Whats Your Audio / Home Cinema Setup?
- Thread starter 2ez2KiLL
- 866 comments
- 217,876 views
- 34,798
- NoDak
- Cy-Fi
Don't be sorry, just build it
After finally getting the room back together after 9 months, I'm not looking for another project in there just yet. I need my movie fix, man!^This.
Not that it makes much difference but there was no previous owner. That was mocked up by the builder and interior designer for a bi-annual city wide home show*. I have a 6 person dining room table down there, completely covered by Lego(s). I'm trying to talk the kids into ditching it in favor of a pool table but so far it's a no-go.The previous owner had some serious proportion issues if they thought that table was the perfect fit.
*Like how I avoided saying Parade of Homes so I wouldn't have to address the fact that the houses don't actually walk themselves down the street?
- 1,905
- Missouri
- RoLnD79
I have a quick question about soundbars. I'm getting a LG OLED c7p 55" television in the next week or so, and I want a soundbar. I kind of narrowed it down to a few. I'm looking $300-$500. Some of them have hdmi with 4k pass through, and I really don't understand all of that. My main question is, will a soundbar have to be connected to my television and my xb1 when I game? I've read some places that said they connected to their gaming console; but I wouldn't get the use of it when I was watching television then I'm thinking.
- 34,798
- NoDak
- Cy-Fi
Keep in mind that I've never used a soundbar so I'm making assumptions but I'm guessing you'd want the TV to act like a switch so you'd hook the XBOne connected to the TV and the TV outputting audio to the soundbar. Then anything on the TV would use the soundbar for everything.
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- 1,905
- Missouri
- RoLnD79
So when it comes to these 4k enabled soundbars, that support 4k passthrough...hypothetically what would be a reason I would want to "passthrough" my soundbar before hooking into my television? Does it give better sound that way?
I'm usually pretty quick at picking things up, but this soundbar thing is confusing the heck out of me. I just want to make sure I'm purchasing the right equipment for the setup I will have, and not regretting not getting a 4k enabled soundbar later on.
I'm usually pretty quick at picking things up, but this soundbar thing is confusing the heck out of me. I just want to make sure I'm purchasing the right equipment for the setup I will have, and not regretting not getting a 4k enabled soundbar later on.
- 3,070
- Norway
You get a direct digital stream from your source to the DAC in your soundbar.
Going via the TV may compromise the signal somewhat, but I doubt you'd be able to hear any difference.
I would be more worried about the Soundbar compromising the 4K signal.
- 34,798
- NoDak
- Cy-Fi
@prousonhairy - Do you NEED to go the soundbar route or are you choosing to? Personally I'd opt for a receiver and, at a minimum, the front 3 speakers. If space us the issue, fair enough, a soundbar is a good solution but acoustically there are better options if you have the room.
- 1,905
- Missouri
- RoLnD79
I'm choosing too. I want something a little better then the speakers that come on the television(which are atmos speakers). My television room/ man cave isn't really large (14'x 16' with a 7' drop ceiling), and I wouldn't be able to rock a full surround sound setup with a receiver and multiple speakers, because of my living situation. I wouldn't be able to play it really loud very often.
There's just so much different info on soundbars out there, it's a little overwhelming. Plus now I only have a 40" tv stand, which will easily support my 55" inch tv, but some of these soundbars are 60" long. So it would be hanging off my stand ten inches on each side, and I don't know if I'd like that. Wall mounting isn't really an option, I mean it could be but I don't feel like opening up walls to run wires, plus the way I have my seating, it works perfect where it's located now In a corner.
Also I'm looking into what soundbars will work good with the television I'm buying. Some of them seem like they have more isssues then others, and can be a pain in the ass.
Edit: it's mainly going to be for better sound while watching movies. I have a steel series Siberia 840 wireless headset I use for gaming.
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- 29,911
- Cuddington, Cheshire
- JDA1982
I'm in the same boat. I'm looking for a new TV too though, no bigger than 50" and up to £1,000. The current Sony's seem to be good but when it comes to sound bars and sound stages there's so muh conflicting information and opposing opinions.
Robin
Premium
- 16,799
- United Kingdom
I have a question about power strips / gangs / extensions etc, whatever you call them. Some have that feature that turns off a few sockets when the master one is powered down. Is it a good idea to use that feature for AV equipment in today's world or is it basically obsolete?
