Sound Setup help Needed

Hi All,

I just stumbelled upon this wonderfull community while searching for HI-FI audio stuff and the vast knowledge in here is just amazinig. I thank one and all for sharing so much informative stuff.

ok, so here is my story, i have begun my quest for a HT setup and have now reached the stage where i have finances ready for Audio Setup.

Just to give an overview...of my setup so far...

Room Size: 12 Feet [width] and 16 Feet [long]...main sitting source at 8 feet from screen.
Screen : 47" 1080p Samsung Series 5 Model A550
HD Sources : HTPC (780g) for those not familiar its HDMI out both sound and videos @ using original blu-ray and hd-dvd discs which are mostly shipped in from US/UK at present.Additionaly i have a PS3 lying around which i use for my gaming needs over weekend and kids in house play all day around on.

Now, i have heard the wharfedale sets on people recommendation and liked them a lot, have not heard anything else yet.

I have a starting budget of 50k and would want a receiver (somthing which is 5.1 capable ) + towers if a centre can be acoomodated in that budget, it would be great.

Please suggest a receive which is future proof as i would be adding the Sub and rears with the setup after 6 months

So please suggest your choices and thanks for anybody who finds time to read through this.

Note : I am not an audiophile like most people in here, but would love good quality sound at a decent price.


Thanks and regards
Suhail Kapoor

Suhail:

You have a decent sized room as well as a large screen. You should look for an AVR with power between 100-150 watts per channel, and having up-scaling positively up to 1080p. This, connected to floor standers for the front, will set up a good atmosphere for watching movies and listening. to music.

Unfortunately your budegt seems a little low. An AVR of the size I am talking about will cost around 50,000 and floor standers such as Wharfedale's 9.5 will cost around 27,000. Can you afford or stretch your budget a little? In my mind, given the size of the room and the equipment you already have, the minimum specs I have mentioned for an AVR are essential.

Some of the possible AVRs are mentioned below:

1. Yamaha RX-V863 - 105 Watts per channel.
2. Yamaha RX-V663 - 95 watts per channel
3. Denon 2308 - 100 watts per channel
4. Marantz - SR6001 - 100 watts per channel.
5. Onkyo - TX-SR606 - 175 watts into 6 ohms.

All these AVRs would be available for around 50,000. All do up-scaling to 1080p. The Denon and Marantz are supposed to sound warm, while Yamaha may be a bit forward sounding. But, Yamaha is ideal for movies as they have a huge number of DSPs for movie sound. The Onkyo is a model that has been improved over last year's award winner, the TX-SR605. In 2007 Onkyo completely revamped their designs to grab nearly 40% of the world market for AVRs.

Any of these model will work for 4 or 5 years for you before you decide you want a newer model. The specs of these models are as follows.

Yamaha Music Australia - Audio Visual - Stereo Systems
Yamaha Music Australia - Audio Visual - Stereo Systems
http://denonsingapore.com/documentat...AVR2308_E2.pdf
Marantz America | SR6001 XM Ready Surround Sound Receiver
A/V Recivers : TX-SR606 | ONKYO Asia and Oceania Website

The Onkyo has the best specifications and the maximum power. I have read some contradictory impressions on their sound. I would strongly recommend you audition the Onkyo positively to decide whether you like it's sound or not.

Let me know what your ideas are and we can start narrowing the items.

Cheers

I've nothing more to add, as venkat put together the stuff nicely. You could pickup more powerful outgoing Onkyo models (805) near the cost of 606

But you may reposition your PS3 as your main source of playback. 780g based HTPC are not capable of delivering 5.1/7.1 LPCM audio over HDMI.

I think PS3 can not play DVDs from all regions, so not sure if it can replace the HTPC for DVD playback.

Yes PS3 is region locked, OP can always use HTPC as secondary source

Suhail:

Can you list the detailed specs of your HTPC. In particular the details of your sound card. From your posting, it is clear it has HDMI, Blu Ray, and HD DVD support. But. can it handle multichannel surround sound?

Cheers

Venkat, he has onboard sound card. It handles 2 channel audio via HDMI, multichannel audio via analog connection & Optical out. These onboard audio/graphics capable boards, push all the processing to CPU.

I'm using similar HTPC at the moment, but going to upgrade soon with this

I use an assembled PC with an on board sound card and a creative x-fi pci card. The Optical Out from the on board sound card is hooked up to my receiver. Since the optical out pretty much dumps the datastream to the receiver as is, it doesn't need to do any processing at all, so IMO C.P.U usage is not an issue when using optical out from an HTPC and streaming out digital dolby or DTS.

I use the x-fi to send out bit perfect two 44.1 Khz sound to my external DAC.

Thanks Suniil and Surealistix.

I have been out of touch with computer hardware and its accessories for a long time. I may be going comp[completely out of context here, bit I thought with a good video card, Suhail may be able to set up a really good HT System.

There are some wonderful cards available that incorporate either ATI or Nvidia GPUs and output uncompressed Blu-ray audio in all its glory. and support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, and feed 7.1-channel, 24-bit/192kHz LPCM audio through its HDMI port.

An HTPC with a DVD Player, a sound card with these capabilities, connected to a simple AV Receiver that excels in sound would go a long way in fulfilling any videophile's needs. I also believe these cards are now capable of 1080p at 24fps, the native frames rate of movies.

I am not sure about the DAC capabilities of these sound cards, but I suppose a good AVR will handle that.

Cheers

Thanks guys...your responses have come fast and are wonderfully informative.

Apologies for delay in my response .. have been travelling over the weekend and didnt find time to get a 3g chip sorted here in London.

Venkats suggestions seem spot on and i think i am now drifting towards the onkoyo amp.

The HTPC that i am using is powerfull enough in graphics as it off-loads tasks to gpu whichi is ati 3200 chipset, watching a hd-movie consumes only abou 5-12% of cpu at max.

Of the LPCM over HDMI thing, havent checked that yet since didnt have a multi channel setup, but i remm getting a new driver update which i think has enabled the lpcm thing, mi might be wrong though. Can only check it after a couple of weeks, if it doesnt work, i might be going in for Asus Zonar soundcard which is best at present.

Will be looking at recommended sound systems here at totenham court road, london and will see what prices i can get here. Can somebody please pass me the retail price of Onkyo - TX-SR606.

Cheers
Suhail Kapoor