Went to a hifi shop, came back with the following spec - your thoughts?

Beansprout

Beansprout

Beansprout

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Edit: I haven't bought anything yet - the following is just a quote!

Not sure if we're allowed to mention hifi shops on here, I can't keep up with what OcUK sell. But it was 'that big cheap one' who sell a lot of Cambridge Audio stuff!

Essentially I'm after a surround sound system for movies & xbox 360, and have a medium-sized room - about 6x6m at a guess. I like a good amount of bass, but clarity is also important. Don't particularly like an overly bright/harsh sound - I prefer a warm sound.

The system won't really be used for music but when it is, I listen to rock and jazz/blues, so I expect that means attention to detail and good tight bass is preferable?

I didn't have time to listen to any demos today, but this is what their chap put together when I suggested a budget and also that I liked Mordaunt Short's stuff:

Toshiba HDE1 (£200)
Onkyo TXSR605 (£399)
Mordaunt Short 906i (£299), 905i (£120) , 902i (£150) and 309 (£230) speakers (in 5.1)
£160 worth of cabling :eek: (no way I'm spending £50 per HDMI cable...I'll cut that down)
Discount - £200
Total cost - £1360

A friend has some Mordaunt Short speakers and they're very nice indeed, but I'm wondering what else is available in the ~£1000 - £1500 range, as I'm aware that this hifi shop only stock a few brands our of the huge selection on the market.

And also wondering if indeed if there's any point spending this much over, say, £800 (eg. a cheaper amp and the KEF KHT 2005s?) - sadly they don't sell these - the best satellite package I could find were some other Mordaunt Short ones.

A couple of other questions come to mind:

> The Onkyo amp is supposed to be quite bright - any suggestions for a slightly warmer-sounding amp for a demo?
> Which other speakers are worth looking at? I've looked at B&W in the past and been impressed by their sound.

In summary...it looks like a good system to me but I'm very new to all this, and also naturally wary of jumping in, and don't pay much attention to any of the What Hifi reviews etc - I'm very cynical ;)

Thanks in advance for any tips or thoughts anyone can provide :)
 
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An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable is an HDMI cable. A £5 one is as good as a £50 one, being digital the signal either gets there or it doesnt. Just my 2p :)
 
£160 on cabling is daft, agree

i personally paid £10 per cable delivered. They came with really nice braided wires, gold plated chunky connectors with a real nice feel to them. Anything more than £10 is too much for a HDMI lead.

how much they charging for the HD DVD player. The E1 goes for £200 on-line. and for £200 for a HD DVD player, you cant argue. Given that dixons will quite happily sell you a £100 standard dvd player ..

on the amp, are they referring to the 605, never heard of the 60 ?
 
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Cool cool, but that's a lot on cabling :/

I can't really talk though about to build some silver interconnects for my hi-fi :D
 
Cables were as follows:

2xQED HDMI - £50 each
Subwoofer cable - 7.5m - £30
30m [something unreadable] general speaker wire - £30

Mental :eek: - I reckon I can cut down on the HDMI (as above) and the sub cable, and then it'll be slightly more sensible. But that said, don't want to skimp on the actual speaker cable :)

ubern00b said:
An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable is an HDMI cable. A £5 one is as good as a £50 one, being digital the signal either gets there or it doesnt. Just my 2p :)
Click to expand...
Just what I thought - I reckon an el cheapo cable from an auction site will do the job. High-street retailers want an arm and a leg for them all :s

on the amp, are they referring to the 605, never heard of the 60 S?
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Corrected, sorry - it's the 605, which I think is the 2nd up in the range....looking at the other Onkyo amps, it seems the right one to go for with HDMI 1.3 and nothing else that I'll never use.

From my experience Cambridge Audio is horribly bright.[/qupte]
Friend's system sounds great, but on the subject of brightness I don't want to get something that sounds good while being hyped by the salesman, etc. So just wondering what else is out there, really.

Would a visit to a smaller/specialist hifi shop be a good idea? There must be a few in Plymouth, but I'm not a local so don't know which are reputable, etc :)
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Beansprout said:
Cables were as follows:

2xQED HDMI - £50 each
Subwoofer cable - 7.5m - £30
30m [something unreadable] general speaker wire - £30
Click to expand...

HDMI cables - Unless the run is over 10m I wouldn't spend a small fortune on them. All the screens I have installed use el cheapo £5 leads and they are fine.

Subwoofer Cable - I paid £5.99 for a 10m lead

Speaker Cable - Without wanting to open a can of worms here, you can use cat 5 cable, mains cable( not the solid stuff) or buy speaker cable upto you

I will post this link for you to have a look at cables, its where I've got most of mine from
http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk

If it breaks any rules can you please delete it
 
Beansprout said:
> The Onkyo amp is supposed to be quite bright - any suggestions for a slightly warmer-sounding amp for a demo?
> Which other speakers are worth looking at? I've looked at B&W in the past and been impressed by their sound.

