Got some speakers but need a main unit, help please

krisboats

krisboats

krisboats

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Hi

First time in this section so be nice :p

I rescued some sony surround sound speakers from my friends garden last year, and much to my surprise they still worked absolutely fine. The reason they were being scrapped is because his younger sister switched them on full volume and the subwoofer output kind of died, leaving the speaker okay but the system overall won't play any kind of bass.

Now i would love to get the speakers themselves up and running with a different main unit. Might be a receiver, transmitter, player, amp... i don't know what i'm supposed to be calling it.

So has anyone got any ideas on a system that i can pair my speakers up with so i can get some decent sound out of them. All 5 satellites work and the subwoofer is fine too.

Cheers muchly
Kris
 
Do you happen to know the part number of the whole system that the speakers were part of?

We could all recommend a receiver, but without knowing how good the speakers are, we won't know what level of output the speakers could handle.

Is there anything on the back of each speaker giving an ohm rating (Ω)?
Is the sub an active or passive unit?
 
El_Watcher said:
Do you happen to know the part number of the whole system that the speakers were part of?

We could all recommend a receiver, but without knowing how good the speakers are, we won't know what level of output the speakers could handle.

Is there anything on the back of each speaker giving an ohm rating (Ω)?
Is the sub an active or passive unit?
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OOh, i know its a passive sub.... It doesn't have a separate mains cable, just the +/- cables like the satellites do.

Edit: Hold on a second... think i've found it. Good job i'm bored, just been sat looking through google image results to see the pictures. Same subwoofer and satellites and it looks to be the same main unit too.

The sony DAV-SB100 is the one i reckon it is. Though the speakers and unit are at my parents house until i move into my new house so i can't just quickly check them.

Passive sub, 4ohms, 45-180hz, rated input 80w, max input 160w

Satellites, 8ohms, 180-20,000hz, rated input 50w, max input 100w.
 
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If you want to power all the speakers you will need an AV receiver. You could probably pick up a cheap Yamaha for under £100 but the quality of the sound you will get from such speakers will not be great.

The speakers are pretty much worthless and I'm sure many people will 'advise' that the best place for them is the bin!
 
Sorry to have come across in a patronising way in my previous post. I just didn't want you to spend some money on an AV receiver and then be dissapointed with the sound quality from the speakers.

For the £100 or so you will spend on an AV receiver you would be able to buy a second hand 'entry level' amp and pair of bookshelf speakers. Many people would advocate a budget stereo setup over a budget 5.1 system but if you want 5.1 then by all means go for it!
 
Yeah, Its just i wanted to have the 5.1 system hooked up to the tv/xbox. As my housemate paid for both, but has only got a £30 surround sound system for it. I thought i'd bring something to the table and try and get the sony speakers up and running with an amp, then i can always change the speakers at a later date.... bearing in mind i'm a student and don't have £600-700 to spend on surround speakers. We're not massive audiophiles, just i figured the sony ones would be better than his super crappy, no-name, ebay ones.

His rear left speaker seems to do nothing but buzz as well which is funny, but irritating.

I have a half decent pair of pc speakers for my computer, which i'm looking at exchanging for an amp and bookshelves around Christmas anyway... possibly even having a crack at making my own amp.
 
Seen a Yamaha RXV361, would that be about right? Am i right in thinking that its capable of putting out more wattage than the speakers can handle at max for long durations. As in i can't stick it on full all the time, but would be fine at low-mid volume?
 
Just to let you know I used to have that sony as my main system (twas all i could afford at the time), still use it in the bedroom now.
And although the sound isn't as good as what i have now, it wasn't that bad at all, some films like Private Ryan and I-Robot sounded fantastic. Just ignore the audio snobs, not everyone wants to spend a small fortune on home cinema equipment.
 
Just had a quick looks at the RXV361 for you and it seems to look ok for an entry level 5.1 receiver.

From what I gather you are not worried about using the amp to handle video and will just have all sources connected to the TV for video with sound being handled by the amp. The amp has plenty of RCA connectors for stereo sound but only 3 digital SPDIF inputs (2 optical and 1 coaxial). You should be able to connect your xbox using optical and if you have sky/virgin I think that will be optical too.... Obviously this doesn't give you a huge amount of room for adding other devices i.e. DVD, HTPC, or another console but then you may not need this so no need to pay extra for an amp with more inputs.

I think the speakers should be a good match for the amp as the output of the amp is listed as 100W, 8 Ohm so there shouldn't be any problems. Obviously don't have the volume up too far but I doubt if you will need to. I'm not sure how easy it will be to connect your passive sub up to a AV receiver. You said that the subwoofer is fine but the system is not capable of outputting any bass so I am a little confused.

As mentioned previously it is possible to get very nice results from a cheaper systems. With all 5.1 setups speaker posititioning and room acoustics are absoluetly critical, so without these spending even moderate amounts of money on speakers and amps is pointless.

As for the buzzing speaker, I'm sure if you are contemplating building your own amp you should be able to fix this pretty easily! Best of luck...
 
pre1twa said:
Just had a quick looks at the RXV361 for you and it seems to look ok for an entry level 5.1 receiver.

