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I've just purchased an Oppo BDP83 Blu-Ray/SACD universal player.
At this point it is hooked up to the Panasonic Vierro 42", with the audio through an older Yamaha "Natural Sound" stereo amp, driving a pair of PSB Stratus Silver speakers.
I'm probably happy with 2-channel sound. I can always put a sub-woofer in. The Yamaha amp section (100W/c @ 8 ohms) is pretty good, although the pre-amp section isn't very transparent.
I'm thinking of upgrading the amp. The Home Theatre receivers all seem extremely complex, with a gazillion features I probably won't use.
I guess I'm from the older audiophile school that simpler is better - more controls just introduce more circuits and more distortion.
So, maybe I should just be looking for a better 2-channel amp for the HT set-up?
Had I seen this thread I would not have started another, but here seems the tilting point HDMI. Some say the audio transfer is inferior to RCA, that it has a lot of jitter. Hasn't that be solved with newer version of HDMI? If not, then I'm sticking with 2 channel in my video rig.
I've heard several well regarded 5.1 & 7.1 setups & I'm just not that impressed. My simple 2 channel rig with a sub sounds much better & more natural to me. Maybe I just haven't heard the right HT system yet, but I'm plenty satisfied with regular ol' stereo.
Cheers,
Bobbo :-)
My wife and I are totally happy with a pair of Magnepans with stereo subs for home theater with our 42" Plasma. Voices are easy to understand, and the spacial effects are quite nice too.
I can't afford one with the quality of my 2-channels and so I drive my sub and rear stereo amp from the Oppo directly when listening to discs, especially movies. TV is stereo only in my combo set up.
There may yet be an advantage to sticking with 2 channel - I can feed the DSD/ SACD to it by analogue. I'm having a heck of time trying to identify with any certainty a Receiver that will receive the DSD signal by HDMI, but not process it into PCM.
Older (last year's!) receivers seemed to that, but the incoming receivers, including Marantz, seem to be abandoning the format.
And frankly I doubt most of the AVRs under ~$5k would enable you to tell the difference anyway. Probably most are converting DSD to LPCM somewhere, certainly if any processing (Audyssey etc.) is used. I would bet not too many mainstream AVRs have a "direct" DSD to DAC to preamp mode. Now you have got me interested in finding out what my (older) Denon AVR does, even though I don't play normally DSD through it (use the BDP-83's DSD-> DAC output into a 2ch pre).
If you like the sound you now have and aren't interested in surround sound you don't need one. And if you get good imaging with your current 2-channel rig you don't need a center channel speaker. I used to use surround sound (going back to Dolby surround days before Pro-Logic and Dolbt Digital) and have gone back to simple 2 channel.
HDMI switching can be done through many TVs; I run all my sources except my record player (LD player, streaming BD player, DVD jukebox, cable box, jumpdrive) through the TV and feed my 2 channel hi-fi with the audio out jacks from the TV. The TV is the source switcher.
This is basically what I am doing now.
I'm not really satisfied with the sound, though. I've been spoiled by the George Wright SET Mono Blocks in my dedicated audio system, and the Yamaha amp is sounding pretty sterile.
So, it is a question of probably upgrading the amp - and if so, perhaps just sticking with a 2-channel, as more likely providing better sound for the buck that a HT amp that has a lot of bells and whistles.
However, I can probably find a center channel amp by PSB that will match my PSB Stratus Silvers. A used HT amp might serve for that purpose of trying it out - but ultimately, I'm going to need to find something with decent sound.
with bd discs I dont think theres hi rez audio in 2 channel? at least on the disc I like to play there is not.some I have state 24/48 but not many.I have one bd disc that steve hoffman mixed, with extras in 2 channel & d.d hd in 5.1 & the 5.1 does sound better.
if you like movies 2 channel is fine. I like concerts but the audio is not that good in the rears on most of my discs.that hoffman disc is n.i.n heavy metal but it does sound good in the rears.maybe 1 in 4 discs I buy have a decent sound in all the speakers.
mch dvd-a mch sacd & blu-ray concerts rule.
What is more important then surround channels is a center channel
A high quality center channel is a must
A center channel wouldn't be too hard to implement - but, then I would need a new amp.
I've always been a bit confused about the need for a center channel speaker - isn't that what stereo imaging does?
Only if you have listeners/viewers off way off center.
As Brian A said, a centre channel anchors MOST of the dialogue to the screen (there is always the occasional off screen dialogue that comes from one of the other channels). It also tends to make the words clearer because there is always some comb filtering when you're listening to a "phantom centre" and that isn't present when the words are coming from a single speaker.
