New TV & Speakers?

[xPETEZx]

I currently have a 7yr old 49" Samsung TV (forget exact model) paired with an Onkyo TX-NR515 amp, and Tannoy SFX5.1 speaker system.

The Subwoofer on the SFX5.1 system recently failed. I tried a repair, but to no avail.
Looking around the usual AV stores, seems that a 'decent' subwoofer replacement would cost about £150 at least, but often much more. (Cheapest I found is a Yamaha NSSW050 for £119, but apparently that does not even auto power on/off?)

This got me looking for 2nd hand replacements, and again found things in the range of £90 - £120. Of course these come with no warranties / guarantees.

As my SFX5.1 system is now over 10yrs old, I thought id take a look at what a whole new set would cost... seems I can get the 5-star rated Wharfdale DX2 for £350 + a 6yr warranty!

While on the store page which has the DX2's for £350... I saw the TV I have been considering is also on sale.
I can get the LG OLED55C14LB for £940, which is below that "£1000" point Id promised myself Id buy for it if it dipped below!
Now I know the C2 is due out next month, but it looks like for the same size Id be paying a heck of a lot more than the C1. So not sure thats an option. Esp as early reviews dont seem to suggest its a huge upgrade?


So what started out as looking to spend around £120 on a new subwoofer has now esclated to spending possibly £1350 on a new TV & Speaker package!

I have a couple questions to this:

1.) Will my TX-NR515 be letting the side down here?
2.) Could I use any of the speakers from my SFX5.1 system as to complement the new DX2 5.1 system to make a 7.1 system? Or even in future use them for height speakers?
Or would they just be letting the side down and better off selling them?

Any thoughts and suggestions welcome!
AV isnt my strong suit. And it seems it can get very expensive very very quickly.
I am not looking to spend anymore really... maybe a couple hundred if it makes a big difference.

Thanks!

 

[xPETEZx]

Thanks

I find AV can slippery slope so easily.... I just had a google around about the Q Acoustics, and it seems people recommending swapping the sub out, or adding floor standers. Or going with the 3010i package...
And before you know it... £450 has become £1200!

To my un-trained ears, who have enjoyed my £150 SFX5.1 system for the last decade, Its probably all wasted money anyway.

Realistically, I would like to keep this system probably as-is for the next decade...
I only even mentioned adding heights or extra surrounds, as Id have the SFX5.1s left over to collect dust.

Mulling it over and might pull the trigger this evening.

Now wondering if I really want a TV with WebOS instead of Android TV. But then... I have a Google TV already I can just move across if I find webOS lacking. Decisions decisions

 

[xPETEZx]

For powering any new speaker the Onkyo will still work fine. Where things probably will change is when you come to make use of the new TV's facilities such as UHD resolution and HDR including Dolby Vision.

My guess is that your old Samsung is 1080p, or if its a UHD 4K set then it's probably doesn't have the added features such as HDR or support for some of the advanced gaming modes now available from new consoles if you happen to be a gamer. That means you may have been routing your current sources through the amp first, and from there on to the TV.

The new telly will do more. If you're an Amazon Prime or Disney+ subscriber, of if have a premium Netflix sub then you'll be able to view stuff in UHD resolution with HDR. That's going to make you smile. You'll be able to do that from the TV's built-in apps. Of course you'll want sound for those too, and IIRC the 515 has ARC as well as Optical, so either way you can get sound from the TV. Streaming apps don't use anything better than DD5.1/DD+5.1 so ARC will cope with those.

Where things will become trickier is with external sources. There's a recent thread on this for a C1 owner with a Yamaha YSP2200 sound bar. The signal range and connectivity options on that sound bar are very similar to your 515 and so the thread has relevant info for you too depending on the sources you use. Here's a link: LG C1 and Yamaha YSP 2200 Soundbar - no DTS via ARC | Overclockers UK Forums and you might want to skip ahead and read from post #27


Although the DX2 system is better than the Tannoy kit, I'm not convinced it will be night and day better. The weak spot with both kits is the sub. I'm not knocking either; they're both good kits. It's simply that there's only so much that can be done within each system's budget when it comes to building subs.

