Help - trying to establish new AV Home Cinema System

[Irnman79]

Hi there,

Just new to this forum and looking for some advise. I am looking to replace my current AV Home Cinema system, which comprises of:

Pioneer VSX-1017AV
Pioneer S-H230V-QL (Front Floor Standing and Satelite Rears)
Eltax Symphony Centre

Never used a sub, as the front’s had sub’s built in. The system is mainly used for watching movies etc, and its not really a music system – although the wife sometimes turns up MTV when she is doing her “house work” thing.

The receivers I have looked at and been recommended by the good guys at Richer Sounds are:

VSX-924 (if I can push the finances out)
VSX-923

The speakers they recommended were:

Cambridge Audio S70 (Front Floor Standing) (New £250pair S/H £100pair)
Cambridge Audio S30 (Rear Bookshelf) (New £120pair S/H £60pair) – is there a difference between the S30, SL30 and SX30
Cambridge Audio S50 (Centre) (New £99 S/H £50)

However I am not really one for paying the premium for a brand new product, and am quite happy to pick up a second hand item – so just wondering what else I could get for my budget which is about £400 - £500 inc the receiver (£175 for the VSX-923, or about £300 - £350 if I push for a VSX-924).

I have seen the following speaker sets, and just wondered if anyone had any thoughts/experience about how these would shape up against the Cambridge Audio’s:

Alternative Front Floor Standing
Morduant Short MS914
B&W 683
B&W DM603
TDL Studio 10
Mission M33i
Mission M74
Mission M774
Mission 70ds
KEFQ5

Alternative Rears
Morduant Short MS902
B&W CC6
Mission M33
Mission M71i
Mission M3DS
Mission 77DS

Alternative Centre
B&W S100
Mission M7C1
Mission M77C
Mission M3C2
KEFQ95C
KEFQ6c

Sorry for the long lists, I have just pulled out what I thought would work, and what I think is within budget. Does it matter if the manufacturers are mixed between Front, Rears and centre, or is it best to stick with one manufacturer for all speakers? Sorry for my noob questions – I bought my original Pioneer speakers as a set of 5 (and only put the Eltax centre in place as I blew the original Pioneer Centre), and I have used these for the last 10 years, so not really up on what I can expect for my money.

Oh, last question – does bi-wireable speakers really make a difference, and does bi-wiring them (if an available option) improve the sound)?

Many thanks for any advise anyone can offer.

Cheers



Chris

 

[lucid]

The general consensus on speakers is definitely stick to the same brand across the front 3. It's slightly less important to voice match the surrounds to the rears. The sub can be from any brand.

As for the amp, the 1017 you have is a THX Select 2 amp. It has a pretty beefy power supply. If we leave aside HD audio, 4K, upscaling and streaming features, the newer amps don't have the muscle of the older amp because they use a different type of power amp technology. The on-paper power specs are good, but how that translates to the real world isn't the same. If you were to make the changes in stages, and just swap out the amp first, then I think you'd notice a loss in dynamics.

So thinking about the receiver, and the possibility of going used; what is it that you actually need?

Coming back to the speakers; part of the rationale behind upgrading is to improve dynamics (due to higher efficiencies) and to increase precision and detail retrieval because better speaker should use superior -design, -materials and build quality. Pioneer makes some quite esoteric speakers for the Japanese home market. But these rarely find their way in the the UK due to the strength of our home grown brands. Those speakers we do see from Pioneer tend to be budget-focused products that are sold through on clearance. The Pioneer S-H230V-QL front stereo pair have reasonable efficiency (89dB) which is competitive. The construction is lightweight - no surprises there - which means that the cabinet materials are light too and the driver magnets aren't that large. As a result, any speaker upgrade is going to be more about precision and detail rather than outright dynamics. So again, the question comes back to what you want from a speaker upgrade. Also, are there any restrictions on what you could have. For example, most of the front channel audio comes from the centre speaker. Would a significantly larger centre be out of the question because of space? Where are the current L&R speakers in the room?; tucked in to corners or in free space.

In order for the community here to make some considered recommendations, we really need to know about your layout, your expectations and your requirements.

