HD Sound setup?

photoshop

photoshop

photoshop

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I have no knowledge of HD sound so would like some advice.

What type of audio setup would i be looking at for HD audio setup to go with a HD TV and Blu-ray player?

Im assuming that an amp with "HDMI IN" would be needed to take the HDMI OUT from the Blu-ray player for the sound?

Any help would be greatly appreciated
 
What kind of money are you looking to spend?

As far as receivers go Onkyo are generally considered to offer a good performance/price balance at the moment and from the SR605 upwards they can all decode the latest HD audio standards.

You can build a pretty good little set up using an SR605 and some Q-Acoustics 1010i speakers for around £1k in total once you have added in cable and stands etc.
 
wij said:
What kind of money are you looking to spend?

As far as receivers go Onkyo are generally considered to offer a good performance/price balance at the moment and from the SR605 upwards they can all decode the latest HD audio standards.
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around £500-£750 for the whole setup (amp, speakers and cables)
 
Google around there are a lot of place doing deals a the moment on that kit, although I don't think you will find the SR605 for less than around £400 and the speakers are around the £500 mark so most deals involve free cabling etc.

Might be worth going and finding yourself a good local hifi dealer (as I see from your other thread you are obviously looking to buy yourself a bluray player too) and trying out some kit with them they might offer you a good deal.

I personally wouldn't go and spend money on any speakers or amps despite how good their recommendations are without hearing them for myself :)
 
Quick question while we're on the subject of HD audio, is it 24bit 96 KHz? Are there any seperate decoders, or do you have to buy an amp with a decoder in?
 
MikeHunt79 said:
Quick question while we're on the subject of HD audio, is it 24bit 96 KHz? Are there any seperate decoders, or do you have to buy an amp with a decoder in?
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You have to buy the amp atm.

Not sure about the resolution though
 
wij said:
Google around there are a lot of place doing deals a the moment on that kit, although I don't think you will find the SR605 for less than around £400 and the speakers are around the £500 mark so most deals involve free cabling etc.

Might be worth going and finding yourself a good local hifi dealer (as I see from your other thread you are obviously looking to buy yourself a bluray player too) and trying out some kit with them they might offer you a good deal.

I personally wouldn't go and spend money on any speakers or amps despite how good their recommendations are without hearing them for myself :)
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Seen it for £350, best bet is search google.
 
Be very careful with HDMI and sound. I got stung by thinking that an amp with HDMI would be able to do something with that sound. In my case it won't! It just bypasses is to the output, which as you can imagine was highly annoying!
 
photoshop said:
around £500-£750 for the whole setup (amp, speakers and cables)
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for the amp. if you are aiming for HD Audio, you should be spending that again on speakers. yes, im not kidding lol. i do not believe it is worth the effort pursuing hd audio unless your going for a top of the line av amp and speakers to match, OR a suitable HD decoder and suitable 7 channel power amp...and speakers to match. i dont think such a decoder exists yet, but i havent looked in to it.

Lowe said:
Be very careful with HDMI and sound. I got stung by thinking that an amp with HDMI would be able to do something with that sound. In my case it won't! It just bypasses is to the output, which as you can imagine was highly annoying!
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onkyo 505e? :(

Hd audio comes in various guises. most soundtracks atm are 5.1 but 7.1 tracks are becoming available. shoot em up on bluray is one example, that has a full 7.1 DTS MA sound track. im not sure if there are any 7.1 96khz sound tracks yet. there is no real standard for HD sound tracks, they could be 96khz 5.1, 48khz 7.1, 96kh 7.1.... just be sure that its better than regular dd/dts lol
 
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To be honest it's a damn good amp and it sounds great even though it's got this huge flaw. The PS3 will downmix HD audio sources to DTS/DD and for the main it's up to the job. Later down the line I'll probably upgrade, but for now it's good enough. :)
 
So for a HD audio setup i would be looking at around £1,500 - £2,000 for a good setup which includes everything!
Thats a lot man!
 
photoshop said:
So for a HD audio setup i would be looking at around £1,500 - £2,000 for a good setup which includes everything!
Thats a lot man!
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My AV32R processor, which doesnt even have "power amplifiers" cost more than that on it's own.