From what I gather you are not worried about using the amp to handle video and will just have all sources connected to the TV for video with sound being handled by the amp. The amp has plenty of RCA connectors for stereo sound but only 3 digital SPDIF inputs (2 optical and 1 coaxial). You should be able to connect your xbox using optical and if you have sky/virgin I think that will be optical too.... Obviously this doesn't give you a huge amount of room for adding other devices i.e. DVD, HTPC, or another console but then you may not need this so no need to pay extra for an amp with more inputs.

I think the speakers should be a good match for the amp as the output of the amp is listed as 100W, 8 Ohm so there shouldn't be any problems. Obviously don't have the volume up too far but I doubt if you will need to. I'm not sure how easy it will be to connect your passive sub up to a AV receiver. You said that the subwoofer is fine but the system is not capable of outputting any bass so I am a little confused.

As mentioned previously it is possible to get very nice results from a cheaper systems. With all 5.1 setups speaker posititioning and room acoustics are absoluetly critical, so without these spending even moderate amounts of money on speakers and amps is pointless.

As for the buzzing speaker, I'm sure if you are contemplating building your own amp you should be able to fix this pretty easily! Best of luck...
Click to expand...

That's brilliant, been a real help cheers. The tv that my house mate owns seems to have some capability to output 5.1 through co-axial (i think), its just got a red and white output socket and if the device that's playing through it supports 5.1 it comes out correctly through the speakers. So that's the original xbox with XBMC, blue ray player, 360... the lot. We just have the tv's red/white plugs going into the existing surround and it works... so i reckon 3 inputs would be a bonus, if not overkill. We generally watch movies and things through the blue ray or xbox's as they up scale for the tv, so a built in dvd player isn't a necessity.

What i meant by not having a working bass out on the current reciver is when you plug a speaker (sub or satellite) into the subwoofer out socket it just comes out as a muffly distortion that's incomprehensible and barely audible. The speakers however work fine when plugged into other sources, like the satellite channels or a hi-fi unit.

I'll keep an eye on the ebay listings for the yamaha sets, still a few days left on each one, but fortunately no bids so i might get lucky or i might not... fingers crossed hey ;)

Cheers for the help dude.

EDIT: Okay, one more question. Am i right in thinking the yamaha has 5 red/black connectors that clip onto the bare ends of the red/black wires on my satellites. Then an RCA sub-out socket for the subwoofer? How would i look at connecting the sub as it simply has just the red/black wires going to it as well... no power lead or anything, just the red/black speaker cable.
 
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A few things.... Again I'm not an expert on this so some of this could be wrong.

I believe in your current setup you have all the devices plugged in to the TV and are then ouputing the sound from the TV to your audio unit which is powering the 5 speakers. If your TV is outputing using red and white audio connectors then this is most likely stereo sound (analogue). Your audio system is then upmixing the stereo signal to 5.1 and powering your speakers. This is not really true 5.1 sound but the results are often very good and is a good way of getting 5.1 audio from TV programmes etc. that only have stereo sound. Look up 'Dolby Pro Logic 2' on wikipedia for more info.

If you buy a budget AV receiver you will obviously still need to connect your equipment to your TV as before. However all the devices you mention should also be capable of outputting digital sound via a cable (either optical or coaxial) which can go directly to the amplifier which in turn will power your speakers. A digital connection will allow you to experience true 5.1 sound which should sound much better. Look up 'Dolby Digital' and 'DTS audio' on wikipedia for more information.

Such a setup is often quite convenient as it gives you the option of using either the speakers on your TV for audio or muting the TV, and firing up the amp for some 5.1 audio. Ideally you want 1 digital input on your amp for each device.... Your xbox & xbox 360 will both be optical, how about your blu-ray player?
 
krisboats said:
EDIT: Okay, one more question. Am i right in thinking the yamaha has 5 red/black connectors that clip onto the bare ends of the red/black wires on my satellites. Then an RCA sub-out socket for the subwoofer? How would i look at connecting the sub as it simply has just the red/black wires going to it as well... no power lead or anything, just the red/black speaker cable.
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Buy an RCA plug from a component retailer and solder the wires to it (black is negative, red is positive).

By the way the sub output should sound fairly muffled as it is only outputting very low frequncies. I guess you mean it was low volume as well.
 
Sounds like the sub is passive, so a av amp isn't suitable on it's own- the sub channel is line level only, you need another amplifier for the sub.
 
El_Watcher said:
Buy an RCA plug from a component retailer and solder the wires to it (black is negative, red is positive).

By the way the sub output should sound fairly muffled as it is only outputting very low frequncies. I guess you mean it was low volume as well.
Click to expand...

I know it should sound fairly muffled, we have a working one. This sounds more like someones stuffed the insides of the thing full of towels, then pulled the fabric cone cover off and put a towel on top of the cone as well before sealing it all back up. Its like the difference between someone with a deep voice talking and someone with a deep voice talking with their mouth completely closed.


Okay, i'm guessing a seperate sub-only amp won't be quite as expensive, and presumably is fairly simple?
 
Don't bother your 5.1 system is probably cack that's supplied with a HTIB, you'll need a seperate amp which'll cost £100+ in which case could just put that towards a new speaker system.
 
badbob said:
Don't bother your 5.1 system is probably cack that's supplied with a HTIB, you'll need a seperate amp which'll cost £100+ in which case could just put that towards a new speaker system.
Click to expand...

Did you read the thread at all, or just come here to voice your own pretentious opinion?
 
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