although they don't really compare in terms of performance, but are still good if you aint an audiophile.

[ 01-22-2006, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: RoSs_bg2_rox ]

[wellard]

To narrow things down I will be getting 5.1 but taking your advice Thoran I will make sure the receiver is 7.1 compatible.

Ilander, nothing but monster cable for me! I’ve used it for years in so many houses [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

G'day Ross! I used to class myself as an audiophile many years ago. My current system was over $3000 nearly 20 years ago (just when CD were invented btw )

But I wonder now if my ears are good enough to tell the so subtle but important difference between a $1000 set of wharfdales and a $2000 set of DB dynamics (Vega f45 series) Years of working at airports have damaged my hearing it seems. I spent a lot of time testing speakers at the shops and it has become obvious to me that I would no longer get the maximum benefit from the real top line series of speakers.

Question. Is setting up the time delay in a large room so hard to do? Many receivers have a mic set up that you hold where you will be sat and it adjusts the power/ delay settings of each speaker automatically. Is this a must have feature?