Adding a 5.1 Receiver + Centre Speaker to Stereo HiFi Setup

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Hi folks.

After a little advice, please!

Right now I have a very simple Stereo HiFi w/CD-player with 2 x Dali Zensor bookshelf speakers, being fed audio via Optical Cable from my TV. Very happy with this setup - great for music and OK for TV/films, although vocals/speech suck, since they're lost in the stereo mix.

I would like to add a centre speaker to get vocals/speech to be treated properly for movies/TV. I'm think the only way of doing this is to upgrade to a proper multi-channel AV receiver, so I can add the third speaker (a Dali Zensor Pico Vokal is what I'm looking at, to match the other 2 speakers I already have). I have no need or space for a subwoofer or any rear speakers, so really a simple 3.0 setup is ideal for what I want. There's no space for a soundbar unfortunately (telly is very very snug inside an alcove shelf space).

My trouble is that I don't want to get rid of my current Yamaha HiFi - my missus loves it and understands how to use it, and it has a built-in CD player, so I want to keep that effectively as a dumb CD player running into the new AV receiver.

My question: If I add a 5.1 AV receiver to my setup and run all 3 x speakers off that, what's the simplest and safest way to get stereo output from the stereo hifi into the new 5.1 AV receiver (I'm looking at a Pioneer VSX-832/932 or similar right now), and still get proper stereo sound from the new receiver for music listening? Will it simply ignore the 3rd centre speaker? Or will it use it as well, somehow? That new 5.1 receiver has simple Phono inputs, which might do the trick.

Am I ok running this setup do you guys reckon?

Total setup:

HDTV (HDMI + OPTICAL outputs)
Stereo HiFi CD Player with Phono Out
Phono Turntable using Phono Out (into the HiFi or possibly the new 5.1 receiver)
Blu-Ray Player HDMI Out
Various other HDMI devices (XboxOneS/X, Android TV box, Amazon Fire Stick etc.)
All controlled with a Logitech Harmony remote

I will also be replacing my blu-ray player with an Xbox One S/X and a new 4K TV too at some point very soon, but I'll keep that for a separate thread.

Cheers!

TLDR: How best do I get stereo out from a CD HiFI player into a 5.1 AV Receiver
 
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Soldato
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you can just run the hi-fi in via phono to the new receiver and turn off all the digital processing gubbins which will give you a pure stereo sound or you can let the digital stuff upmix it into the 3 speakers which sometimes sounds good and sometimes sounds awful. If you are going this route I'd look for a more musical sounding AV receiver as some sound awful Marantz used to be the way to go but this may have changed
 
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you can just run the hi-fi in via phono to the new receiver and turn off all the digital processing gubbins which will give you a pure stereo sound or you can let the digital stuff upmix it into the 3 speakers which sometimes sounds good and sometimes sounds awful. If you are going this route I'd look for a more musical sounding AV receiver as some sound awful Marantz used to be the way to go but this may have changed

Thanks Alex! What I do really want to avoid is having to do anything like disabling certain processing when I want to listen to music. I reckon the hassle of this might not make it feasible, especially for the missus... That's the part of this whole process I'm trying to make sure is seamless. I wonder if this AV receiver I mentioned Pioneer VSX-832/932 is intelligent enough to recognise a simple stereo phono signal and output only to the two front speakers...
 
Soldato
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This depends on whether you want to use the amplification in your current hifi to power the fronts or use the new amplifier to do that. It's probably much more straightforward to use the new amplifier to power all the speakers in terms of connections, although an AV amp always seems to add an extra level of complexity to proceedings and adds difficulty for non-tech minded folk however you set it up.

I would use the AV amp to power the speakers and connect your current CD player/stereo to it via the phono connections. You should be able to select the type of output on the AV amp and for music I would suggest that you do a simple stereo passthrough rather than any upmixing. Connect any other sources directly to the AV amp and you should be away.

EDIT: The amp should also store settings for each input so you're not having to re-set everything each time. It might take a bit of initial setup, but you'll get there.

The only way to keep your stereo completely separate from the AV amp is to use the current hi-fi to power the front speakers, but this relies on a bit more fiddling and pre-outs on the AV amp.
 
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The right way to do it is with an AV Receiver that has Pre-outs. You'll need something better than the Pioneer 820. A used Yamaha RX-V7xx series, or something that was originally in the £600+ retail category if it is to have pre-outs and at least HDMI 1.3b

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Thanks Tom, Lucid!

Sorry it was a typo on the 820 - it's actually the VSX-932 I'm looking at - fairly top of the line and plenty of ins and outs, which I would like for future proofing. Not much more costly, either.

I am not 100% sure but I reckon a simple Phono connection from HiFi > AV then switch the AV to Stereo Mode should work the way I intend - it would use both front speakers + non-existent Sub, which is ideal.