 

[Irnman79]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

Ok, to try and answer your questions - the 1017 didnt cope very well with pulling together the HDMI inputs (certainly not as well as I expected, prior to purchase) - in addition to the HDMI cable, I also had to run an additional optical or coaxial cable from the source to the Receiver in order to get sound, as it was just passing it straight through to the TV. The other thing that I found odd - although not a total killer was when I adjusted the volume on this amp (this was my 2nd Pioneer Receiver - the first was a VSX-D510 - a budget amp) the numbers on the volume would go from being negative numbers and then reach '0' a lot faster than they would on the older Pioneer Receiver, and then they would go into positive numbers (the older Pioneer would just start at around 80, being almost mute - and go up to 0, being insanely loud). Anyway, my wife is currently expecting our second child, and I know that once this little one comes along, my finances will be tied up for some time - so if I want to upgrade this aging system, I better do it now. So I wanted to HDMI to all integrate seemlessly - I also wanted to future proof to an extend (so 4K upscaling is pretty essential), and the DLNA is a bonus. As stated previously, I have had 2 Pioneer Receivers now - and I always liked the sound from them - my brother had a Sony AV Receiver and had almost the same speaker setup as myself (I think it was the following year's release of my speakers), but I always felt that the sound wasnt quite as good - certainly the bass and depth wasnt there.

Anyway, sorry for the real noob approach here - I am really new at this, although I have had my setup for sometime - it has been somewhat of an out-the-box setup. When you refer to "a loss in dynamics" - what exactly do you mean?

The Pioneer speakers as you say were relatively lightweight - and to be honest, they are going on 11 years old now and are cosmetically showing their age, so an upgrade is necessary - and I dont really like the look of these small satelite systems with a sub, so I think I am looking at a set of floor standers, a centre and 2 rear bookshelves. With regard to room setup - a larger centre wouldnt be too much of an issue, as the TV (55inch LG 3D, is wall mounted) and I have a glass tv stand where the Receiver, Sky HD and Xbox one are all sitting -on the lower shelf, and top shelf is where the centre sits. At present, the 2 rear satelites are mounted on relatively cheap speaker stands at either side of the 3 seater sofa - I am considering buying decent stands for the new bookshelf rears, as the current stands would not hold them. They are not in the corner of the room, but they are against the back wall at either side of the sofa - with about 4 feet to spare to the side walls of the living room.

I hope this helps answer your queries and assists with providing some advise. As I said, I am relatively new at trying to come up with a custom setup, but would like to get the best I can for the money I have prior to our new arrival.

 

[lucid]

The other thing that I found odd - although not a total killer was when I adjusted the volume on this amp ...the numbers on the volume would go from being negative numbers and then reach '0' a lot faster than they would on the older Pioneer Receiver, and then they would go into positive numbers (the older Pioneer would just start at around 80, being almost mute - and go up to 0, being insanely loud).

That's because of the industry change to "reference level" volume displays.

The old system was the same as Hi-Fi amps; 0 on the display equals no sound. It didn't really matter where the volume control was set because you adjusted by ear. But when home cinema industry started to ape the commercial cinema industry, it was felt that the arbitrary volume method wasn't the correct approach for home AV gear. The idea in cinemas is that there's a reference listening level, and so the volume dial needed to indicate that. Also that the dial should be calibrated in a more meaningful way that reflects how much either above (+dB) or below (-dB) that reference the current volume level is. That's the same approach now adopted with domestic gear. This would ensure consistency from mixing suite to cinema to home.

The argument falls down slightly for domestic gear on two counts. Not every AV manufacturer has the same idea of what domestic audio reference level should be. Cinema reference level is an SPL of 85dB with the ability to peak at 105dB. Arcam used to have their AV amps and receivers set to 75dB, so the peak would be 95dB. The second reason is that the average customer hasn't a clue what a dB is, let alone SPLs, and they just set the volume to whatever it needs to be for a comfortable level that isn't going to cause huge arguments with the family and neighbours Nevertheless, pretty much every AV receiver now uses the "0dB is reference" model. SOme used to have the ability to switch the display back to the Hi-Fi way, but I haven't had anyone ask me to make that change on their amp setups in a long time so I'm not sure it's even a feature still.

the 1017 didnt cope very well with pulling together the HDMI inputs.... So I wanted to HDMI to all integrate seemlessly - I also wanted to future proof to an extend (so 4K upscaling is pretty essential), and the DLNA is a bonus.

Certainly anything from the last 6-7 years should be capable of handling all the current HD audio formats via HDMI, and of course DD and DTS too. So that's a fairly safe bet. DLNA is also going to be fairly standard on 'mid-range and up' used amps from the last 5 years, though it is worth checking before dropping some coin on a used buy. 4K scaling... hmmm... I'm less convinced of the value of this. IMO, it's this year's "Emperor's New Clothes".

