First Home Cinema Setup - much advice required please!

dl8860

dl8860

dl8860

Soldato
Joined
25 Jul 2010
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Location
Worcestershire
Since buying a new TV about a year ago (Samsung 48H6400), I've been hankering for a good sound setup for watching films and TV (and occasional music) but haven't got round to it.

I used the built in TV speakers for a while, and for the last few months have been using an ancient 5.1 monstrosity found in my parents shed
http://www.cashgenerator.co.uk/prod...-home-cinema-surround-sound-system-5-1-DW3935

So I've been browsing AV receivers and speakers for a little while (I tend to do a large amount of research before buying things like this) and have finally found what I think is a good buy.

Denon AVR-X2000w - £107 clearance (refurb)
Q Acoustics 2010i for front left and right - £60 (open box)
Q Acoustics 2000Ci centre - £95 (open box)

All clearance items from richer sounds, seems like a decent package to me.
3.0 might seem a funny choice, but my thinking is that my living room isn't huge, so the fronts should convey a decent amount of bass. Also we have neighbours downstairs who I suspect might get annoyed with the sounds of a big sub and the wife says she definitely favours clear vocals over a lot of bass - hence centre over woofer. Does this sound reasonable, or am I going to regret not getting a sub?

The long term plan is certainly to get a sub and some rears, but I'd rather invest in quality rather than quantity at this point, especially given my not-so-huge living room and neighbour situation.

My inputs will be a Sky+ HD box, PC and DVD player, which I'm planning to connect via HDMI, HDMI and RCA respectively. Might grab a cheap Bluray players while I'm in richer sounds if I fancy it.

Lastly cabling. I'm certainly no audiophile, and definitely working to a budget, so with that in mind will I be perfectly happy using something like this?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cable-Tex-S...&qid=1447239213&sr=1-5&keywords=speaker+cable

Like the look of banana plugs, so was thinking of grabbing these too
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Connector-B..._UL160_SR160,160_&refRID=0MTXSTTJWZ18WG6NB5MZ

Does that sound reasonable? Is there anything else I'll need?

Thanks for reading
 
The amp and the speakers are fine. When you do the set up, set the receiver so that it treats the centre as 'Large'. This will put a bit more bass energy in to the centre to help fill out the vocals nicely. 3.0 is fine too as a plan. The sub can always come later.

That speaker wire.... Nah. Not for any other reason other than you have no idea from the picture about the thickness or quality of it. For £2.00-ish its not going to be that thick. You need a little bit of thickness to deliver the power without much loss and without softening the treble. The Amazon cable isn't well described, so my guess is the picture is a big close-up of very weedy wire. Avoid. There's no need to go mad. Just look for 100% copper cable (not CCA or CCS) and get something with a cross sectional area (CSA) of 1.5mm2 (1.5 square millimetres). Oh, and avoid the cables with 200-300-400 filaments. 42 strand or 79 strand is the optimum number.

Banana plus... yes fine. Do you really need that many. They're very useful at the back of the amp where trying to connect bare wire is a PITA. At the speakers though bare wires in to the terminals is just as good (and arguably better) so perhaps diver some banana plug budget to speaker wire where it will actually make a difference.
 
Thanks for the reply lucid. Good to know I've got the main bits right, I'll have a hunt around for some decent enough cabling. Might just go with what RS recommend, I won't be getting reams so don't mind paying a small premium for peace of might and convenience.

I will go for bananas just into the receiver then, 6 should do for now.
 
It's thick. It's 100% copper. It's not expensive. It's absolutely fine for your system. Enjoy.
 
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