I was always told that turning off electronics at the wall regularly (like every day) is very bad because the suddenly rush of electricity into the circuitry shortens the life of the device, especially as many are designed to live on standby. Plus I wouldn't want to reset the clock on my AV receiver everyday!
I was always told that turning off electronics at the wall regularly (like every day) is very bad because the suddenly rush of electricity into the circuitry shortens the life of the device, especially as many are designed to live on standby. Plus I wouldn't want to reset the clock on my AV receiver everyday!
- 5,346
- Ohio
- 5,346
- Ohio
I also have this little fella, the Schiit Vali, a hybrid tube amp with little tubes on the input stage and a bipolar Class AB output stage. It's tucked underneath my VPI Traveler turntable, along with a phonostage from Soundsmith.
Audio Technica AT440MLa cartridge
And here's the speakers I current have though don't use. Apartment living... They get hooked up to Bottlehead DIY 2A3 tube monoblocks I built from their kit.
Audio Technica AT440MLa cartridge
And here's the speakers I current have though don't use. Apartment living... They get hooked up to Bottlehead DIY 2A3 tube monoblocks I built from their kit.
- 666
- StOcKhOlM
- EmArA
- In the living room, Bose Lifestyle V35 (time to be upgraded)
LG E6 4k UHD OLED (HDR10+Dolby Vision) by M-Bimmer, on Flickr
LG E6 4k UHD OLED (HDR10+Dolby Vision) by M-Bimmer, on Flickr
- "Office/gaming" room where my second PS4 & PC are (both dedicated for racing),
Harman Kardon soundsticks 2, Bose QC 35 & Logitech G633 (RGB 7.1 surround gaming headset)
Thrustmaster TH8a & Ferrari 599XXevo30 Alcantara by M-Bimmer, on Flickr
Time for some Sim. Racing by M-Bimmer, on Flickr
LG E6 4k UHD OLED (HDR10+Dolby Vision) by M-Bimmer, on FlickrLG E6 4k UHD OLED (HDR10+Dolby Vision) by M-Bimmer, on Flickr- "Office/gaming" room where my second PS4 & PC are (both dedicated for racing),
Harman Kardon soundsticks 2, Bose QC 35 & Logitech G633 (RGB 7.1 surround gaming headset)
Thrustmaster TH8a & Ferrari 599XXevo30 Alcantara by M-Bimmer, on FlickrTime for some Sim. Racing by M-Bimmer, on Flickr
- 5,346
- Ohio
Got my old VPI HW-Mksomething back up and working after a long time. A Grado Sonata 2 cartridge and original VPI JMW tonearm connects to a Soundsmith phono pre which goes to a DNA Sonett amp which goes to Sennheiser HD650s. Which means the VPI Traveler I have has the original aluminum platter back on it and the Schiit Mani phono pre again.
Or a Schiit Mjolnir amp.
Or a Schiit Mjolnir amp.
- 34,798
- NoDak
- Cy-Fi
In the handful of years that I've owned the Onkyo, I've periodically checked for firmware updates, but only ever through the receiver itself. Yo date, it has only told me what firmware version was installed and never said if there was an update so I just assumed there weren't any.
A few days ago I checked on my phone and it looks like there were a few updates but because of an installation issue, they were limited to downloaded to a thumb drive and installed through the receivers USB.
I'm not entirely sure what it's going to "fix" but it's 14% completed.
- - - - -
On a semi-unrelated note, ever since I bought the Cerwin center channel, the audio coming from it sounded... off. Kind of muffled. Looking through the settings didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary but doing a tick more digging, apparently the BD/DVD input was set to convert audio to THX Cinema. Changing that to Direct appears to have fixed the muffled audio.
For the first time in a long while, I no longer regret purchasing the Cerwin.
And it's now at 26%.
A few days ago I checked on my phone and it looks like there were a few updates but because of an installation issue, they were limited to downloaded to a thumb drive and installed through the receivers USB.
I'm not entirely sure what it's going to "fix" but it's 14% completed.
- - - - -
On a semi-unrelated note, ever since I bought the Cerwin center channel, the audio coming from it sounded... off. Kind of muffled. Looking through the settings didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary but doing a tick more digging, apparently the BD/DVD input was set to convert audio to THX Cinema. Changing that to Direct appears to have fixed the muffled audio.