First, the only benefit of scaling to 4K is if you actually own a 4K TV. If you think about it, a 1080p TV can't do much with a 4K signal except convert it back to 1080p for display. So that's an unnecessary set of up and down conversion for no end benefit. It won't make the picture any sharper, or more detailed. In fact, it's more likely to add noise and other artifacts. So 1080p after the process won't be as good as 1080p before. It's a backwards step if your TV is 1080p. Second, if you do have a 4K TV, then it already does upscaling to 4K anyway. So why pay extra for a feature in the amp that the TV already has?

4K pass-thru is something different. That makes sense if you plan to keep the amp long enough that we have full definition 4K sources. As it stands at the moment that's still some way off. Netflix 4K isn't really 4K; and there's no 4K Blu-ray yet. Besides, the basic HDMI standard (HDMI 1.4) has been capable of passing a 4K resolution image for the last 5 years. The only issue is 4K at refresh rates higher than 30 frames per second. Currently the only people with an issue there are PC gamers running 4K res at 60Hz. It's hardly a crisis in the AV world.

When you refer to "a loss in dynamics" - what exactly do you mean?

The dynamic range is the difference between the quietest and the loudest sound. The reason cinemas play the films at the volume they do is that it provides sufficient dynamic range that the quieter talky bits can be heard clearly and there's still enough room for the explosions to sound like they are significantly louder. That's also part of the reason for carrying the "reference level" volume idea in to home AV products.

If our home gear isn't capable of reproducing cinema like levels at home then what's happening is that the amp is running out of grunt to sustain the peaks during action scenes or sudden loud sounds. That's what happens when the paper spec promises lots of watts, but the real world conditions show us that the amp struggles. It has a loss of dynamics.

This is one side effect of the budget and midrange AV amps cutting back on the type of power supply they use in order to cram in more silicon goodies such as extra HDMI inputs, streaming, 4K scaling etc etc.

One way of helping to counter this effect is to use speakers that are much more efficient at turning watts in to sound. This is actually far more effective than buying a much higher wattage amp. Your current front speakers are rated at 89dB. Changing to speakers that are rated at 91dB would be the equivalent of upping the amplifier power by 60 real Watts per channel. For the sake of completeness, 1dB extra efficiency is worth 30 Watts of extra power.

Given that the budget is £400-£500, I think used is really the only route. New prices on the 924 are £450 at best AFAICT.

I'm a fan of diffuse rear surrounds for movie soundtracks. So the Mission DS would make my shortlist. Being dipole they'll work pretty well on the back wall. I think I've got a pair kicking round in a box in the loft from before I went dipole. The front three really need to match. So perhaps the answer is to choose the centre first and then the front pair to match.

If you can manage it within the budget then the Kef Q6c and Q5 would be my pick up front.

From the Missions, I picked up a used M77c to replace a dying Gale. That was pretty good.

 

[Irnman79]

Thanks again for the response. It is good to know the reasons for why things changed, and as you suggest, I just adjust the volume to wherever suits dependant upon the source.

So from what you are saying about the 4k upscaling (which from what I can gather is really the only main difference between the VSX923 and VSX924), I think I can save a few hundred with going for the VSX923 (I think RicherSounds had a few in clearance for just shy of £200).

Had a look, and there are a few people selling off some KEF Q5's - so you think that perhaps a slightly older set of these would be better than the the CA S70's? Now I just need to find someone willing to ship them to Scotland lol.

With regard to the rears - you mention dipole (sorry for my ignorance, but again, not something I am familiar with)? But which of the Mission's would you go for on the rear (M3DS or 77DS)? I do appreciate the time you are taking to explain things to me.

 

[lucid]

Had a look, and there are a few people selling off some KEF Q5's - so you think that perhaps a slightly older set of these would be better than the the CA S70's?

Speaker technology hasn't gone through any massively radical changes over the last decade, or longer really. There's been a steady improvement to things such as stiffer cone materials, and the cost of manufacturing entry-level products has fallen thanks to Chinese mass-production. However, this last hasn't been used so much to bring down the cost of middle ranking speakers, but more to make it easier to produce cheap floorstanders economically. The difference is subtle but very important. Making cheap speakers profitably isn't the same as making very good speakers a whole load more affordable.