A sub doesn't need to be the same brand as the main surround speakers. You can mix and match. For a little more than your Yamaha sub budget you can pick up a BK Gemini II as a used buy (around £150). The performance is in a different league. There's a BK Monolith on the 'Bay too, currently sitting at £150 opening with 0 bid and 4 days to go. BK Electronics Monolith 12 Inch Ported Subwoofer Light Oak | eBay

Other brands to look at include Monitor Audio, certain KEF and REL models, B&W. You're looking for something with a 10" or 12" driver and then checking some of the past reviews.

What sources do you have?

Thank you, this has highlighted some things I hadn't quiet given enough thought to.

My sources currently are a PS5, a Sony Blu-Ray Player and a Google TV.
I was planning to connect the PS5 direct to the TV so that Id benefit from HDMI2.1 features, and VRR once the PS5 finally gets support for that.
I would leave the rest of the sources connected to the Amp.

I think in this configuration I would be ok? Id still get surround sound on games from the PS5, as that wouldn't be DTS. Its either LCPM (what I have set now) or DD I believe?
I dont intend to use the PS5 for anything but gaming really. Any DVDs/Blu-Rays we watch would be using the Sony Blu-Ray player that would remain attached to the AVR. So I should still be able to enjoy DD/DTS/DD-HD/DTS-Master? (I cant quiet remember all the formats my old Amp supports!)

I would try using the built-in Apps on the C1, so Netflix, Amazon Prime & Plex. I do have some stuff on my Plex encoded with DTS, so I guess to watch that Id need to stream it via the Google TV still connected to the Amp.

You have brought me full circle on the Speakers / Sub thing.
Maybe I am just better off buying a new (used?) sub for my current speakers. Then maybe maybe in the future just buy seperate speakers?
I was just concerned spending £150+ on a used sub, given I have no recourse if it where to break even a few weeks or months later. Its what drew me to the DX2 + 6yr warranty.

Ill continue to think it over! Lots of food for thought.

I briefly looked at the Sony A90J, but god dam thats a lot extra for what seems to be only a little better performance.

 

[xPETEZx]

Perhaps I asked the wrong question all along!

Could anybody maybe recommend a new sub for up to £350? I know its frequently recommend to buy audio gear used.. but I just don't know if I trust spending that much on something with no warranty.

It seems every topic I find where people ask for any Audio gear in the low-end market, the advice is always just to buy X or Y from a higher tier used...
And I know that probably gets you better bang for buck, but it does not get you a warranty :|

 

[xPETEZx]

Thanks!

Seems they mostly sell through an eBay store?

The Gemini 2 at £254 seems like a great price point.

Is there a huge gain to go up to the XLS200 for another £100?

 

[xPETEZx]

LPCM from your PS5 direct to the 515 will give you discrete multi-channel surround audio in 5.1. The PS5 is decoding the signal internally and then sending it as 6 separate channels just like there are 6 RCA phono leads connected from console to amp.

When you send that same signal through the TV then the amp won't get all 6-channels. The TV can't pass it. It can only pass two channels in LPCM format. It can only pass stereo LPCM, which we abbreviate to PCM 2.0

A stereo signal doesn't have all the individual channels.... obviously. But it can still carry some surround signal information in the form of Dolby Surround. This is the one you use Dolby Pro-,Logic II Game / Movie / Music mode to decode.

I am a little out of touch with consoles, but if we use your Blu-ray player as an example, you can set that to downconvert DD / DTS and the HD audio surround formats in to stereo PCM with Dolby Surround encoding. That's how you get around the audio bottleneck of the TV and still have 4K gaming with VRR etc.

DD in 5.1 and DD+ which is DD with Atmos audio buried inside it using matrixing will both successfully pass through the TV via its ARC connection.

Your Google TV device isn't going to give you anything better than DD or DD+ from official streaming sources, so connect that to either the TV or the TV whichever is more convenient.

Regarding the subs, it's a bit of a punt, but I would still take a decent used sub over a far lesser new product.

Thanks for another detailed response!
So it sounds like the only option for getting 5.1 sound out of the PS5 that isn't 'simulated' (which Dolby Pro Logic etc are right?) is to set the PS5 to output Dolby Digital?
From what I read, this is inferior to using LPCM?