For the first time in a long while, I no longer regret purchasing the Cerwin.
And it's now at 26%.
- 5,014
- Panama City, FL
I've just upgraded to 4K capability. I had a Samsung Plasma HD 3D screen, 51", and a Yamaha RX-V671 Receiver doing my source switching. I have a PS/2 and a PS/3, and for a while had a cable box, then a DirecTV box, and have since moved to PS Vue for TV. I've got Netflix and HBO Now as well, and all three services cost less than half what I was paying for DirecTV, and I have the same channels but didn't have HBO before. So my video sources through the receiver are the two games consoles, the PS/2 on Component video and optical digital audio, and the PS/3 on HDMI. I also have a VCR and a laserdisc player, both an composite video, with standard analog stereo from the VCR and coax digital audio from the laserdisc. I also have a separate DVD player because some of my homemade discs don't play on the PS/3, escpecially if I've used double-layer media, but they play on this Samsung player (and it has HDMI out.) There's also a Chromecast plugged into one of the receiver's HDMI inputs.
My previous TV was Samsung's PN51D550 from 2010, a 51" HD set with 3D capability with active glasses. I like 3D when it's done well on the source material. Animated films can be rendered very well in 3D, and live action that was filmed in 3D, like The Hobbit, also work very well. I'm not a fan of the films converted from 2D source material; they just have weirdnesses and exaggerations sometimes, like they just want to be all, "Ooh, look! 3D!!!!" rather than simply portraying a realistic rendering of a scene. Yeah, I know, I said animation works and I'm criticizing live conversions for realism. Not really a conflict of terms, there. Anyway, I have a lot of 3D source material, and even though new media is practically unavailable any more, I didn't want to give up the capability. That meant that for 4K I had to shop for older sets, maybe refurb, maybe old stock, maybe used, as they aren't made any more. Only two companies had them in 2016, I think. I ended up with a refurbished Samsung UN55HU8550F, a 55" 3D 4K set from either 2014 or 2015. The new TV is a smart TV, with built-in apps for Netflix and Amazon Prime (but not HBO Now,) although discovering that Netflix wanted 4 bucks a month extra for 4K material was a surprise... Amazon supposedly has 4K material as well, but I've not found how to get it, yet. The app shows me nothing in 4K, and I haven't bothered going to my account yet to see if there's a setting I need to check.
I was initially a little disappointed with the TV, as movies had a "video" look to them, rather than a film look. If you've seen daytime soap opera TV in the US, or other live video, you know the look I'm describing. I've played with the settings and modes, and that's still the case. I'd almost convinced myself to take advantage of the seller's 30-day return, and set the old TV on the floor of the living room, put The Crown from Netflix on them simultaneously, and it seems the old set was not quite as nice as I remembered it..... Never mind on the return!
Before the TV, I had found a receiver in a close-out, less than 300 bucks: the Yamaha RX-V681, which is basically the same receiver I already had, with the addition of 4K, built-in Bluetooth, and wireless remote Zone 2 capability (with Yamaha's fairly pricy speakers made for it.) That was a simple swap, pretty much the same connections and source inputs as the old receiver, but they've brought back the phono input! That meant I could remove my previous previous receiver as well... My Kenwood AV receiver, capable of S-Video but not HD, was still in the cabinet for its phono input, and its aux out was fed to the Yamaha; basically the world's most full-featured phono pre-preamp!
The receiver is capable of upscaling source material to 4K, but I found that it takes much longer for it to adapt to changes in the source resolution than the TV did by itself. When I'd play a Blu-Ray and the frame rate would switch from 60 to 24 fps, the set would go black while the receiver figured out what to do with it, and the receiver actually brought the frame rate back to 60! As the TV waited for the signal, it would give me the "No cable connected" message after a couple of seconds. I set the receiver to pass the video through as is rather than upscale, and all of that went away. The only issue now is that I can't switch GT4 to HD from the PS/2 like I could before, and I'm not sure why. Setting 1080p on the options screen gives me a mode-not-supported message on the screen, and it times out back to 480p. That happens with and without the receiver upscaling, and the previous setup handled it OK.