Speakers that were good 10~20 years ago (and more) are still good today. The fact that they're being sold at a fraction of their original retail price is immaterial to the performance. This makes good used midrange speakers an absolute bargain. The Q5's will still make the grade against today's £400~£500 floorstanders. Would you put up the £250 Cambridge Audio S70's against today's £500 Dali, KEF, Monitor Audio? So why even contemplate making the S70 vs Q5 comparison? They're in different classes.

With regard to the rears - you mention dipole (sorry for my ignorance, but again, not something I am familiar with)? But which of the Mission's would you go for on the rear (M3DS or 77DS)? I do appreciate the time you are taking to explain things to me.

Broadly speaking, there are two classes of loudspeaker used for surround duties; direct radiating- and the diffuse- speakers.

Direct radiating is what you have right now I guess. It's any speaker where the drivers all face forwards and the backs of the drivers are enclosed. So, that's your typical bookshelf speaker, a floor stander, a satellite speaker. The sound is projected principally in one direction. This is known as a monopole design. This type of design is good if you want to pinpoint where the sound is coming from. That's perfect for front speakers where they're trying to create a 3D aural landscape and there's enough space between the listening position and the speakers for the sound to spread out.


Diffuse speakers have two or more drivers pointing in different directions. The 77DS are the shape they are because there are drivers firing out in to the room at 60 degrees to each other. This kind of arrangement produces a sound field where it's harder to pinpoit the exact location of the speaker. The sound seems to come from a much broader area. This helps in creating the audio illusion of background effects.

Diffuse rear speakers fall in to two main sub-categories. The Mission DS are bipole design. That means the speakers fire out in phase with each other. This works well as a rear wall surround for 5.1 as well as the more conventional side wall surround 5.1. The other type is dipole surround. Here the forward and rear facing speakers are out of phase. The effect is even more diffuse. These work better as two pairs in a 7.1 surround system. Incidentally, the "DS" in Mission surrounds stands for Diffuse Surround and not Dipole Surround as is often mistaken.


The other key advantage with diffuse surround speakers is they work better in in smaller rooms or where there's very little distance between the speaker and the nearest listening position. The reason why there's not more diffuse rear speakers is cost. Doubling the compliment of drivers makes them more expensive to produce.

Almost forgot...... go for the 77DS. They're better than the M3DS.

 

[Irnman79]

Apologies for the short message - i don't have access to a proper pc at home (been using the pc in the office to post my messages).

So I think I have made my mind up (with a lot of help from yourself):
Pioneer VSX -923
KEF Q5 (or iQ5 SE if I can get them - having to push the budget a bit for these though)
KEF Q6c
Mission M77DS

I have one last question to see your opinion - a noticed 2 really good deals (well to the noob that i am seem good) but the reason i am asking is they are both within collection distance and are both matching sets of Mission speakers:

Mission 70DS (front floorstanders)
Mission M33 (rear surrounds)
Mission M70C1 (centre)
Mission M2SAS (sub)
All of the above are asking £200

The other set consists:

Mission 774 (front floorstanders)
Mission 77DS (rear surrounds)
Mission 77C (centre)
All of the above asking £190

I am quite happy with the setup I have come up with, with your help, but wondered would either of the above come up to the same performance - only as I would be able to pick up the whole set at once, so for the sake of convenience - if you think the Kef setup will be far superior, I will save my cash and go for that.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[lucid]

Mission 70DS (front floorstanders) - AFAIK there's no such model in a floor stander. 70DS is the Diffuse Surround
Mission M33 (rear surrounds)
Mission M70C1 (centre) - Budget centre
Mission M2SAS (sub)
All of the above are asking £200

The value is pretty good, but I worry when the vendor can't get the details right on the front speakers. If the fronts match the performance level of the centre then these are probably on a par with £150~£250/pr floor standers.

The other set consists:

Mission 774 (front floorstanders)
Mission 77DS (rear surrounds)
Mission 77C (centre)
All of the above asking £190

This is higher performance gear all round. 774 fronts are on a par with the Kef Q5's, and the centre is a reasonable competitor to the Q6c. The sonic signature is different, but the build quality is similar. It's only my personal opinion, but I think the KEFs are nicer bits of furniture. But whether that's worth spending a fortune in freight charges is very debatable. The 77DS are, IMO, the best of the bunch in Missions rear surrounds.

I'd take quality over quantity; and this second package matches your needs exactly.

