Whats Your Audio / Home Cinema Setup?

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New NAD 316. Very good.

And, vinyl rules.
 
New apartment means new setup. Out of consideration to my neighbors (and a lack of space :D), I no longer have the speakers set up, relying instead on my headset.

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On the middle shelf is a Marantz 1608 receiver and PS4. A PS3 and PS2 takes up the floor space below. I love it actually. A 50 inch TV looks massive in such a small space.

Does anyone know of a low key centerspeaker that works well on its own?
 
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Mikeybc
@Jawehawk What about using a sound bar ? That'll cover your L, R and center in a low profile.
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I figured that a soundbar wouldn't work well in such a small space. Bouncing sound of off walls to create artificial surround sound is hard when the width of the space is only 1.35 meters.

So I'd rather a compact speaker with a high dynamic range and a decent internal bass. Using a headset is perfectly fine when it's just me, but if I have company over, it'd be nice to have something better than the TV speakers.
 
Jawehawk
I figured that a soundbar wouldn't work well in such a small space. Bouncing sound of off walls to create artificial surround sound is hard when the width of the space is only 1.35 meters.

So I'd rather a compact speaker with a high dynamic range and a decent internal bass. Using a headset is perfectly fine when it's just me, but if I have company over, it'd be nice to have something better than the TV speakers.
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I'd just buy a nice small pair of bookshelf speakers and lay them on their sides... set the tv on top of the speakers. Then when you get a bigger place you'll have a decent set of standmount speakers that can be paired with a sub and have a great little full range setup.

I wouldnt want to use a single center channel speaker for anything but dialog, Might as well just use two speakers so your not missing anything if the signal is in stereo.
 
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My sub recently gave up and I went from 2.1 to 2.0. That's the price I pay for buying such a cheap sub I guess.

I went to turn it on one day and instead of the single "click" It repeatedly clicked, like 4-5 times a second, for 4-5 seconds until the circuit breaker downstairs cut the power.

I called customer service but they weren't even interested in hearing me out. "Send your amp to us or buy a new one." Shipping would probably cost more than a new amp and a new amp would cost 75% of the price I payed for the sub when new - yeah, no thanks.

I used to high-pass the fronts at 80 Hz and let the sub take care of everything below that.
Now my RF82s play the full range and even though I've lost some deep-end (10 Hz at -3dB according to the specs) the overall sound has improved.

I guess I'm going to just stick with the 2.0 setup for now, though I would like to get the sub fixed. I kinda miss it for movies.

Anyone want to take a stab at a diagnose? Any help would be most appreciated.
 
Just purchased an LG OLED65C8PUA, which since I'm still waiting on my house to become habitable after Michael, I won't be able to use for several months yet. WalMart had it on clearance for 1300 bucks, so I sorta couldn't not get it! I'll lose the 3D that I have with my current Sony 65, but OMG!!! OLED!!!!! List was 3499, on "promo" now for 2799, yet WalMart clearing them at 1300. They had two, I'm thinking about buying the second one and eBaying it...

It looks like a piece of window glass with a box on the back at the bottom for the hookups and mounting. Almost zero bezel, too.

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@wfooshee

Yeah the contrast levels of OLED will blow you away, we've had ours a couple of years and no way could we go back.

If you can get it calibrated do it or all the better learn to do it yourself then watch the night Hong Kong scene in Skyfall and be blown away.
 
I have the B7 55" model. I had to have the first panel replaced before the final 3 mths of the first years warranty was up. TV developed a vertical band in the orange, red and magenta which showed badly in all normal viewing content. LG replaced the panel, the TV is so far doing ok. I do a lot of gaming and youtube watching.

I badly want the new model now. There is a saying, "Once you go Black, you can't go back" For me that was true. Because true Black is what makes for great wide colour contrast especially with HDR. Wait till you watch HDR HLG. Its even more amazing.