I am just hoping that my Harmony remote is going to be programmable to add the AV to my music routine, and switch it to Stereo mode, and to add it to my TV/disc/ATV routine and switch it back to surround mode...
 
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Whatever you change your missus will have to adapt. I am pretty much in a similar boat, in that my Marantz hifi amp is dying so I wanted to replace it. With 6-7 devices to plug in (HDMI) I was desperate to get rid of my cheapo splitter and complicated set-up. In the end I've plumped for a new Marantz AVR as a one-box solution. (And a Harmony because it was on a great deal!). But having said that my hifi amp was >15 years old so I had no interest in keeping it.
 
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You haven't yet said which Yamaha Hi-Fi so the connections can be checked. That's kind of really crucial, because if there's no way to get audio out of it then you're a bit stuffed.

As a general observation too, you're happy with the sound of the Yamaha, and that's probably a lot to do with the fact its a simple stereo amp. There's very little in the signal path that gets in the way of the music. AV receivers are a different kettle of fish. There's a tonne of digital processing going on plus all the circuits and their associated power supplies all feeding off the one main transformer in an AVR. That pulls the signal down quite a few notches.

Don't take this the wrong way please, but a £330 AVR isn't fairly-top-of-the-line. Even £600 AVRs aren't top of the line. The Pioneer is shoehorning in a lot of features in to what is a reasonable entry-level package, but like most similarly priced receivers the focus is on the whizzy-bang movie effects rather than pure audio fidelity. When you're looking at £500-£600 territory then the designers have some budget left over to tweak the stereo performance. IMO, that's when it's safer to start thinking of the AVR as an amp that could be okay for music too.

Long story short, unless your listening room is a complete acoustic disaster area (square room, tiled floor, bare walls, minimalist furnishing, lots of glass) then you're probably going to hear a difference between stereo from the Yam and stereo via the AVR. How big a difference depends on the AVR and the room. If running the stereo speakers from the AVR messes up the sound, what will you do?

There's a knock-on question from this. If you do decide to keep the quality and the marital bliss by running the Dali's from the Yam then how will you control the volume at movie/TV time?

Unless the Yamaha has a proper pre-out designed to run an external power amp, then any line out it does have will be fixed volume. IOW, the level going to the AVR remains the same whether the Yam is turned up to full or down to nothing. So when you come to put the AVR on, you'll have to juggle two volume controls to keep the centre speaker balanced with the stereo pair. That's going to be interesting for you. A Harmony ain't going to cope with that.
 
Soldato
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Which model of Marantz, Scam?
My trusty PM6010SE is getting replaced by an SR5012. It's way more than I need in an AVR considering I have a 1080p plasma and only stereo speakers, but I'm hoping the outlay is worth it for better musical performance and there's no harm in future proofing. I'm hoping it will last many years.

And a friend of mine could get it at trade price so that helped a bit :p
 
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You haven't yet said which Yamaha Hi-Fi so the connections can be checked. That's kind of really crucial, because if there's no way to get audio out of it then you're a bit stuffed.

As a general observation too, you're happy with the sound of the Yamaha, and that's probably a lot to do with the fact its a simple stereo amp. There's very little in the signal path that gets in the way of the music. AV receivers are a different kettle of fish. There's a tonne of digital processing going on plus all the circuits and their associated power supplies all feeding off the one main transformer in an AVR. That pulls the signal down quite a few notches.

Don't take this the wrong way please, but a £330 AVR isn't fairly-top-of-the-line. Even £600 AVRs aren't top of the line. The Pioneer is shoehorning in a lot of features in to what is a reasonable entry-level package, but like most similarly priced receivers the focus is on the whizzy-bang movie effects rather than pure audio fidelity. When you're looking at £500-£600 territory then the designers have some budget left over to tweak the stereo performance. IMO, that's when it's safer to start thinking of the AVR as an amp that could be okay for music too.

Long story short, unless your listening room is a complete acoustic disaster area (square room, tiled floor, bare walls, minimalist furnishing, lots of glass) then you're probably going to hear a difference between stereo from the Yam and stereo via the AVR. How big a difference depends on the AVR and the room. If running the stereo speakers from the AVR messes up the sound, what will you do?

There's a knock-on question from this. If you do decide to keep the quality and the marital bliss by running the Dali's from the Yam then how will you control the volume at movie/TV time?

Unless the Yamaha has a proper pre-out designed to run an external power amp, then any line out it does have will be fixed volume. IOW, the level going to the AVR remains the same whether the Yam is turned up to full or down to nothing. So when you come to put the AVR on, you'll have to juggle two volume controls to keep the centre speaker balanced with the stereo pair. That's going to be interesting for you. A Harmony ain't going to cope with that.

