I'm moving into a new flat soon and wanted to get a half-decent sound setup, but I don't know much about it. I want to run my TV, Blu-Ray player, games console and music through it and am looking for an AV receiver and set of speakers. I'm not really after surround sound, a decent stereo setup will do. It's a fairly big room, 21'x14' with high ceilings, and has wooden floors, I don't know if that affects things. My budget's around £400. Any recommendations, advice or pointers on what to look for would be much appreciated
Not up on hi-fi equipment at the mo, but can't recommend richer sounds enough! I swear by Cambridge audio amps, I've had 4 of them. 400 quid should get u a canny setup!
I'd recommend Onkyo for an AV Receiver/Amp. Superb value and highly recommended. I'd also spend £50 on a massive rug to cover a larger part of the floor. It will make a difference. Have a look at http://www.whathifi.com/reviews/home-cinema. Good luck. I'm so happy with my Onkyo setup.
Would put forward my vote for both Onkyo and richer sounds. Put £2000 into a cinema system 5-6 year back and it was a great system for the price. Prices for a similar system of today's tech would be much much lower these days
Thanks guys, Onkyo's certainly seem to get good write-ups for my price point Are there any speaker brands to look at specifically?
I spied a denon all in one pack. Surround sound amp and matched 5.1 speaker set for about 450. Speakers are very much down to personal taste get yourself to a shop and start listening.
I bought the Yamaha RX-V667 (£275) from Richer Sounds last month and it's pretty damn sweet, especially with 5.1 sound and a good blu ray movie. Other good options for similar money are the Onkyo TXSR608 and the Sony STRDH810. The Yamaha is supposed to be slightly better than the other two for stereo (music) they're all damn fine.
Make a difference in terms of what? If we're talking in terms of sound insulation then it won't make much difference at all to airborne sound transmission. Got to agree with this, I have the Onkyo myself and it is a fantastic amp for films and fairly accomplished for music, the Yamaha my dad has and it is slightly better for music however I think it lacks as much in the low frequency department so for movies it may be slightly behind, couldn't really go too wrong with either though.
I would suggest checking out Onkyo TX-SR508. It is 7.1, decoder for even the BR 3D formats, simply everything you could need. Of course if 130 W/Channel is enough for you .
http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/HT-S3305.html is that i have was about $400 us, only downside is the subwoofer is amplified through the reciver, but i can still get very good bass out of it
+ 1 for the Yamaha RX-V667. It also has a better up scaler than the Onkyo and HDMI 1.4 so will support 3D if your TV is to spec. But then at your budget it might be hard push to get the speakers and speaker wire at your price. What you might consider is getting the Yamaha and then look at getting the speaker separate as in invest in a nice pair of front book shelf speakers then add the center, bass and rears when you want to improve the surround sound. so looking at RS as a pricing point Amp - Yamaha 667 - £280 CAMBRIDGE AUDIO S30 (pair) £130 PIONEER SHS100 - £80 (cheapest surround - but look at 2nd hand if you don't mind) you will need to get speaker cable for the S30 but the pioneer should come with some. just an idea, and as a guide line you should only really be spending 10% of you budget on speaker cables so for your set up I really dont think spending more than £40 on cables will gain you any extra benefit.
After a bit of reading it looks like the Yamaha RXV667 is probably the way to go, the specs are right and it seems to get praised for its performance with music over the competition. I'm happy to go with stereo speakers for the time-being too, so Puzzu's suggestion might be right on the button Thanks folks.