Seems like I have some reading / thinking to do...
Perhaps the C1 isn't quiet right for my needs after all.

 

[xPETEZx]

You can easily spend thousands.

Personally I've got 7.2.4 and it's worth every penny.

The q acoustic sub isn't great. Just be aware the 3010i are little speakers so they are compromised in that regard. I've got 3010i they're nice speakers for the money but bass shy so will need a good sub. That means more expensive sub. Checkout the monoprice monolith 10"

I get the feeling from guns in movies like you're really there (I've fired guns for real)

7.2.4?? So 7 surround speakers, 2 subs and 4 height?
I don't think I could fit that many speakers into my living room

Im really not sure I can justify the costs to setup something like that.
Nor do I think I have the patience to do all the research to find what pairs well with what, then get it setup just right for my setup.

With 2 young kids, I like to use what time I get to just go ahead and game! I had little enough patience to work out my 3090's undervolt!

 

[xPETEZx]

Best to go through avr then TV.

You'll need hdmi spec 2.1 avr

At that point a sub-replacement will literally have ballooned to an entire setup swap out!

Was hoping to avoid that. Seems AVRs with HDMI2.1 are still rare? And the ones I did see there was talk of some serious bug?

 

[xPETEZx]

That's not quite correct.

Dolby Pro-Logic decoding works in two ways depending on the source signal

When the signal is just plain stereo then yes, it creates a pseudo-surround effect using some fancy algorithms and phasing. This is simulated surround... but it's not the only way DPL works.

The other way is REAL surround information. 100% genuine. Pukka. The proper thing. Absolutely authentic. (Hopefully that's got the idea across clearly?) So here's how it works:

In a mixing studio somewhere where an audio track is being laid down, or built in to a player or source device such as Blu-ray player, Sky box or games console, a Dolby Surround encoder takes the centre channel and rear surround channel(s) and applies some fancy mathematical process to add them to the stereo Left and Right signal in a way that is undetectable by ordinary stereo gear. This is called matrixing. So we now have what looks like an ordinary stereo signal but embedded inside it is a secret code with centre and surround info.

These stereo signals can be analogue or digital. We call digital stereo ... PCM or even LPCM.

When a stereo signal is played through an AV receiver with a Dolby Pro-Logic decoder the "secret bit" is reformed in to centre and surround channel info. Abracadabra.... Surround Sound.... not simulated.... the real thing.

So what's the catch?

Part of the maths and embedding process leaves a bit of cross pollution between the channels. There's a bit of left and right in the centre and surround channels. It can never be quite as clean as keeping all the channels separate all the way through which is what DD and DTS and the HD audio formats for BD do.

To recap then, DPL/DPL II decoding can have a stab at making a surround effect from plain stereo, but most of the time in AV gear it's possible to create a Dolby Surround encoded signal that's carried as stereo and then decoded back to proper surround sound albeit not quite as precise as DD etc.




Like I said before, consoles aren't my thing, but if DD is an option then go with that.




I'm sitting here smiling because the irony of that statement isn't lost on me.

A little over fifteen years ago when Blu-ray and HD-DVD were still trading blows the AV amp manufacturers were scrabbling to get up to speed on the new 'HD' audio formats. Some brands had models with decoding for both the Dolby and DTS HD audio signals. Some other brands didn't. Those missing the bitstream decoders promoted the idea of LPCM. The argument went 'it's the same quality whether decoded in the player or the amp'. Of course, early adopters really wanted that little illuminated logo that showed 'D True HD' or 'DTS-HD MA.'

Ten years ago - about the time you were buying your TX-NR 515 - Curry's and other retailers were still doing healthy business on Blu-ray home cinema systems. (Sound bars were still in their infancy.) £200-£250 would have got someone a 5.1 BD-based system with Bluetooth and maybe NFC along with a few other bells and whistles. However, anyone who came to forums such as this were recommended to give such systems a swerve and buy an AV receiver + 5.1 speaker package instead. For £250-£300 these didn't decode HD audio, but they did have HDMI inputs and LPCM compatibility. Once again, the message was that LPCM decoding in the player was every bit as good as Bitstream decoding in the amp. Besides, compared to the crappy all-in--one DVD/BD systems with their awful speakers and limit of DD & DTS decoding then even DPL II from a £300 AVR + speaker kit was miles better.