Hey. Thanks for the comprehensive feedback!

My current stereo hifi is a Yamaha CRX-N560D - My room is a very typical mid-terrace living room, i'm probably around 10 feet away from the speakers + TV, wood floor, rug and standard sound stage, so nothing terrible, nothing amazing. And I would not class my audio listening requirements as particularly high at all - music is probably 30% of my usage here with 70% going to films and TV. Would the music audio sound quality from that Pioneer 7.1 be noticeably worse than from my Yamaha stereo? If only subtly worse I can take that, in exchange for proper centre speaker and film audio improvement.

That Yamaha has standard phono speaker outputs. Am I safe to run those into the Phono inputs on the AVR and so avoid any fixed volume issues? As you say if I need to drive the volume controls on both the Yama+Pioneer then I'm screwed there...

Option 2 is to ditch the HiFi altogether and go straight with a blu-ray/xbox for CD playing and get the missus on-board with that. Would make life simpler long-term but short-term....
 
Soldato
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Haven't read any of the above but guess what it's about, want to have stereo amp + AVR, so presume posters above explained it. I've had stereo amp+ AVR too.

Whatever you do make sure your AVR has (ideally) full set of pre-outs, L&R is of course required. But I would recommend a stereo amplifier with direct power amplifier inputs, so your stereo amp volume control is bypassed in "av" mode. My old stereo amp had this, it's worth it as you don't need to adjust volume on the stereo amp to match. To have a stereo amp without this is a major pain and I would not like to do that everytime, you'll forget so either L/R will be too low or too high, or it'll blast out when you switch input.

You want a amp like Audiolab 8000S or similar- it has "pre-power av" mode switch. That works as a straight 2 channel power amp, but major drawback is if you going bi-amping with another Audiolab amp, the second amp will be muted. But if you use the 8000S to power L/R normally that's fine.
 
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Hi Hornet.

Thanks for the heads-up - someone else mentioned this issue already as well.

I don't know if my Yamaha CRX-N560D has pre-power/pre-AMPs and the manual doesn't seem to shed any light. I also don't know if the Pioneer VSX-932 I am looking at has this either, but I DO know that this model has a simple "Stereo" listening mode, which will switch it over to 2 x front + sub, effectively just using my two front speakers, which would be ideal.

The more I look into this the more I think the VSX-932 is a good option, and if it turns out that I can operate both the stereo and the AVR easily with the volume then I will use that setup. If it doesn't, I will ditch the Hifi. Worst case scenario I can also just return the new AVR and re-think.
 
Soldato
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I've done the following in order so know what you're thinking

AVR
Added stereo integrated amplifier
Replace AVR with 3 channel Yamaha add on AVR
Added stereo power amplifer to bi-amp stereo speakers
Added stereo power amplifier for center bi-amp
Added stereo power amplifier for rears
Added sterep power amplifier for sides
Replaced 3 channel Yamaha AVR with AV Pre-amp
Then finally split up the two systems in two rooms

I would not ditch the stereo amp for a AVR, as it'll sound worse. Less power than a good amp too.

If you want AVR + stereo amp, then 100% get a stereo amp or replace the stereo amp with the poweramp in function. In bold as this is critical. Buy a universal remote control so it'll send macros (if you can do this) to make your system easier to use. Macros send bunch of commands with one button press.

With Stereo + avr, send all stereo sources to your stereo amp, send all multi-channel sources to your AVR. IN stereo your AVR is switched off. In AV mode, both are on, AVR controls volume on all channels.

Again if you don't have poweramp in function you'll need to mark your stereo amp, typically around 12 o clock, with a bit of tipex or something.

That stereo mode is not a power amp in function.
 
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I've done the following in order so know what you're thinking

AVR
Added stereo integrated amplifier
Replace AVR with 3 channel Yamaha add on AVR
Added stereo power amplifer to bi-amp stereo speakers
Added stereo power amplifier for center bi-amp
Added stereo power amplifier for rears
Added sterep power amplifier for sides
Replaced 3 channel Yamaha AVR with AV Pre-amp
Then finally split up the two systems in two rooms

I would not ditch the stereo amp for a AVR, as it'll sound worse. Less power than a good amp too.

If you want AVR + stereo amp, then 100% get a stereo amp or replace the stereo amp with the poweramp in function. In bold as this is critical. Buy a universal remote control so it'll send macros (if you can do this) to make your system easier to use. Macros send bunch of commands with one button press.

With Stereo + avr, send all stereo sources to your stereo amp, send all multi-channel sources to your AVR. IN stereo your AVR is switched off. In AV mode, both are on, AVR controls volume on all channels.

Again if you don't have poweramp in function you'll need to mark your stereo amp, typically around 12 o clock, with a bit of tipex or something.

