New to "Sound Systems" what should I look for?

Larnica · 10 Jul 2007 at 14:38

Hiya.

Well, As I have decided not to go down the 1080p due to me watching mainly SD TV currently, and I dont think any sets are bug free :rolleyes:

Unless told otherwise I will be going for a 720p / 1080i capable set and with the money left over, get some nice speakers (What will be used for LOTS of music). Keeping this in mind, I have no idea what to look for, was hoping some of you could give me some basic knowledge or some websites to check out?

Alexrose1uk · 10 Jul 2007 at 14:50

If you're not worried about surround sound, I'd say look for a decent second hand 2 channel amplifier, and some floorstanders to go with it, throw on top some cables, and as long as the amp suits the speakers, it'd sound far nicer than the speakers on the TV. You're better off looking second hand, as you get a lot more for your cash

If you do want surround, check out some AV amps, and some second hand speaker kits.

Larnica · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:01

Hiya.

Thanks for the reply. Forget to mention in my previous post, that I will not need surround sound, a 2.1 setup should be fine. What would you reccomend I should be looking at with a budget of £200 or less? or is that just a silly question?

Thank You.

Bar · 10 Jul 2007 at 15:55

I am fairly sure Tannoy have a pair of speakers out for ~£100 which repeatedly come out as best for value.

Alexrose1uk · 10 Jul 2007 at 16:22

Hmmm, speaker and amp wise it really depends on what you want to go for - Bookshelf speakers are small, and usually are fairly lenient on the amp, as long as you have a good amp and speaker set that are well paired. Floorstanders have more bass and project a bigger sound (as they're bigger), but require a more powerful amp to properly use.

If you dont mind bookshelfs, perhaps a Cambridge Audio A5 and some Mordaunt-Short 302i might do you well, but if you want bigger/something more spectacular, there are plenty of recommendations of nice speaker and amp combos all through this forums

For cheap I wouldnt recommend buying a cheap sub, proper music subs will generally be of very low quality in this price range, and floorstanders will likely provide more bass than you'd expect speakers to anyway - proper hifi speakers are far and away superior in sound production to PC speakers, although some more so than others

Larnica · 10 Jul 2007 at 19:21

Another silly question.

In the past Ive known people to not have amps, and just plugged speakers into there TV, whats with this?

squiffy · 10 Jul 2007 at 19:23

Those are active speakers, ie PC speakers, or on the high end Meridian, M&K. Also studio like Genelec.

If you want high quality stereo you'll need to spend more than £100 on speakers, plus need a amplifier too.

Larnica · 10 Jul 2007 at 19:24

"Stereo Integrated amps" is what I should be looking at, if that sticky is of any use, right?

Apparently the person who wrote that has said that for music / odd film this is the best than an AV Amp

squiffy · 10 Jul 2007 at 19:26

He's right, a stereo integrated amplifier at X will be better than a av amplifier at the same price.

However if you want to go multi-channel, you'll either need a av amplifier, or stereo integrated amplifier + av amplifier, or stereo integrated amplifier + av pre-amp + poweramps.