Now I am sitting here reading someone championing LPCM over everything else. It's not surprising. Even after a good couple of decades of surround sound there's still a lot of confusion about sound formats. Some of that comes from writers not properly explaining the context of things.

LPCM isn't a quality of audio in its own right. It's more like a transport pipe for whatever the source player had decoded.

Lets say you play a DVD on a console which is set to output audio as LPCM. The DVD has Dolby Digital audio. That's exactly what LPCM will deliver; decoded-and-lossy DD as a multichannel signal.

Now imagine you play the extras on that disc. They aren't made with DD audio. They have stereo sound with Dolby Surround encoding. That's exactly what LPCM will deliver to the amp; a stereo signal with Dolby Surround matrixed in to it. This time the player doesn't decode it. As far as it's concerned it's just a stereo signal. You'd use the DPL II decoder in your amp to further process the stereo in to surround.

Now imagine you swap to a Blu-ray player also set to LPCM. Let's say a film being played has 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. That's exactly what the player will decode and deliver via LPCM; 8 channels of lossless HD audio.

In each of the above cases the amp receives audio as LPCM, but in each case the quality is different. It's the source signal rather than LPCM itself which determines the audio quality.

Thanks again for such a detailed explanation. Very much appreciated
Id say I have at best known a 'dangerous' amount about surround stuff. Enough to know roughly what I want...but not enough to really know what's best / worth it.
Even with my Z-5500's on PC gone back and forth between using Sound cards that encoded to DD or DTS and using the 3.5mm leads.
Cant say I ever could tell the difference, but remember the debates raging on about which was best. (Using on-board audio with 3.5mm leads now! )

I have a friend with a LG CX or C1, PS5 and a TX-NR535. He says he is getting surround, but isn't sure which way he has the PS5 / TV configured beyond that the PS5 goes to TV, and then audio to AMP via ARC.
I plan to head over to his place at some point and take a look and have a listen.

In the meantime, I think ill go back to the original plan and get a decent sub. Debating between spending less on a used eBay one, a bit more on the BK stuff (also via ebay funny enough!) or getting something brand new from RR with a 6yr warranty...

 

[xPETEZx]

That's pretty much how we all start out. It's only after some time, and lots of reading, and maybe some experimentation, and possibly even after some wasting some money that we finally land on what's the best solution for us. That last part is really important. It's what works for us, for you, for me, for anyone else. It's all individual choice. The trick here is to know enough about the options to make an informed choice rather than just jumping in and then looking back with regret.



In that context - PC Gaming / PC audio - getting the computer to do the decoding makes perfect sense when the alternatives are lossy DD / DTS or 2 channel stereo either with- or without Dolby Surround as decoded by DPL/DPL II. When you have uncompressed multichannel audio then downgrading it via a lossy bitstream format (DD / DTS) or dropping it even further by encoding it as stereo with Dolby Surround just ends up throwing away quality. Whether you can hear the difference through the speakers though is a different question. But in principle uncompressed multichannel audio will sound better if the speakers are capable of showing the difference.



IME, "getting surround" can mean very different things depending on who is saying it. For some, simply having sound out of all the speakers equates to getting surround.

Hypothetically, that might be the case if he's got the PS5 set to give PCM and so is getting stereo PCM at the amp which is then being converted to "all-the-speakers-work" surround sound using the Pro-Logic II decoder to make a surround effect. I'm not saying that how he has it configured, just highlighting this as a worst-case scenario that still results in all the speakers working and therefore someone could claim "I have surround sound". Do you see?

Whether your mate has the CX or the C1 won't change things as far as your plans go. The CX works just the same for audio as the C1 might do if you go ahead with it, so having a look (and a listen) to his system will be good for you.

Whatever you decide to do, you need to bear in mind that passing audio through the TV results in some limitations. The same idea of limitations also applies to picture when passing it through your amp.