To be honest, Im a dubious about the benifits of "HD Audio" on budget systems. Some people spend thousands to squeeze the last details out of CD and DVD sources.

You hear some people say they cant hear the difference between MP3 and a CD, and often it turns out they are listening to it with PC speakers, and a motherboard soundcard etc.... The amps and speakers mask any possible improvement the CD may have. Try listening to a 256kbps MP3 and the CD on my setup and you would have to be deaf not to notice the difference.

Sound quality is limited by the weakest componant in the link, and in a cheap setup thats likely to be the speakers and amplifiers just as much as the source.

That said £1500-2000 on a sound system, and you are just entering the realms of "better quality". I'd still wager that DTS Core (1500kbps) from a Blu-Ray would sound better on my high end (but not crazy money) system than the HD soundtracks played back on a £1500-£2000 setup.
 
Corasik said:
My AV32R processor, which doesnt even have "power amplifiers" cost more than that on it's own.

To be honest, Im a dubious about the benifits of "HD Audio" on budget systems. Some people spend thousands to squeeze the last details out of CD and DVD sources.

You hear some people say they cant hear the difference between MP3 and a CD, and often it turns out they are listening to it with PC speakers, and a motherboard soundcard etc.... The amps and speakers mask any possible improvement the CD may have. Try listening to a 256kbps MP3 and the CD on my setup and you would have to be deaf not to notice the difference.

Sound quality is limited by the weakest componant in the link, and in a cheap setup thats likely to be the speakers and amplifiers just as much as the source.

That said £1500-2000 on a sound system, and you are just entering the realms of "better quality". I'd still wager that DTS Core (1500kbps) from a Blu-Ray would sound better on my high end (but not crazy money) system than the HD soundtracks played back on a £1500-£2000 setup.
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Agreed on the subject of it on budget systems. With regards to the mp3/cd comparison though i wouldn't agree it's a like for like comparison. There's been numerous blind tests where people have not been able to tell the difference between high bitrate mp3's and CDs.
 
Corasik said:
My AV32R processor, which doesnt even have "power amplifiers" cost more than that on it's own.

To be honest, Im a dubious about the benifits of "HD Audio" on budget systems. Some people spend thousands to squeeze the last details out of CD and DVD sources.

You hear some people say they cant hear the difference between MP3 and a CD, and often it turns out they are listening to it with PC speakers, and a motherboard soundcard etc.... The amps and speakers mask any possible improvement the CD may have. Try listening to a 256kbps MP3 and the CD on my setup and you would have to be deaf not to notice the difference.

Sound quality is limited by the weakest componant in the link, and in a cheap setup thats likely to be the speakers and amplifiers just as much as the source.

That said £1500-2000 on a sound system, and you are just entering the realms of "better quality". I'd still wager that DTS Core (1500kbps) from a Blu-Ray would sound better on my high end (but not crazy money) system than the HD soundtracks played back on a £1500-£2000 setup.
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Absolutely agree with you there although a lot of people these days don't appreciate quality audio, think iPod generation who listen to horribly over compressed AAC/Mp3 audio and think that is what music should sound like.

And certainly with regards to AV setups a lot of people spend significantly more on the video part of it than they do on the audio part.

I am probably more inclined to agree with oli than Corasik with regards to MP3 vs CD, even at very high bit rates but then again it depends on the quality of the system used. I have a pretty high quality stereo set up and can easily tell between a 320kbps MP3/AAC file and the CD original with both sources going through the same DAC, although move onto lossless files and things start to narrow somewhat considerably - at least in my system.

Thread has gone a little off topic perhaps so maybe we should just go back to giving some advice to Mr Photoshop for his new system :)
 
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