Need help with building a HT system

Congratulations!! You have covered 80% of your journey. 42K for the 705 sounds a fantastic steal. How did you manage that? I am assuming the B&W is out.

a) Which way to go?

The choice is ultimately yours. Close your eyes in a quite room, and think over your auditioning. Which gave your more pleasure.? Which made you smile? Which made you tap your feet? Which made you want to hear the song again? That is the speaker you have to go for.

b) Is mixing the brands for surround and sub going to be a problem?

Though technically there are no issues. mixing of brands disturbs what is called timbre matching. Each set of speakers is made with a set of wood that is chosen by the manufacturer carefully to suit his drivers. Different pieces of wood behave differently with sound, and this will become an issue when you mix brands.

c) Would Tanooy's get better over time and be able to delive better bass?

They may, they may not. There are arguments both for and against breaking-in of speakers. There are tested reports that say that the breaking-in happens in the few seconds of testing that the manufacturer does before he ships. There are also very respected viewers who swear that the sound improves over time. I have certainly seen a drastic improvement in B&W 303 over just two days. But the Wharfedales have sounded good to me from day one, and I have not noticed any perceptible difference after some 180 days.

d) In case I want to upgrade in future to better speakers, which brand would be scalable? e)

Both. Both brands have more expensive speakers in their repertoire.

In either brand, should I go for the book shelves or the floor standers? I love the way the 9.1s look when stand mounted.

I think for 100 sq feet, as I mentioned before, bookshelves should be ample. If you are choosing the Wharfedales, go for the 9.2 instead of the 9.1. It will add more volume, more punch, and improve the sound stage.

Regarding the surround being parallel to your listening area, there is no harm in that. Just place them some 3 feet about your ear when you are in sitting position. Surround sound speakers are supposed to be parallel to the viewers position in any case.

Cheers

Hi,
Your short list is good.

I will suggest this way-

1. LCD- sony w series (dont contain 100 hz,but new series abt to come)

2.AVR- Denon 2808

3.Spk - Kef KHT 3005 (awarded, looking roomsize)

4.DVD player - Denon,Pioneer 610,Philips 5996

My question to you which grey market did you aproach?
I m in Mum.
You are saving 50000 on LCD .I will take this way-

Gray market>no warrenty>savings>keep it for servicing if youare not lucky with piece else enjoy.

My experience was good with THE SHOP

They gave demo whichever I needed ,I spend 1 hr there.Mr.Sunil attended me.

Hi,

I posted my ans late then came to know you went for Sam & Onkyo.

I own Onkyo avr & tannoy f1 custom.
To me the combination is good for Music,Better for Movie.

As you said your room is 10 * 1o ft I will suggest dont go for Towers,
simply bcose sound may be heavy than sweat.

you can go for 4 Tannoy F1 custom & centre with velodyne SW.
Bass & treble are balanced.Bass goes below 60 Hz for F1.

I got Tannoy from Alliance4,they specially ordered for me.

Extremely helpful inputs, great people and a wonderful forum indeed :-) Thankyou all for taking your time to reply.

Getting to the point, I installed my HT system over the weekend -

TV - Samsung 5 series 46"
AVR - Onkyo 705
DVD player - CA DV99
Speakers - All wharfdale 9.1 fronts, 9CS, 9DFSsurrounds, SW150 -subwoofer

Just learning to operate the system and get the settings in place. My feedback so far,

a) Overall it sounds great and I am feeling happy with my purchase. The DVD picture quality is excellent. The audio CDs sound great. All this when I am resonably sure that the settings and listening modes are not even optimal yet. The guy who came to install did not seem to know much about settings and calibrations. I might have to do it myself reading the manual or call for a better guy from the shop (Alliance4 in Andheri).

b) The DVD player Cambridge Audio DV99 is giving some problems with audio CDs, in that, it is skipping a lot - sometimes, just gets hung. The player had scratches on it when opened from the box and I mentioned to the guys to replace it. they agreed, but am not sure if the problem is true of the model/ brand. Need some inputs here. My other choices are Pioneer 610 or Denon 1740 (from the grey market). The picture and sound quality is so good that I am not even sure I want to go for another brand. I tried Pioneer 410 with the set-up and both picture and sound seemed a shade lesser in quality.