Everytime i fire up up Youtube 4K Ultra HD the picture always amazes me. The same when i fire up GT Sport, the detail sometimes amazes me with the pictures, livery editor or viewing cars in the garage.

But my old B7 is not without problems, colour banding, and shadow detail are still issues with black screens, say the "My Library" screen i can see bad colour banding rainbow of greys. Same is true in the liveey editor with bright whites.

Not sure if the new TVS have gotten rid of this. But they were supposed to have improved colour banding gradients so the rainbow lines can't be seen. I never had my tv calibrated and can't afford it. I am conservative with the oled light, contrast and brightness settings. I don't always crank it up to max.
 
I recently bought a soundbar, a Q Acoustics M4, which really improves my ageing TV's native sound without the need for an amp and 5.1 speaker set-up. Being from Q Acoustics it's pretty good at handling music too, good enough that i'm planning on dumping my amp/CD player/ipod doc/speakers to clear up some shelf space and just connecting the Onkyo doc directly to the soundbar and play my ipod classic through that.

Theoretically the soundbar looks to have the right inputs to connect the ipod doc to it, but in practise i'm not getting any sound out of it.

Does anyone have any idea why this could be?

I have it connected as R&L RCA - R&L RCA and 3.5 jack plug out of 'R1' and into 'LINE IN 2'

This is what the inputs/outputs of both look like:

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TheCracker
Does anyone have any idea why this could be?
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It looks like the 1/8" jack isn't for input but something called Remote Interactive to connect the dock with an Onkyo receiver to control them with one remote.

Does the ipod classic connect natively with the dock or do you need the 1/8" cable? If so, you might have better luck skipping the dock and just use a 1/8" to RCA cable right into the soundbar.
 
TB
It looks like the 1/8" jack isn't for input but something called Remote Interactive to connect the dock with an Onkyo receiver to control them with one remote.
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Ahh. That would make sense 👍

TB
Does the ipod classic connect natively with the dock or do you need the 1/8" cable? If so, you might have better luck skipping the dock and just use a 1/8" to RCA cable right into the soundbar.
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It does connect natively. I guess i could just use a 1/8" to RCA like the one you suggested, although i really wanted the usability that the doc and remote provide. Do you think just the RCA to RCA cables on their own would suffice?
 
TheCracker
Do you think just the RCA to RCA cables on their own would suffice?
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If the iPod connects to the dock, I'd think the RCA should be all you need. Then just make sure the dock is on the right output (my dock can switch between the old iPod connector and a built in 1/8" headphone jack) and that the soundbar is on the correct input.

Don't forget to check volume levels, too, as you have three devices connected to each other that all have a volume knob/button.
 
TB
If the iPod connects to the dock, I'd think the RCA should be all you need. Then just make sure the dock is on the right output (my dock can switch between the old iPod connector and a built in 1/8" headphone jack) and that the soundbar is on the correct input.
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RCA - RCA did the job 👍 - Just removed the 3.5 jack lead and it worked fine.
 
Maybe somebody in this thread can help me.

I have a 55" Vizio TV with, of course, terrible audio. I want to upgrade the sound. However, I want whatever buy to be somewhat flexible. Ideally it would be 1 component although I know that hometheaterphiles will say that is blasphemy. I remember being impressed by a friend of mine's Bose Ipod dock (this was like 10 years ago) and something in that realm seems good. I looked at some bluetooth speakers at Best Buy but all of them seem to emphasize loudness over clarity, not to mention they didn't seem well tailored (or tailored at all?) for use with a TV.

If the sound was good enough (I listened to one at Best Buy...it was ok) a Bose Solo 5 seems like it would be ideal - simple, looks good, integrates with TV, and has bluetooth. I don't really like very loud sound, especially as it would disturb neighbors in my present living situation (moderate sized apartment). Clarity and a nice sounding low-end (I like to listen to Jazz) would be good...but I'm not looking for pro-level equipment. I just want some nice sound. Oh, and I don't want to spend more than $200, but I would consider it.

