I'm currently based in Hyderabad and am trying to put together a HT system for a living room. I've done some research, am at a pre-audition stage and am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Any suggestions/critiques would be most welcome.
Room layout:
Living room size is 16' x 15' but it also bleeds into a 10' x 8' dining room without an intervening door. Side passages on either side lead to other rooms but these do have doors for separation.
Usage:
It'll probably be about 40% music - mostly classic rock, but also some Ilaiyaraaja (if you don't know who that is, you should head for the nearest cliff
) songs, and some Indian classical - 60% video - random mix of HD video and other low-res digital stuff
Research status:
I've gone through all 60+ pages of the 'speakers under 20k thread' (pinky swear!) and plenty others on this site, and a few other sites.
I think I'd like to go with the following:
Audition (gulp):
I'm a complete noob when it comes to decent A/V systems. I've never even seen a HT system before. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to understand concepts such as imaging, soundstage, musicality etc but that's all theoretical. Lots of sources tell you what these terms mean but not as many tell you how to judge these with your own ears. Harman has a 'learn to listen' demo. That helps. A couple of other sites give some examples.
My worry is that I'll go for speaker auditions and:
1 - Either be completely lost
(or)
2 - Think something sounds brilliant and buy it only to find faults with the purchase after gaining a bit more experience.
Sorry I've rambled all over the place. Any help will be much appreciated.
Room layout:
Living room size is 16' x 15' but it also bleeds into a 10' x 8' dining room without an intervening door. Side passages on either side lead to other rooms but these do have doors for separation.
Usage:
It'll probably be about 40% music - mostly classic rock, but also some Ilaiyaraaja (if you don't know who that is, you should head for the nearest cliff
) songs, and some Indian classical - 60% video - random mix of HD video and other low-res digital stuffResearch status:
I've gone through all 60+ pages of the 'speakers under 20k thread' (pinky swear!) and plenty others on this site, and a few other sites.
I think I'd like to go with the following:
- Feb/March 2015: Pair of front speakers (budget about 20K) + receiver (about 30K). Room is wide enough to accommodate floorstanders like the Andrew Jones FS-52; can also buy a long low cabinet to accommodate bookshelf speakers (wharfe diamond etc). I don't know if the room dimensions necessitate floorstanders (rather than BS). I do now havea (laundry) list of speaker models from the aforementioned (speakers under 20 K) thread, but have no personal knowledge of their quality.
- March/April 2015: Centre + sub (40 K max for the two). I don't want timbre matching issues so clearly the choice of centre depends on the choice of front speakers. On the subwoofer side, I have models such as SVS PB1000, CS SUB10 II on my shortlist. Again, no personal knowledge of any of these.
- Late 2015: Pair of surrounds. Again, this depends on my initial choice of fronts so I'm not sweating this at the moment. 5.1 is, I think, as far as I'm going.
Audition (gulp):
I'm a complete noob when it comes to decent A/V systems. I've never even seen a HT system before. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to understand concepts such as imaging, soundstage, musicality etc but that's all theoretical. Lots of sources tell you what these terms mean but not as many tell you how to judge these with your own ears. Harman has a 'learn to listen' demo. That helps. A couple of other sites give some examples.
My worry is that I'll go for speaker auditions and:
1 - Either be completely lost
(or)
2 - Think something sounds brilliant and buy it only to find faults with the purchase after gaining a bit more experience.
Sorry I've rambled all over the place. Any help will be much appreciated.