Switching the TVs out was quite a bit more involved than the receivers. I have an 80s-era entertainment center, consisting of a glass-door cabinet on the left for the components, two solid-door cabinets on the right for media storage (DVDs, CDs, even tapes, as I still have a working S-VHS VCR,) and bridge unit hanging at the top between them, over the TV set. The TV is on its own furniture, with glass shelves where the game console, turntable, and network switch all live. The new TV is just over an inch wider than the old one, even though it's a 55 compared to the previous 51. The new set's bezel is very narrow, so most (but not all) of the larger picture lives in the space of the old set's wider bezel frame. Still, I didn't have that inch clearance; I only had about 3/8th on each side of the existing TV. That meant emptying the cabinets, unhooking everything and pulling components out, lifting the bridge out and moving the cabinets apart from each other, expanding the bridge to its next 2.5" increment and reassembling everything. Nice Saturday project a couple of weekends ago!
Anyway, I have finally moved up to the 4K world, and was able to do so without giving up my 3D, even though I waited a year or two too long since nobody makes 3D 4K sets any more. I'd put it off because even though I'd seen 4K sets in the stores, I wasn't going to spend 300 bucks on a 4K Bluray player and the 30 to 40 bucks each on movies, and besides, at a viewing distance of ten or twelve feet, does 4K really add anything over HD? Well, the availability of 4K streaming material tipped the scales for me, and I am here to tell you that yes, there is a difference! While I had both sets playing The Crown, differences in detail in the clothes characters were wearing, the jewelry, the patterns in the cloth, were simply amazing. You absolutely can see the difference at normal viewing distances between HD and 4K!
My previous posts in this thread are from 2006 and 2012. Since those posts, the CD changer has died, and broadcast and/or cable 3D TV has died (no more ESPN-3D.) The broadcast 3D has some serious limits, having to live within the bandwidth of an HD digital channel. BluRays actually do a better job with 3D with a couple of cheats, one of which is running at 24 fps, the same as film, which broadcast could not do.
My previous TV was Samsung's PN51D550 from 2010, a 51" HD set with 3D capability with active glasses. I like 3D when it's done well on the source material. Animated films can be rendered very well in 3D, and live action that was filmed in 3D, like The Hobbit, also work very well. I'm not a fan of the films converted from 2D source material; they just have weirdnesses and exaggerations sometimes, like they just want to be all, "Ooh, look! 3D!!!!" rather than simply portraying a realistic rendering of a scene. Yeah, I know, I said animation works and I'm criticizing live conversions for realism. Not really a conflict of terms, there. Anyway, I have a lot of 3D source material, and even though new media is practically unavailable any more, I didn't want to give up the capability. That meant that for 4K I had to shop for older sets, maybe refurb, maybe old stock, maybe used, as they aren't made any more. Only two companies had them in 2016, I think. I ended up with a refurbished Samsung UN55HU8550F, a 55" 3D 4K set from either 2014 or 2015. The new TV is a smart TV, with built-in apps for Netflix and Amazon Prime (but not HBO Now,) although discovering that Netflix wanted 4 bucks a month extra for 4K material was a surprise... Amazon supposedly has 4K material as well, but I've not found how to get it, yet. The app shows me nothing in 4K, and I haven't bothered going to my account yet to see if there's a setting I need to check.
I was initially a little disappointed with the TV, as movies had a "video" look to them, rather than a film look. If you've seen daytime soap opera TV in the US, or other live video, you know the look I'm describing. I've played with the settings and modes, and that's still the case. I'd almost convinced myself to take advantage of the seller's 30-day return, and set the old TV on the floor of the living room, put The Crown from Netflix on them simultaneously, and it seems the old set was not quite as nice as I remembered it..... Never mind on the return!
Before the TV, I had found a receiver in a close-out, less than 300 bucks: the Yamaha RX-V681, which is basically the same receiver I already had, with the addition of 4K, built-in Bluetooth, and wireless remote Zone 2 capability (with Yamaha's fairly pricy speakers made for it.) That was a simple swap, pretty much the same connections and source inputs as the old receiver, but they've brought back the phono input! That meant I could remove my previous previous receiver as well... My Kenwood AV receiver, capable of S-Video but not HD, was still in the cabinet for its phono input, and its aux out was fed to the Yamaha; basically the world's most full-featured phono pre-preamp!