Another thing I looked at was a Marshall Stanmore II bluetooth speaker...but it doesn't seem all that well suited for TV integration.

It seems like a "good" soundbar would the best option for me, knowing full well that a proper setup with multiple components would blow it away. With that in mind, something upgradeable in the future would be good.

Best Buy had this Sony setup on sale for $149 during black friday, but their display wasn't working so I didn't have a chance to hear it.

Anyways....enough rambling. Any suggestions?

edit: After a somewhat thorough canvasing of the internet, I decided to go with the Yamaha YAS-108 Soundbar. I will update this thread when I receive and test it out!
 
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The lack of posts in this thread saddens me. :(

Of course, I have nothing productive to add, either... :P
 
Currently moving, temporary set-up at the new house....

Celestion A2 front mains, A4C centre, old Yamaha RXV-100D and DVD-S1000, PS2, PS3, PS4 as sources. 42" TV in use at the moment since the the 55" needs a wall bracket...


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Reverse angle:

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Kef Q55's awkwardly positioned at the rear until changes can be made... TV leaning against the DVD shelves until wall-mount is intstalled.

and the Cat on the chair... of all the places it wants to sleep, it wants to sleep where I want to sit...

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I'll soon be adding a power-amp or integrated amp to power the mains... other than that it's been a loooong time since there's been any real change. This is the first time in a looong time I don't have to worry about neighbours.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Oops. It's rad. I mean a proper speaker setup would blow it away, but its indescribably better than the built-in TV speakers.
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I was reading that post back now and I was thinking I have a good suggestion for that, only 8 months too late. But you got to the same conclusion I did. I bought mine about 2 years ago.

The other one I considered was a Vizio, but I don't think it has HDMI ARC. A lot of soundbars don't seem to have it.

Pretty scary how bad the TV sound is once you switch back. I use the soundbar with the bass "extension" on and the subwoofer on the middle level. It's connected through HDMI ARC, so it turns on automatically and the volume can be controlled with the TV remote. It doesn't blow off any doors and I have no desire to add a subwoofer, but it serves it's purpose well.

The only hiccup I had was I believe caused by a Vizio software update. For a month or so, if I paused a show on Netflix it would switch back to the TV speakers. And the DTS Virtual X feature is kind of useless and makes the sound unnecessarily harsh.
 
ROAD_DOGG33J
I was reading that post back now and I was thinking I have a good suggestion for that, only 8 months too late. But you got to the same conclusion I did. I bought mine about 2 years ago.

The other one I considered was a Vizio, but I don't think it has HDMI ARC. A lot of soundbars don't seem to have it.

Pretty scary how bad the TV sound is once you switch back. I use the soundbar with the bass "extension" on and the subwoofer on the middle level. It's connected through HDMI ARC, so it turns on automatically and the volume can be controlled with the TV remote. It doesn't blow off any doors and I have no desire to add a subwoofer, but it serves it's purpose well.

The only hiccup I had was I believe caused by a Vizio software update. For a month or so, if I paused a show on Netflix it would switch back to the TV speakers. And the DTS Virtual X feature is kind of useless and makes the sound unnecessarily harsh.
Click to expand...

I saw that the Vizio was highly rated, but I just couldn't help thinking that sound devices are kind of Yamaha's jam and that it would probably hold up better in the long run. I have mine hooked up analog though I did buy an HDMI ARC cable...like 6 months ago. That's how lazy I am.
 
If anyone wants to see how their system sounds with seriously good recordings and quite high quality files, then Audiopheliac has you covered.



I’m going to give them a whizz tomorrow. It’s a 4GB DL for 18 tracks so reasonable in size for high quality audio.

edit-

Just listening now and the bit rates are all at 24bit but the frequency’s all change. These range from 176kHz to 88.2kHz. Also quite a mixture of music styles all recorded in live spaces (not studios) so no need for any messing with reverb or echo etc. Also all are uncompressed WAV. Those of you with really nice speakers and DAC’s will have a great time.
 
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