New A/V Setup, bought it at last

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rlm

rlm

rlm

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After working far too many hours over Christmas and a job promotion I had finally saved up sufficient money to buy the Home cinema setup I’d wanted for ages. I already have a Sharp 26” HD LCD and was just looking at the audio to support this. The other idea was for it to be sufficient for when I get a bigger place and a bigger TV. I also already had a pair of B&W 602S1’s on Apollo quad stands, perfect fronts I thought.

After much deliberation and demo’ing I decided on a Yamaha DSP-AX757SE as the amplifier for the setup, its more than powerful (neighbours have found this out and since complained even though it’s the other side of the house) enough for my current needs and for the foreseeable future. It supports all the formats I need, and more, I didn’t need its 6 or 7.1 functionality but that wasn’t the reason I bought it in the first place. As with most A/V amps now it also has a stupefying amount of input and output connections on the back, again with this I can connect my Sky box, pc, ipod, dvd recorder and my television, which enables me to connect old games consoles that only use a standard coaxial cable to connect to the TV. (the audio feed goes to the TV then from its audio out into the amp.)

amp.jpg


My choice of centre speaker was a hard one, should I go with the centre speaker from the same series as the B&W’s or should I go with the same speakers as I chose for the rear satellites. I realised that the centre speaker was very important because of how much it’s used and so decided to stick with what I knew and went with the B&W LCR 60, very good high frequency reproduction and seems to fit in perfectly with the 602’s no doubt the fact that they are all Kevlar cones helps.

centre.jpg
 
For rear satellites I struggled a bit. I decided that I didn’t want full size stand or shelf mounts and so started a search for some small rears (ruled J Lo out (taxi)). First of all I looked at the KEF eggs, the design of them didn’t impress me massively and I thought that the sound they produced was nothing amazing, I was a bit disappointed after all the good things I’d heard about them, the problem was that they just sounded like small speakers trying to be big speakers if that makes sense. Unbeknown to me at this time, B&W had recently released some small satellite speakers, when I discovered this I decided to give them a try. Although I was only going to use them as rears I decided to use 5 of them for testing, just to see what they were capable of, just like I did with the KEF’s. Sevenoaks put episode II on for me, and well, I cant describe how impressed I was by these speakers, their clarity even at loud volumes was amazing, they didn’t seem limited at all by their size working in what seemed like perfect harmony with the sub they were paired with.

rear.jpg


rear1.jpg


So I had decided on everything except a sub, initially I was going to go with the entry level sub from B&W(fan boy), the ASW300. But upon listening to it I thought it sounded pants. My next stop was REL, I’d heard very good reports on their Quake, and thought it would be perfect since I had no desire for a big sub. Again thought I wasn’t massively impressed when I heard it. After being put off by these two examples I was a bit lost for a while, until on my usual stumble on the AV forums I saw a lot of chat about a company called BK Electronics, who apparently manufacture subs for a few large names but didn’t sell products themselves directly, until recently that is. I decided to go for their XLS 200 upon hearing it, I was amazed at its clarity since its quite a compact unit, with a 10” cone, kicking out 275 watts. This sub is amazing for the sub £300 that I paid for it, and is easily capable of structural damage as I have found out, it is also responsible for the amount of lights that we have gone through downstairs with the vibrations knocking their filaments out.

sub.jpg


Sorry about the big post, just happy with the new setup and wanted to share.
 
Im not a fan of either B&W loudspeakers or the Yamaha amps sonically but aesthetically, that looks very sweet!

Do you have pictures of how it "looks" rather than individual shots?

How critical did you find placement of those rear speakers?
 
Yep it sucks with music sadly, even my Marantz Pm4400 was a lot better. I dont have any pictures of the way its set up as yet I'm afraid becuase it's all in temporary positions for now, It's all sadly piled into a tiny room no bigger than 2.5x2.5 metres until I get the loft conversion sorted. It's all set out the way it should be, just under somewhat cramped conditions. So cramped infact that I couldnt take a picture of more than 1 speaker at time becuase theres not enough space. Hopefully the loft is around the corner though, becuase if it sounds this good in here then I can imagine what its like when in a proper environment.
 
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