The receiver is capable of upscaling source material to 4K, but I found that it takes much longer for it to adapt to changes in the source resolution than the TV did by itself. When I'd play a Blu-Ray and the frame rate would switch from 60 to 24 fps, the set would go black while the receiver figured out what to do with it, and the receiver actually brought the frame rate back to 60! As the TV waited for the signal, it would give me the "No cable connected" message after a couple of seconds. I set the receiver to pass the video through as is rather than upscale, and all of that went away. The only issue now is that I can't switch GT4 to HD from the PS/2 like I could before, and I'm not sure why. Setting 1080p on the options screen gives me a mode-not-supported message on the screen, and it times out back to 480p. That happens with and without the receiver upscaling, and the previous setup handled it OK.
Switching the TVs out was quite a bit more involved than the receivers. I have an 80s-era entertainment center, consisting of a glass-door cabinet on the left for the components, two solid-door cabinets on the right for media storage (DVDs, CDs, even tapes, as I still have a working S-VHS VCR,) and bridge unit hanging at the top between them, over the TV set. The TV is on its own furniture, with glass shelves where the game console, turntable, and network switch all live. The new TV is just over an inch wider than the old one, even though it's a 55 compared to the previous 51. The new set's bezel is very narrow, so most (but not all) of the larger picture lives in the space of the old set's wider bezel frame. Still, I didn't have that inch clearance; I only had about 3/8th on each side of the existing TV. That meant emptying the cabinets, unhooking everything and pulling components out, lifting the bridge out and moving the cabinets apart from each other, expanding the bridge to its next 2.5" increment and reassembling everything. Nice Saturday project a couple of weekends ago!
Anyway, I have finally moved up to the 4K world, and was able to do so without giving up my 3D, even though I waited a year or two too long since nobody makes 3D 4K sets any more. I'd put it off because even though I'd seen 4K sets in the stores, I wasn't going to spend 300 bucks on a 4K Bluray player and the 30 to 40 bucks each on movies, and besides, at a viewing distance of ten or twelve feet, does 4K really add anything over HD? Well, the availability of 4K streaming material tipped the scales for me, and I am here to tell you that yes, there is a difference! While I had both sets playing The Crown, differences in detail in the clothes characters were wearing, the jewelry, the patterns in the cloth, were simply amazing. You absolutely can see the difference at normal viewing distances between HD and 4K!
My previous posts in this thread are from 2006 and 2012. Since those posts, the CD changer has died, and broadcast and/or cable 3D TV has died (no more ESPN-3D.) The broadcast 3D has some serious limits, having to live within the bandwidth of an HD digital channel. BluRays actually do a better job with 3D with a couple of cheats, one of which is running at 24 fps, the same as film, which broadcast could not do.
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- 5,014
- Panama City, FL
Well, I'm going to send the TV back and try again later. (Seller has a 30-day return.) It's got some backlight bleed, and it seems to be getting worse. The only way I've found to eliminate it is to turn things down so far the picture is unviewable. Even very low settings for backlight, brightness, and contrast will have the band almost all the way around the screen.
A shame. Since the previous post I've been through Planet Earth II in 4K, and it's AMAZING!!!!
I suppose I could just glue a 1-inch bezel on it.....
A shame. Since the previous post I've been through Planet Earth II in 4K, and it's AMAZING!!!!
I suppose I could just glue a 1-inch bezel on it.....
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- 5,346
- Ohio
TLDR, I mean wow, my record needed to be flipped...
Just kidding. I didn't read any of it.
Just kidding. I didn't read any of it.
- 5,346
- Ohio
What? Are those words?
- 9,043
- United Kingdom
- neema_t
Good old frame interpolation, my UE40MU6400 had the same - it was the first thing I turned off, it's called something like stutter reduction on my set.
Speaking of which, here's my stuff:
That's a Marantz TT-5005, PS4 Pro, Rotel RA-921 (which was free - the bar at work just got a new PA system), a Samsung GD-05 HTPC case with a few computer bits inside (no CPU, motherboard, RAM or storage), an Ouya that hasn't been plugged in for over a year now, some records, Obama Llama (a board game) and my Sopranos box set. And yes, the turntable is being used as an anchor for some Christmas lights. Also the two cables running up the wall are for one of my Vive lighthouses.