For audio via the TV you won't get HD audio or multichannel PCM via ARC for any make or model of TV. It's the same for optical. And since your amp has ARC and optical then your remaining (safe) choices are stereo PCM* and Dolby Digital 5.1 There aren't many TVs that pass full 5.1 DTS via ARC or optical. You can often get stereo DTS supported reasonably well except for LG TVs.

eARC opens up some possibilities for better sound format support, but you need an eARC compatible amp. Since eARC supports multichannel PCM then any issues of supported audio formats via the TV goes away, but only if the amp is eARC compatible too.

Passing picture and sound through the amp brings its own set of problems: 4K resolution support. HDR/Dolby Vision. 120Hz. VRR. Some of these things aren't properly supported in the latest amps with HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 support.

A splitter that allows the TV to get picture and the amp to get sound is an alternative to changing the amplifier for an eARC equipped version that may or may not fully support all the gaming modes. It's not cheap, but could be much cheaper than trying to buy a new AV receiver. Have a look at this: Hdfury Integral 2 | 4K60 4:4:4 600MHz 18Gbps | HDMI2.0b



* with or without Dolby Surround added




You know my thoughts on this. On a limited budget I would do the research on the used alternatives available from private sellers. In the end though your point of comparison is the Tannoy sub.

This is a ported 8" sub that gets down to 45Hz at -6dB. This -6dB figure represents about 1/2 of the volume level as measured rather than heard. So at -6dB the sub volume is already rolling off. In practical terms then the sub probably good for a flat response down to about 60Hz and below that the bass tails off. This puts the Tannoy satellite + sub combo as roughly the equivalent of the bass extension from a small pair of £100 bookshelf speakers such as the Tibo Harmony. The sub's port frequency helps boost the impression of bass quantity. It's worth noting that the paper spec for the frequency response of the Wharfedale sub in the DX-2 kit isn't any better than the Tannoy.

I think the DX2 idea has been thoroughly put to bed. Seems like Id be better off spending the £350 on a new sub. Right now, front runner is the XLS200. Only concern seems to be that it has no obvious "auto-on" ? Dont like the idea of it just being 'on' constantly. (Esp with the way electric bills are going!)


I suspect your dead-on with my friends setup. I plan to give it a listen, and see if its 'good enough' for my ears.
Sounds like short of getting a new TV & AMP, its not going to be possible to get the best picture & sound from the PS5.
Appreciate the link to the HDMI splitter, but at that cost Id rather put the money towards a new AVR that does support the full compliment of PS5 features. I suspect if I wait options in my price range will come along.

On holiday next week, so will re-visit the TV once back. I have a FOMO that the sub-£1k C1 might be gone by then, and the C2 seems a lot more expensive.
Either way, I think waiting is no bad thing. The PS5 does not yet have VRR anyway.

Again, thank you very much for long, detailed posts. Its really appreciated.

 

[xPETEZx]

What about this
https://www.monoprice.uk/products/m...ered-subwoofer-eu?_pos=1&_sid=311570c7c&_ss=r

Think that's getting bit too expensive...
Already had serious budget creep.

Considering my SFX5.1 system cost £150 total, adding a £500+ sub to this system seems a disproportionate allocation of upgrade funds.

I think the £250 for the Gemmii II is a good price. Id be happy to spend that. If its really worth it, I could stretch to the £350 for the XLS200.
But anything past that... I fell like Id be better off taking some of that money and saving it towards a new AVR and speakers.

Thanks for the suggestion though, looks like a beast of a sub.

 

[xPETEZx]

That monoprice will outclass that bk gemeni and xls200 also has auto off
Thx certificate also

Oh I don't doubt that it would be a fantastic sub.
It is however in a price class above. Its basically 2x the cost of the Geminii.

And as mentioned, Im not sure there is a sense in pairing a £500 sub, with a £150 speaker system.

 

[xPETEZx]

I agree that it's an odd decision by BK to omit an auto on/off feature. It's not the end of the world though. Have a look at this:

Energy Saver Powerdown Surge Protection TV Plug Remote Power Down Sensor EON by EON : Amazon.co.uk

There are a few different versions of this type of product. By the look of it, this one power senses from the main socket and uses that to switch a relay on or off for the slave socket. There's also a remote IR trigger sensor. This would learn the power On/Off toggle code for say the Onkyo amp. That would be handy if the sub is over the other side of the room making power sensing impractical. It's basically a remote power socket. The IR code could be any button on any IR remote. It could be the Source power button on your Onkyo remote.

