The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Teach me about Sound systems.
Kor
Known to detonate from time to timeRegistered User regular
Known to detonate from time to timeRegistered User regular
As some of you might have seen me post a few months back. I just recently purchased a lovely HD TV. 52" Sharp Aquos.
Well... as I'm slowly making the transition to HD, the next thing on my shopping list is a sound system. I was hoping you guys could help me with some info.
Firstly, is there anywhere I can avoid nasty ass wires running across my ceiling?
Secondly, I've seen 4.1, 6.1, 8.1 tossed around. From what I gather, the first number is just the number of speakers, and the .1 is just the bass?
Do these things requires heavy installations? Or do most HDTVs support these easy enought that I can just plug one or two things in?
Help me obi-wan kenobi, you're my only hope.
Well... as I'm slowly making the transition to HD, the next thing on my shopping list is a sound system. I was hoping you guys could help me with some info.
Firstly, is there anywhere I can avoid nasty ass wires running across my ceiling?
Secondly, I've seen 4.1, 6.1, 8.1 tossed around. From what I gather, the first number is just the number of speakers, and the .1 is just the bass?
Do these things requires heavy installations? Or do most HDTVs support these easy enought that I can just plug one or two things in?
Help me obi-wan kenobi, you're my only hope.
DS Code: 3050-7671-2707
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Kor on
0
Posts
Yes, the .1 is the subwoofer. The first number isn't just the number of speakers, it's the number of discrete channels the system supports.
There are systems with wireless rear speakers to avoid ceiling wire. That's if you absolutely don't want to drill holes in the wall. If you're going to wall-mount the speakers you have to drill anyways, though, and running wire through the wall is cheaper and often produces a higher-quality signal.
I'm not sure what you mean by "heavy installations."
Not really, wireless speakers are almost universally crap (and you still have wires for the power supply, unless it's .... ick, battery-powered). If you have a white ceiling you can get white-jacketed speaker cable which minimizes its appearance to a degree.
You is correct, the sub gets only .1 because it's powered, the other five channels are amplified by the receiver. For a good HT experience you want at least 5.1 (the majority of movies that support surround are going to be this anyway, a few are 6.1, I don't think i've seen any 7.1). If you need to scrimp deploy 5.1 and you can add speakers later (assuming your receiver supports more channels than 5.1).
You can do this yourself, it's not such a big deal and a pro installation will be pricey (and for the expense of pro install you could buy better wire, and better/easier connectors, of course if you like your time more than your money, by all means get a pro install). The most annoying part for me was mounting the speakers and it's just a bit time-consuming. Do you have a multi-channel receiver? This will be the brains of your audio system.
You can go under carpeting.
You can go along the baseboard.
You can go into a basement, or an attic.
You can go behind the baseboard.
You can run them in a channel.
You can run them in waynescotting.
Lots of options. We can work on that later.
What is your budget for the entire sound operation?
Don't go wireless.
You need a receiver. Do you have one? If not, make sure you budget for one!
It IS a better idea, sound wise, to buy them best front speakers you can right now. Your surrounds can come later. The idea is that a real good pair of speakers is not only of noticable quality, but that good speakers will last generations.
Is there a wife involved? Er, in other words, does it also need to look nice. You can get good quality from bigger speakers. But then again, you might have depends for very small speakers. Maybe even in wall speakers.
To run wire in the wall at all and to be safe about it, you need to use wall rated wire. This is also something to deal with later.
5.1 is enough as most sources don't go higher. But this actually depends on your room. If you have a huge room, a 7.1 will really help fill the room with sound. Most of the time, a 5.1 is enough to give you what you want.
Buy your cables at www.monoprice.com, in general. I got my speaker wire from www.partexpress.com because it wound up being cheaper.
I actually also got an Onkyo "home theater in a box" speaker setup, for 6.1 sound. The "in a box" solutions don't typically offer as wide an array of sound options as, say, personally selecting separate B&W speakers for each area, but a good set will do most of the work for you anyway. And still sound good. Again, the speaker set I got was one of the highest rated, but at about half the price of its competitors.