I tend to think there's also a gain from reducing the amount of other channel info downmixed into the L and R channels as well.
The problems with having a centre are two. First, it needs to be a reasonable tonal match for your L and R speakers otherwise the tonal character of a voice will change as it moves to or from one of the left or right speakers as will happen occasionally. If that's a big tonal change, and it can easily be a big change if the centre is a poor tonal match for the other speakers, it can drive you crazy. It did when I tried using a couple of different centre speakers with a 25 year old pair of KEFs—they simply didn't match tonally. The other problem is that you don't want to have more than 12-18" difference in height between the tweeter of the centre speaker and those of the other speakers otherwise the height difference can start to cause problems.
A good centre speaker which matches your L and R speakers is a really good upgrade and a 3.0 or 3.1 system is definitely better for movies with surround soundtracks than a 2.0 or 2.1 system if you can find a centre speaker which is a good tonal match for your existing speakers.
David Aiken
Unless you are sitting right in the sweet spot you need a center channel. It anchors the dialogue to the screen for people sitting off center. A trick I do is turn the center channel up several dB because in most movies they jack way up the special effects so if you have it turned up enough to hear clearly soft dialogue, you get blasted off your couch with the booms and explosions. And yes, I already have my receiver set to "night" viewing.
We'll have to agree to disagree about global warming until the next global cooling scare comes along
While redoing my basement I bought a 32" tv with a built-in blu ray player for my bedroom. (Musical Fidelity stereo integrated, Meadowlark Shearwater speakers)I'm pretty happy with just a 2 channel set up for almost all of my tv/movie watching, but there's really something great about a surround system with a good sci/fi flick!
If you have the room and the funds, go ahead! A decent audio/video receiver can be had for around $800, and the Denon line is pretty easy to set up. They have a built-in EQ that measures the room acoustics and adjusts the channel level accordingly. Most manufacturers have it these days, but I've always preferred Denon for overall sound, reliability, and ease of use.
Baba-Booey to you all!
Good point about the room - ours is less than ideal -
We are viewing and listening across the width of the room, using only half the room, instead of across the length, so the other half of the room is "empty" as an AV space - so, probably pretty hard to balance surround sound.
on what you want to do.
If you're happy with your switching arrangements for video as well as audio and you're happy with the sound you're getting, then you don't need a HT receiver.
On the other hand if you aren't happy with video switching at your display (not enough inputs of a particular kind or simply not enough inputs) and you want more flexibility, then a HT receiver is certainly one way to go. It allowed me to use HDMI outputs from 2 sources. It also encouraged me to set up a surround sound system which I didn't have before I got the receiver and that can be a hidden trap. If you've got those extra channels available and you just happen to have a spare pair of speakers in a cupboard somewhere, it's easy to start down the slippery slope to a full scale surround setup. Don't get me wrong, I found I really enjoyed surround sound with movies but the setup completely took over the living room and in the end I decided that it wasn't worth having to keep walking around speakers in awkward places so I dismantled the surround system.
I don't know of any 2 or 2.1 channel HT receivers with HDMI inputs so that means that if you buy one for your current setup and you're interested in getting HDMI switching capablility you may not be able to find a receiver which does that unless you opt for one with full surround sound capability. That's a lot of amplification you don't need if you're only interested in 2.0 or 2.1 channel sound however if you can bi-amp your speakers (ie if they have bi-wire inputs), many HT receivers allow you to use some of the channels for bi-amping the front L and R speakers so you may be able to get some use from those extra channels. If the receiver has standard sub options and automated setup it can make sub setup a breeze and if it has a good built in room eq system like Audyssey that may also give you some useful benefits.
The complexity of the added controls can be a problem—it took me a while to come to grips with them—but in the end I found that they did offer some useful flexibility in my HT system while I ran it. Sure, there were more than a few features I didn't use but the ones I did use probably weren't obtainable any other way.
So my advice is to think about what you want to do with the system and what aspects of your current setup you currently are unhappy with. Work out which of those you can solve with an amp upgrade and which require the extra functionality that a HT receiver can provide. Then look at that extra functionality and decide whether the extra cost involved in buying the extra channels of amplification and the extra functionality that the receiver has over the amp is a reasonable price to pay for the extra functionality you need. If it isn't, then stick with the amp or investigate other options for getting the functionality you want.
David Aiken
Thanks for the excellent, thoughtful response!
I picked up a 8 year old Marantz HT Receiver, works perfectly , for $ 70.00.
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