That stereo mode is not a power amp in function.

Hey Hornet. Not gonna lie, confused at this point. Need to read up on all of this in more detail. I do have a Harmony remote that can handle fairly complex macros. To be clear, I'm happy to accept a slight reduction in music audio quality in exchange for a proper centre speaker + proper movie experience. Current most attractive option is to ditch the stereo and just run everything off the AVR, but I'll just need to test the audio quality to ensure it's not unacceptably worse.
 
Soldato
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Current most attractive option is to ditch the stereo and just run everything off the AVR, but I'll just need to test the audio quality to ensure it's not unacceptably worse.

I wouldn't recommend doing that. That stereo amp wiped the floor with the AVR for music. Sound quality, more power, everything just better.
 
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I wouldn't recommend doing that. That stereo amp wiped the floor with the AVR for music. Sound quality, more power, everything just better.

Tangibly worse tho? I can never run that stereo THAT loud anyway due to small house + neighbours. It's rare I can ever push it, and any music therefore, to any kind of level where quality would really matter to that degree. This is where my dilemma lies...
 
Soldato
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Yup. Difference was massive, couldn't believe it- music opened up.
Power simply isn't volume. Clean power into speakers, so bass far more defined, far wider soundstage, midrange more defined too.

Saying that I'm now using 7 x 200W channels (got rid of the stereo amps) now use a 4 channel 200W per channel and 3 channel 200W per channel amp (de cluttered went from 6 boxes to two amp boxes)

If AVR music quality is paramount then I wouldn't be looking at the Japanese brands, probably try the more reputed "music" AVR's like Arcam, Marantz, Harmon/Kardon (HK of old were great) or Anthem. Not ones like Sony, Pioneer, probably not Yamaha even though I have one.
 
Man of Honour
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My current stereo hifi is a Yamaha CRX-N560D.........Would the music audio sound quality from that Pioneer 7.1 be noticeably worse than from my Yamaha stereo? If only subtly worse I can take that, in exchange for proper centre speaker and film audio improvement.
Honestly, you'd have to try them side by side.

On paper the little Yamaha has a cleaner circuit path, but against it it's short on real power and uses switch-mode amplification. However, the couple of reviews I have seen on it both say very encouraging things, especially when used with good speakers.

Budget AV receivers in the same category as the Pioneer have to shoehorn so much in that Hi-Fi performance really isn't a priority at this level. However, the Pioneer will kick out more power and that might help the speakers a bit. In the end you know what you're looking for in sound, and if you listen to both through your speakers then at least you can make a reasonable comparison.

That Yamaha has standard phono speaker outputs. Am I safe to run those into the Phono inputs on the AVR and so avoid any fixed volume issues? As you say if I need to drive the volume controls on both the Yama+Pioneer then I'm screwed there...

BIB: er... no, it doesn't. The red and the black connection in the box out marked SPEAKERS are speaker connections. They're nothing to do with phono sockets at all I'm afraid.

You're definitely NOT safe to connect those to the line input of any amplifier. Please, don't do it. The power levels of the two connections standards are vastly different. The speaker output on the Yamaha can generate around 12 volts and roughly 1.5 Amps of current at full volume. The line input on any amplifier isn't expecting more than 1-2 Volts and won't be drawing much more than 2 ten-thousandths of an amp.

At best you'll kill one line input on the AV receiver. At worst you might kill the entire input board and take out the power amp transistors in the process. It's a bad bad bad idea.



Long story short, the Yamaha you said your wife loves and you really like the sound of is an isolated bit of kit. It hasn't any outputs that can be used directly with any AV receiver. There are a couple of bits of gear that can convert the speaker signal down to line level safely, but someone would have to check their suitability to be used with the Yamaha because they're not simple plug 'n' play items. Even if you make that connection then you lose the ability of the Yamaha to drive your speakers. That means the Pioneer does all the speaker power, so you haven't gained much except the Yam as a CD player.

Can I suggest that if you're going for a demo of the 932 that you also demo the Sony STRDN1080. I know it's more than your anticipated budget, but it's getting good reviews for Hi-Fi audio quality so would make an interesting 3-way comparison.
 
Soldato
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Just seen that the OP’s stereo doesn’t seem to have a line out. This slightly complicates things if you’re desperate to keep it. I.e. using the stereo for amplification of the front channels you will need to buy an AV amp with pre outs (typically more expensive) and then have a set point on your stereo volume control (I used 12 o’clock when I did this).

I don’t think the hassle of this is worth it for the sake of what is essentially a mini system, especially as you’re going to have to increase the budget to get an AV amp with pre outs.

Either forget the whole idea or buy an AV amp and a new CD/BD player and ditch the stereo (or move it to another room).
 
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