I'm moving in the next month and the new place has a room that is pretty ideal for a cinema, which is reason enough for me! Don't want to spent vast amounts, I was thinking of something along these lines... Half decent 720p projetor <£1000, (Panasonic PT-AX100 seems to be a fave on Projector Central, and a steal at £800) Screen - probably best not to do it on the wall, right? Speakers, B&W 602/603 fronts, 601/602 rears, CC6 sentre and corresponding sub is what I had in mind Receiver - no idea what I'm after here really, I have precisely zero experience in this area, ideas? already have a HTPC, which is what will handle everything, may throw a HD-DVD/BluRay combo drive in there at some point though. DVI out for the video and optical DTS for the audio, which I presume any receiver can cope with. I won't be listening to any music on this lot, thats a seperate hi-fi. I do want the speakers to be able to properly fill the room though, which is around 20x12'. Would 602 fronts and 601 (or another make, but equiv) rears be able to cope, or do I need to step them up a notch? Other than that, I'm just looking for recommendations on what is a good buy and experiences that may help, not really played around much with this sort of stuff. Cookie for anyone that lends a hand
Why not do it on the wall? There's loads of paints you can buy to make the wall nice and reflective for the light and it'll save space. Suggest you get some blackout blinds too.
I thought I would start out on the wall, and see how it goes from there. Not sure how it would have space though, A screen is no more than a couple inches thick and would be mounted to the wall/ceiling anyway Definitely getting proper blinds, and thick curtains as well
Electric screen is the best, motorise it with the curtains as well, so you can flick a switch and you get "Cinema mode" As for the AV Receiver, Yamaha or Denon dependant on budget. Check AVS Forums for more details, someone just posted a thread about Receiver features so you can determine if they're right for you. I'm not a major AV buff, but if you want to buy from somewhere that you can see (and sometimes hear) the equipment first, check Richer Sounds. The one up here has a listening room where you can test different receivers.
I agree with DougEdgy, Richer are an excellent retailer for cinema components. Yamaha & Denon both make superb receivers. Your profile says Nottingham, so here's a link for the local branch:- Richer Sounds, Nottingham Some friends of mine have a projection setup, and ended up placing the screen across their bay window (they managed to find one just a few inches narrower)
Screen - Don't go for the wall as a permanent solution, you will get much better colour reproduction, contrast and sharpness with a screen. If its going to be a dedicated cinema room then go for a fixed screen, its cheaper and you wont get any problems with it not hanging completly flat which can be an issue with pull down screens. Speakers - Sounds like a good system to me. I would also have a look at monitor audio or the quad lites. Receiver - Depends entirely on your speakers, so choose them first then go from their. Onkyo have just come out with one that handles all the next gen formats for £400-£600. I cant remember exactly.
I'm still not convinced with projectors: expensive bulbs and grey blacks worse than LCDs. You get a huge size but at the expense of quality.
Unfortunately this is true, however if you use a DLP projector and not an LCD projector, you will notice a much larger contrast ratio between black and whites, lamps however are still expensive, but still cheaper even over following years when compared to the inital lay out for a plasma.
Yeh another one for not doing it on the wall, the colours will look washed out and not very bright at all, thats my experience anyway. And someone up there said about an Onkyo system, i would highly reccomend them to!.
Depends on the projector (and screen) tbh but it does give you that 'cinema' feel. The price of replacement bulbs is the main issue however.