I'm not saying "buy my stuff," but just spend some time digging on Amazon or Cnet for things in your budget, and then spending some time cross-referencing on, say, avsforum. More importantly, you should do some of the research yourself because you're going to be the guy setting it up at home ;D
I'm looking at a budget of 200-ish bucks.
I asked about wires because I'm in Military housing, and because of that, I can't run wire thru walls, under carpet, or anything else that might look decent.
The only audio system I currently have is the default speakers built into my TV.
I plan on purchasing this thing around May.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Running wires along the floors is probably your best bet.
Check out www.avsforum.com, they are to home theater what we are to video games.
I have the Logitech z-5450s, which I'm happy with (THX-cert'd, no hiss or lag, but rears are only 16-bit while fronts are 24), but they've been discontinued and ballooned in price. About the only place you can find them for $200 now is on eBay or Craigslist.
I'd also check out EB/CL for some older model receivers if you can live without digital connections. The sound quality on a 7 year old high-end receiver is going to be higher than what you can get from an entry-level receiver today.
I would suggest you get a decent pair of front channel speakers (full-range) and a cheap (maybe even used) surround-sound receiver. The receiver you'll throw away as soon as you have the money to get something better; the speakers you'll keep for awhile. You can probably find a budget all-in-one solution for somewhere close to $200, but it's going to be pretty wussy, and if you ever want a good system, you'll have to throw it all away and basically lose $200. A receiver and a couple quality front speakers will still sound a lot better than TV speakers, so you'll still be getting something for your money.
If you go that route, add in the sub next. Then add in the surrounds and center at the same time. You could probably get away with just adding rears and running Dolby Pro-Logic for awhile without a center, since the center channel is just a remix of the two fronts. Alternately, you could add the sub last and just make sure all your speakers are full range. It'll still sound good, just not awesome. After you get all your speakers, look into getting a good receiver.
If you're buying on a budget I recommend buying the 'throw away system' to start with. If you have no experience with surround sound or listening to nice setups, you really might not know what you're missing and be happy with 'loud + bass + stuff behind me = awesome'. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that mind frame until you decide it's not good enough for you. At that point (and when you have the money of course) you can upgrade to the system you really want. The thing I love about this approach is you now have your old system kicking around doing nothing, which means you just got a pretty sweet computer speaker setup.
Not the most 'future-proof' way to go, but if you're a pack-rat or enjoy slowly upgrading your entire house like I do, it might work for you. If not, ElJeffe provides good advice.
Investing in decent speakers is not a bad idea if audio performance is important to you. Cause good speakers tend to hold their value better than a good multi-channel receiver (speaker technology over the past 5 years has evolved much slower than receiver technology, what with the constantly evolving video-connector spec). It could be my experience was exceptional as when I bought my receiver, the mainstream was component and only $1K+ receivers had HDMI.
The HTiB systems will give you that 5.1 HT experience. I'd be wary of the absolute cheapest models, as they may not have much in the way of additional audio inputs (you may not be able to run your game system, AND your dvd player, AND your cable through it), and they may not come with a dvd player if you're looking to have one included in the package.
This is generally wise. The center channel should be the highest quality of the set-up, because it's the one you hear the most. And a cheap sub can sound really bad - rumbly and static-y instead of smooth and bass-y.
And Rotting Meat makes some good points. If your only concern is getting 5.1 by whatever means and you aren't anal enough to justify getting The Best, then a low-end HTiB may be a great option. While the rest of us saps are dumping stupid amounts of money into better speakers, you can be beefing up your movie and game collection. You should really go to some electronics stores and listen to some assorted set-ups, from cheapy cheap all the way to high-end. See what you like. A lot of people can't tell the difference or just don't care, and those people would be silly to drop a grand on audio equipment when a few hundred would suffice.
Sorry for the ressurect, and I know this has been forever.
I've finally decided between 2 systems here:
The first:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oid=205749#prodspecs
Can actually get for 200$
The second:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/Search.do?c=1&searchType=user&keyword=phillips+hts3544&searchSection=All&go.x=0&go.y=0
Can get for 180$
Are either of these systems okay? I'm planning on plugging my 360 into for dvds and gaming.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
if you want to plug in your 360, you need to spring more for a system that has a few inputs (2 would be nice, so you can hook up both your 360 and cable/satellite if you have it or plan to get it).
edit: doh, I spose you could hook video right into your tv. But you'll still want to spring for something with optical audio inputs, the Samsung has 1.
edit2: the Philips has a digital co-ax input, if your 360 has a digital co-ax out you ought to be able to hook it up. otherwise the Philips only has stereo input (red and white RCA connector), so if you hook up your 360 that way you'll only get 2 channel audio.