That's the UE40MU6400, flanked by - but not connected to - a pair of very old JBL Control 1s. I know they're old because I had the pleasure of re-foaming them, which is incidentally why they were free. The black box behind the TV is my old PS3 and yes, we have a decorative ostrich egg, though I don't know why. The drill on the floor was used to hang the picture you can see in the top right of the frame, which is this:
Finally, there's my PC - not strictly home cinema but it's in the same room, so... Yeah. That monitor is an Asus PG279Q 27" 144Hz 1440p, it's absolutely stunning to behold and I love it but I'm pretty sure when the PG27UQ (27" 144Hz 4K with HDR) is out I'll want that instead. Also pictured is my enormous Lego Slave I and you can just about see the Vive behind that glass and below the bottom right corner of the monitor. Also, piggy bank.
In case you're wondering why all our furniture is from Ikea - we're only renting this place.
- 5,014
- Panama City, FL
"Sorry I exceeded your attention span."
Robin
Premium
- 16,799
- United Kingdom
Anyone know about CD Players, particularly whether new ones sound better than old ones?
I have dug out an old Pioneer PD-5010 from the loft, its a 2nd generation CD Player from 1985 but would the average modern or even portable player trounce it in audio quality due to the advancements in oversampling and DAC's?
I have dug out an old Pioneer PD-5010 from the loft, its a 2nd generation CD Player from 1985 but would the average modern or even portable player trounce it in audio quality due to the advancements in oversampling and DAC's?
- 5,346
- Ohio
- 34,798
- NoDak
- Cy-Fi
That's a lot of porn there, @coryclifford- PlayStation, tube amp and stone boobs. 
Jawehawk
Premium
- 4,652
- Denmark
- Yohansen_92
So after considering it for a few months, I finally made the plunge, and bought an Astell & Kerns 70 (Not the MK 2 model) to replace my phone (Sony Z5 Compact) for my music listening needs. I had convinced myself that the actual difference in audio quality would be little to none existent, however, I still wanted a dedicated device for my music that would leave me less dependent on my smartphone.
To my surprise, the audio difference is quite significant, especially at higher volumes. And boy does this thing go loud. So loud so in fact, that I rarely enter the highest 20% of its capability, partially out of fear of damaging my hearing, but also out of fear of blowing the drivers in my headphones. Unlike my phone, the music doesn't distort at higher volumes, producing perfect clarity with my Sony MDR-1A's at any volume level. It sounds astonishing. The build quality is high, so it really feels like your using a premium product. I really like the design, both ergonomically and visually. The touch screen is mostly as responsive as what you'd find on a Smartphone, and the resolution is perfect for the size of the screen.
Only two negatives so far. The first is the battery duration, which isn't amazing, but I guess that is what you get when you pack such power into such a small device. The second is that I have yet to figure out how to export a playlist down into the DAP, leaving me to create playlists on the device itself. It's a perfectly doable task, but quite a bit more tedious than just creating them on the PC and then transferring them onto the device.
Conclusion is that I absolutely love it. And I am of course now considering upgrading my headphones too (Been eyeing the Sony MDR-Z7). The cycle never stops
To my surprise, the audio difference is quite significant, especially at higher volumes. And boy does this thing go loud. So loud so in fact, that I rarely enter the highest 20% of its capability, partially out of fear of damaging my hearing, but also out of fear of blowing the drivers in my headphones. Unlike my phone, the music doesn't distort at higher volumes, producing perfect clarity with my Sony MDR-1A's at any volume level. It sounds astonishing. The build quality is high, so it really feels like your using a premium product. I really like the design, both ergonomically and visually. The touch screen is mostly as responsive as what you'd find on a Smartphone, and the resolution is perfect for the size of the screen.
Only two negatives so far. The first is the battery duration, which isn't amazing, but I guess that is what you get when you pack such power into such a small device. The second is that I have yet to figure out how to export a playlist down into the DAP, leaving me to create playlists on the device itself. It's a perfectly doable task, but quite a bit more tedious than just creating them on the PC and then transferring them onto the device.
Conclusion is that I absolutely love it. And I am of course now considering upgrading my headphones too (Been eyeing the Sony MDR-Z7). The cycle never stops