(Incidentally,, grey market I refer to is Alfa in Irla.)

c) The speakers sound great. I love them. I had a final audition between Tannoys and Diamonds and chose the latter. As Venkat keeps saying, it turned out to be a personal choice that I liked the tonality of the music better. It also looks gorgeous. To me the clincher was that the sound from the diamonds was sweet, pleasant on the years and sounding relativey neutral. I thought about the time I was standing about 3 feet from the stage when Mark Knopfler was performing in Mumbai and was trying to find which speaker sounded closer to that. To my non-audiophile ears, it was the Diamonds.

I will keep the forum updated with more feedback and questions.

For now,

a) Should I go for a different brand DVD player or stick to CA DV99. I love the quality of it, but the skipping issue with Audio CDs. It does the same with old and new clean CDs. But, like I mentioned the exterior looks like a used piece and new one might not have the issue at all.

Venkat, specific to your comments,
a) I read your post after finalzing the 9.1s for the front. They sound loud enough for my room and seem to have enough base. In fact, for stereo, I felt like I should switch-off the sub. Should I still change it for the 9.2s as this is the best time to do it. Maybe I am missing something that you could highlight. Also the 9.1s seem have won a number of awards.

Even I was pleasantly surprised with the price of 705. This was from 'The Shop', one of the few to have it in stock in Mumbai. Also, the others were quoting upwards of Rs46K. Only thing is that I got a gold colour though I was looking for black or silver as no one had them in stock.

Looking for inputs as usual. Thanks

Again, my hearty congratulations. I am glad you were able to get a good set up up and running and are enjoying the system.

1. I think you should return the DV99 and demand a new piece that you test in the shop with the same CDs. If the new piece also skips the CDs in the shop, ask for a full refund. I would yet try to get a new and working DV00 as it will be good for music and movies. Move to a different brand as a last resort.

2. The 9.1s are fine, Anand. Dont worry, you are not missing anything. I suggested the 9.2 as having a bit more volume as you were wondering between the 9.1s and the 9.5s. Yes, the 9.1 are award winners and very good speakers. After being played a little while they will become even better.

3. The colour is immaterial. We are looking for excellent internals. Who cares for colour. Gold also looks good. In my rack, each unit is differently coloured. I call it a multi cloloured rack.

Enjoy your system.

Cheers

Thanks agian. I got the distributor to come home last night and connect another brand new CA DV99 DVD player through HDMI to my 705. This time around, the audio pauses continued while playing audio CDs, but I realized that the DVD was not skipping. The CA dislplay showed that it was playing seamlessly, but on the 705, "HDMI" was flashing during the brief pause. The pauses are after every 30 seconds or so for about a second or two. Very annoying indeed. Looks like the problem is with the 705. Anyone who knows a solution for this or have heard similar things before? I have spoken to Onkyo here and their service person is supposed to call me. The silver lining is that I have bought it with bill and warranty and hence have back-up on paper atleast.

Let us see what the Onkyo service engineer says. Could be something as stupid as a loose connection somewhere.

Another thing you can do is connect the DVD player to the AVR through a component for video and optical/coaxial digital for audio. The video will be upscaled if you connect the AVR to the TV through HDMI.

Anyhow we will await you feedback after the Onkyo service guy visits.

Cheers

Venkat

Thanks. But, as 705 upscales only to 720p and my TV is capable of 1080p, I was wondering if it was ideal to let CA DV99 do the upscaling - in which case, I might still need the HDMI out from DV99 to AVR. I guess I am going through a 'new owner' syndrome of not wanting to compromise at all! Just like I used to hear even a small dashboard noise in my new car for the first month or so and get worried. Now, I don't even hear the engine

Anyway, the Onkyo engineer wants me to try your suggestion to rule out any defects in the DVD player. If so, he said he will attend to the AVR and do what is needed.

The Onkyo dealer in the mean time has asked me to set the Sync option to 0ms from 20ms.

The other dealer (speakers +DVD player ) is offering to try with a different HDMI cable and port.

Will update what happens next...

Anand, I meant that connection route only for testing and eliminating issues.

Cheers