In summary...it looks like a good system to me but I'm very new to all this, and also naturally wary of jumping in, and don't pay much attention to any of the What Hifi reviews etc - I'm very cynical ;)

Thanks in advance for any tips or thoughts anyone can provide :)
Click to expand...

Denon amps are generally warm sounding amps, but personally matching speakers to the amps makes a lot of difference.
As for packages try these people
http://www.creative-audio.co.uk/hotdeals_home.htm
 
Beansprout said:
Cables were as follows:

2xQED HDMI - £50 each
Subwoofer cable - 7.5m - £30
30m [something unreadable] general speaker wire - £30
Click to expand...

:eek::eek::eek:

Take those HDMI's back and then get a couple of £5 ones off the bay, and get a cheaper subwoofer cable.

Save a good £100, which is £100 that will definately not be seen or heard in your setup. The HDMI cable that came free with my PS3 gives me 1080p on my tosh 42x and it's some cheapy thing.
 
I'm liking all the advice about the cables....I knew HDMI is generally new and high tech and whatnot, but I thought £50 each was taking the mickey. But according to the salesman, you can really see/hear the difference....so they give a "discount" and then make up their money on the cables I suppose :)
Oops Dead Again said:
Denon amps are generally warm sounding amps, but personally matching speakers to the amps makes a lot of difference.
As for packages try these people
http://www.creative-audio.co.uk/hotdeals_home.htm
Click to expand...
Nice, thanks - will try a Denon :)
 
i've heard it said and mentioned on many hi-fi/av forums that usually cables is about 10% cost of total system - so £160 isn't to bad for everything needed.

Ogbyte
 
Ogbyte said:
i've heard it said and mentioned on many hi-fi/av forums that usually cables is about 10% cost of total system - so £160 isn't to bad for everything needed.

Ogbyte
Click to expand...

Aye, but usually that's talking about speaker cabling (analogue signal, so loss can make a difference), not 2/3 of the speaker budget going on 2 HDMI cables (digital - you should either get the signal or not) ^_^
 
Beansprout said:
I'm liking all the advice about the cables....I knew HDMI is generally new and high tech and whatnot, but I thought £50 each was taking the mickey. But according to the salesman, you can really see/hear the difference....so they give a "discount" and then make up their money on the cables I suppose :)
Click to expand...

Typical salesmen, that's just saylight robbery, but i suppose they have to do it otherwise no one will buy these stupidly overpriced cables.

I suppose you've opened them so it might be a little hard to take them back, but id recommend that you take them back anyway.
 
Ogbyte said:
i've heard it said and mentioned on many hi-fi/av forums that usually cables is about 10% cost of total system - so £160 isn't to bad for everything needed.

Ogbyte
Click to expand...

That's what I'd heard, too - but now seeing as there's pretty much no difference apart from the feel of the cable and the connectors, I wonder why he didn't put in more expensive speaker cable and cheaper HDMIs - I expect the profit margins on those fancy HDMIs are huge :)

I suppose you've opened them so it might be a little hard to take them back, but id recommend that you take them back anyway.
Click to expand...
Fortunately not bought anything yet - I'd never buy something like this without a bit of research first :)
 
The old HDMI argument :o

Yes, as the signal is digital it will be the same on a £1 lead and a £100 lead... so long as both cables support the same spec, and the run is small.

Some cheapo's don't support the full 1.3a standard etc, so it's worth having a quick glance.
 
Acoustic energy sell some of their b-stock items on 'a well know auction site' at 1/2 price. They currently have a few Aelite 5.1 packages up for ~£1000, these retail at ~£2000 and are stunning. 5 star rated in mags, I have the lower Aegis 5.1 for home cinema and Aelite 3 floorstanders for stereo and they are truly excellent. I bought the aegis' B stock from them, couldn't tell they weren't new (honestly) and they arrived next day. B-stock are normally review or demo items so far as i cna tell. A superb company and highly recommended.

As for the amp etc, well look on AVforums.com - there are 20-30 new classifieds on there everyday, you can get a 3 year old £1000 amp for ~ £200 (i.e. an 04 Denon 3803), and a 3806 for about £500 - perhaps better than buying new? It is by far the best source of AV info on the net IMO
 
buy yourself a £5 hdmi lead and take it to the shop and let the salesman prove to you that his £50 a go cables are better than your £5 cable.
tell him if you agree with him after trying both cables, you'll buy his cables for 95 quid the pair.

if he doesn't say fair do's he's taking the mick, and you won't lose out either way :)
 
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