Projectors v LCD or Plasma is something I dealt with and went the projector route... It's actually a pretty simple decision really. Watch alot of TV Get an LCD or Plasma Watch TV rarely Get a protector Projectors are cheaper generally (3000 hours is actually a fair amount of time, although my first bulb went after 890... I was SOOOOO annoyed!). The black is true, and that's why the decision is made for how long you watch TV. Projectors aren't that good in the day, you can go crazy if you spend a whole weekend in a blacked out room. When the room is blacked out though, they're great. As for advice on this setup. Yeah, use B&W 602's myself and they're great. Bought my Amp before the reciever surround thing took off mind and am using a Sony ES, very nice, but stereo only. The setup could use a sub for movies, but that would destroy music (in my opinion). Going for the wall is something I did for a year just to try it out. It's not really the greatest. Went for a screen in the end. Walls just don't reflect properly and that black problem comes back. Also, screens have a black border around the outside, this improves the contrast (or perceived contrast anyway). Also, with a screen you can pick and choose the correct reflectivity for the projector and seating, this can drastically improve the picture. Hope this helps
Thought I would dig this back up seeing as its pretty much finished now. Thanks for the replies, how rude of me not to post back! I could swear I did, ah well. Changed from a projector to a plasma for practical reasons. Changed rooms as well, thought it would get more use taking over the lounge than in a dedicated room, and Mrs_Tad was in agreement - shocker! Bigger room too - so upped the speakers a notch from what I was originally looking at. went for... Panny Viera 50" PZ70 1080p plasma Tosh HD-EP30 HD-DVD Player Picked up some B&W 603s for the fronts, CC6 centre and 601 rears, atop Apollo A2 stands. For the sub I very very[/] nearly went for a REL quake, as they're so popular they couldnt' be too bad. I got put off by worries that it may lack the oomph for films in a decent sized room (around 22x15'). No such concerns with the monstrous BK Monolith, will be phoning up next week and ordering a Monolith-DF in Black Ash - hooray! Cheaped out on the receiver for now, as I'm really not sure what I want to do regarding this lot. I keep forgetting that the 603s could sound really quite good for music as a) music sounds *terrible* from the AV receiver I've got at the moment and b) this setup wasn't put together with music in mind. It shouldn't be too difficult to integrate hifi with AV here. Don't want to throw too much money into the hifi side as this isn't my main hifi after all, and and Mrs_Tad's patience is probably wearing quite thin by now I'm after HD audio decoding, half decent 1080p upscaling, enough power to manhandle the speakers for films and something with enough poise to play music well. Whether this is a single highish-end receiver (possibly Yamaha V1800 or Denon 2808) or a lower end receiver (ie Onkyo 605) pre-out to a power amp for the fronts (or maybe an integrated or a pre+power). Either way works, I just don't know how decent the receivers sound for music. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to get a home demo of anything I'm going to be buying, and I won't find my speakers in a shop for a in-store demo I'm pretty much at the mercy of the interwebs on this one, any opinions? I know quite a few people here use B&W 6 series kit.
Glad you've got a nice setup! Photos please! But yeah, sorry I don't really have a reciever to test the B&W's out. But the rule of thumb (in What Hi-Fi's mind anyway ) is to spend to cost of each speaker per channel. So here's my setup just to give an example... Speakers value £200 £200 = £100 per speaker 2 Channel Amp Minimum value of amp = £200 5.1 Channel Amp Minimum value of amp = £600 Now from this I know that the speakers are the weak link in my system. I'm sure the 603's cost more than the 602's, so your results will vary. Either way, Mrs Tad is not going to like the answer (oh, and don't skimp on the cabling!) PS, it's personal choice again, but I'd say try and keep it to an intergrated setup, splitting pre and power amps in my opinion requires ALOT of cash to see the benefits.
I'd rather go from personal experiences than What Hi-fi's advice to be honest. Firstly they're going on the assumption that quality is always directly proportional to cost, which is ridiculous. But enough of that! I'm leaning towards and inexpensive receiver with HD bells and whistles (as of right now, only the Onkyo 605 fits the bill, but I can wait until a few more materialise). For the fronts, would use the pre-outs to a biamp setup of integrated+power, arcam, rotel, something like that. Second hand definitely. As I said, don't want to spend a mint on making this work for music as I've already got a seperate hifi to this which eclipses it in every way. It seems a bit of a waste only to use 3 channels of power on a 7 channel amp. I wouldn't imagine that in entry-level receivers like the 605 you would be able to bi-amp centre and rears with the spare channels though. I'd rather not get in to cables here if its all the same What amp are you using with the 602s?
Where are them photos? And good to hear you also picked up a sub to support those speakers.. I still think the main speakers that don't /need/ or atleast sound better on movies with a sub are few and long in between. Also I've been happy with the colors and contrast our Sanyo PLV-Z3 projector in a dark room.
Haven't picked up the sub just yet, will be giving BK a call during the week though to order one. Here's to hoping the fact that they're hand built doesn't mean too long of a lead time and as for pics... There's something about it I'm not quite happy with though. I'll have to do some experimenting and rearranging. Its possibly because the stand isn't quite centred, but unfortunately the one sofa has to be either where it is now, or on the opposite wall.
I think it's the bright yellow speakers beneath the screen that draw my attention away from the movie.
Hmm, can't say I've noticed the centre when watching films, may try putting the grilles on to see how that looks though. The mrs likes them better nekkid though Just sitting here in the lounge right now, have a bit of music on and my god it sounds terrible. I'm going to head upstrairs and fetch my hifi amp and do some experiementing. EDIT: now using HD-DVD -> DAC -> Pathos amp -> 603s and it sounds really rather nice :/ It has just occurred to me that maybe the amp isn't the weakest link, now just need to try... HD-DVD -> DAC -> Yamaha amp Proper CD player -> DAC -> Yamaha amp HD-DVD -> Pathos amp Then maybe the above again using the hifi's cables and ICs I'm going to be busy... Edit: it appears that the amp in the receiver isn't all that terrible and that its the inbuilt DACs which are killing the sound. Just running HD-DVD -> DAC -> Yamaha amp now it and doesn't sound all bad.