That's about the best compliment I can give.
At that price, all of the components will be throw-away. As best I can tell, the speakers don't use standard connections, which means that you won't be able to, say, buy a competent receiver down the road as an upgrade. If you ever want something better, you'll have to scrap it all and buy everything at once.
Meanwhile, you'll only be able to have one additional element in 5.1. If you ever decide you want a Bluray player? Well, now you choose between your 360 and your BD player for 5.1, or swap the cable every time you want to play.
If that's the absolute most that you can spend, and if you insist on new, and if saving up for something more upgradeable isn't an option (or if you just don't care about ever upgrading), then go with the Samsung. Most components use Toslink instead of digital co-ax. Otherwise, maybe consider buying used. Craigslist, or something. You can probably find older receivers for $50 or so, and get a set of cheap 5.1 speakers for $100 or so. Quality aside, the complete lack of upgradeability is my biggest concern.
I'm not going to get more than 2 channels out of my xbox, unless I use that fiberoptic cable thingy?
I've seen someone else with a surround system, and they had their hdmi from their xbox to their tv, and then just the red/white from the big component cable leading to the system.
So he only had 2 channels?
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
sound could've been coming from all 5, 6, 7, or however many speakers if his receiver was using some audio processing (like Dolby) to send that 2 channel output in varying degrees to all his speakers.
neither of the systems you linked have HDMI ins. if you got a decent dedicated receiver that had HDMI in, then more than 2 channels of audio can be sent from your xbox to the receiver, which could then power however many speakers. edit: or you can use the optical SPDIF connection between your xbox and the HTiB, the SPDIF connector can carry more than 2 channels of audio.
make sense?
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
That's correct. In order to get 5.1 output, you need a digital connection from the source to the receiver (or whatever is serving as receiver). That means optical (Toslink), digital co-ax, or HDMI.
You can still generate a signal that gets sent to all the speakers including the sub - it just won't be DD5.1. It may be Dolby Pro-Logic or DPL II, which is like 5.1's slightly retarded little brother.
Warning: needless explanation to follow
DPL works by taking 4 discreet channels and encoding them into two channels - left and right. The receiver would then decode the two channels to recreate the four and send them to the various speakers - one left, one right, one center, and one for the surrounds. The sub channel (when present) is sort of faked based on the low-end frequencies. DPL-II is similar, but it encodes 5.1 channels into the left and right channels, and sounds a lot better (though still nowhere near as good as 5.1).
It will get you 5.1 audio out of the included dvd player, and the other digital input (optical on one, digital co-ax on the other).
HTiB is really just a cheap way to get in the 5.1 audio game, specifically for watching movies on the incuded dvd player. Now some come with audio inputs which is nice.
But you're really underbuying on audio, if you're going for a $200 HTiB with that awesome 52" Aquos. I'd probably spend 5 bills on a decent multichannel HT receiver with some HDMI switching and upconversion so I could hook in more HD sources with multichannel audio, but that's me.
And that bit El Jeffe said about Dolby Pro Logic, I didn't know that multichannel was actually encoded in the audio signal over red/white RCA. I thought it was just bullshit "processing" done on 2-channel output to put sound out over the other speakers. Learn something every day.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
I would want the Samsung system over the phillips because of the ToSlink? Since I'm primarily looking for sound for my 360, and the 360 has a ToSlink on it.
I can send the HDMI from my 360 to my TV for picture, and then use the ToSlink to the samsung for the 5.1 sound?
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
It's just another audio output. It looks like a single RCA jack (like the red/white cables), though the cable is generally thicker. It passes a digital signal, though, instead of an analog one, like you get with RCA.
As far as you need to know, if the output source has digital coax only, you need an input with digital coax to interpret it. People argue about whether digital coax or optical is better, but they're effectively equal, as far as anyone with non-superhuman hearing is concerned.