 

[Irnman79]

Thanks for your assistance again.....unfortunatley when I contacted the person adverstising the Mission set it was gone - then seen a nice set of Kef Q5's with Q2DS and a Q2c for £200.....you guessed it....gone! Missed out on 2 different sets of Q5's on ebay. Man, these things go like hot cakes lol. I have however, managed to get hold of a set of Q2DS for £100 which will be winging their way to me soon. I also managed to get myself a nice shiney new VSX-923, after some effort. RicherSounds only had one in stock (in a store near Birmingham - but was a clearance model - and they refused to ship it). Then on ebay and gumtree.....nothing. But then expanded the search, managed to find a company in Germany with a brand new one - and reasonable shipping for £250, so snapped that up, and that should arrive in next few days - now I just need to find a UK power cable that will plug into the back of it. Cant imagine this being too hard to find however (famous last words). Still, the hunt goes on for the elusive Q5's. I have seen quite a lot of Q3's and Q4's for sale - what do you make of these. I did a bit of research, as I noticed there were iQ5's on sale also, and from what I could gather, these are not as good as the original Q5's - would you agree with this?

Many thanks, as always.

 

[Irnman79]

Just had a look on ebay and note that there are quite a few sets of Mission 773e's going for reasonable money - just wondering how these would stack up against the 774 ' s you suggested or even the Q5's. I hadn't considered it to be honest, but a few folk have mentioned it to me when I said i was going for the Kef ' s that i should probabally invest in a sub, as the Kef ' s don't do so well in the bass department. I never ran a sub with the old pioneers, but do you think this is worth getting with either the mission's or the Q5's?

 

[lucid]

KEFs and the Missions are a 'lean' sound. That doesn't mean the same as bass deficient though. They're focused more on precision and tautness rather than fat and wallowy boominess. If you were listening exclusively to music then this would hardly raise a ripple of concern unless perhaps you were a massive electro/hip-hop fan.

When buying new you can go to a dealer's showroom and demo. You can't do that when buying used; but you're not paying new prices or suffering the depreciation either. Plus, you also have a lot of opinion in the form of magazine reviews and end-user e-pinions to use for reference. Whatever the tonal balance of speakers, it's surprising how quickly you get used to the sound. If the worst does come to the worst and you really can't live with them, then sell them on for close to what you paid. That's the beauty of used.

 

[Irnman79]

My new vsx923 arrived yesterday....woohoo and I have the chap down south courier in up the Kef Q2DS up to me as we speak. So just need to secure the fronts and a centre (possibly a sub dependant upon how the fronts deliver bass).

The list I think is now narrowed too:

Kef Q5
KEF iQ7
MISSION 773e
MISSION 774
Morduant Short 914

Having a bit of trouble trying to secure a pair of Kef's for the front at a reasonable price so will see how I get on with the above - i think they are all roughly in the same sort of performance bracket (willing to admit I am wrong though), but opinions welcome as always.

I have noted a few people selling different speakers and advising that on one or more of the actual speaker domes have been pushed in (mostly by a child), however this does not effect the sound - i wondered how much truth there is in this claim - that it does not effect sound quality and I have been avoiding speakers where this is the case, or am I passing up a perhaps good buy on a purely cosmetic aspect (that will covered up as I always have the grills on)?

Thanks as always

Chris

 

[Irnman79]

One last things - lots of Kef Q4's on the bay - what would be the downside going for these over the Q5's or the MS 914's or even the Mission's - i initially thought they may be a little small, but again may be wrong.

 

[Irnman79]

Can anyone give me some advise on the whether the above mentioned speakers should be a good fit for my home cinema setup or if any of them should be avoided for any reason. Is there any major difference between the Mission 774 and 773 as I see a heck of a lot more 773's for sale than 774 ' s. Many thanks.

 

[lucid]

The web is awash with reviews and opinions on older speakers.

773 was only half braced internally and is a good 4-5 inches shorter than a 774. As such the bass response of the 774 is vastly superior but I'd say that lack a little of the subtlety of the 773e. There was also the original 773 (less the "e") that only had a single driver and never reviewed that well.
It makes me nostaglic for my silliest home cinema setup I had for a while, 774 front, 773 rear, 772 as centre and centre rear.

It's very unlikely that you'll drop on one person in this forum with direct experience of all your short-listed speakers who can give you chapter and verse on the ins and outs of each. You're going to have to do what the rest of us do: Read a cross section of opinion, and then just buy and try what you judge to be the best option for your budget and travelling distance.