At £7 or so it fixes the 'no-auto-signal-detect' issue for any sub and so opens up your options.

I knew the splitter would be above what you'd be willing to spend, and that's why I said it was the expensive option. However, it does put in to context the cost of trying to cover all the bases with the myriad of HDMI and HDCP standards.




Regarding new amps, an awful lot has changed in the market since you last bought.

• Onkyo and Pioneer (now one company) had pretty-much vanished for the past 12 months. There's a little bit of Pioneer stock in the channel or available to pre-order, but supplies are hit-and-miss and this is an older model which lacks eARC and the more advanced gaming features. It feels very-much like the administrators found some stock in a warehouse and they've cleared it out to pay some bills
• Sony had a pretty good amp in the £499 STR-DN1080 about 18 months ago, but that hasn't been replaced like-for-like. What they now have at £449 is the STR-DH790 which looks like a £250 AVR with Atmos bolted on. Take a look at the back panel; it's spartan, and spring-clip bloody terminals for all but the front stereo speaker channel fer christsake!
• Marantz: apart from the slimline NR-series receivers, Marantz's entry-level product is the SR5015 at £900, and it's vapourware for a lot of the main dealers. The brand has also had some reliability issue of late
• Denon and Yamaha used to have comprehensive ranges including products in the £200-£300 and £300-£400 ranges as well as some package deal starter kits. Almost all of that has gone. Sound bars have swung a wrecking ball through the lower tiers of the amp market. Add in the effect of Brexit, 2-years of Covid, the slow death of the High Street, contraction in the retail sector in general (even John Lewis has been affected with 16 out of its 50 stores now closed in the last 18 months; that's 1/3rd of the stores!) - it's not a happy picture for AV electronics

Denon's entry-level price point is now £499, and that gets you the AVR-S660H. However, it doesn't have support for 4K/120Hz or VRR. Neither does the next model up, the £600 AVR-S760H. To get 4K/120Hz and VRR support requires stepping up to the Denon AVR-X2700H at £649. This all presumes you want to put the console through the amp.

All the Denon models from the 660 up though do support eARC. If you can get confirmation from someone in this or another forum that their PS5 set to LPCM 7.1 mode connected through an LG C1 which in turn is connected to an eARC-equipped amp (phew! that's a long sentence) does get 5.1/7.1 LPCM in to the amp then job done.

Personally I wouldn't hold my breath on any fully-featured AVRs popping up at prices comparable to your TX-NR515 which was around the £250 mark at launch. IMO that ship has sailed. I think we'll be lucky to see anything worthwhile much below £400, and with the way the sound bar market is going I can see prices on AVRs creeping up rather than falling as the market shrinks.

Roll the dice.

Funny enough, I actually have one of those power-strips with a 'master' sense socket that then turns on/off the rest of them.
I totally forgot about it, as I purchased it for use with my PC. However it never worked with the PSU I had at the time... always stayed on. Despite draw being >2W.
Ill dig it out, see if it works with my 515. Then the XLS200 can power on/off with that!
Thanks for the link to the little eon cube though! Thats a great solution. And for such a small few too.


You know I did think it odd, when browsing the retailer where I found the C1 how spartan the AVR section was. I presumed it was just this retailer and didnt look any further.
A friend has that STR-DN1080, and I was hoping to find a replacement... that DH790 backside is indeed a joke!

I am sad to see that the bottom end of the AVR space has collapsed.
I could stretch to a £650 amp when the time comes. But it does make some of these Atmos soundbars seem attractive...

I did not know Pioneer / Onkyo are now one company! Pretty much all my AVRs have been Onkyo. They always seemed to pack more features in at a price point than other brands.
Parents had a Pioneer AVR for a time, but that was pretty basic.

 

[xPETEZx]

Been wracking my brains with what to do... the more I think and look at reviews, the more confused I become.

I missed out on the C1 at £940, so going to put the TV buy on hold.

Need to sort speakers / sub.


I have narrowed my decision down to either:

Wharfedale Diamond 9.1 HCP Black 5.1 for £450 (inc. 5 year warranty)

OR

Q Acoustics 3000 5.1 for £415 (inc 6yr warranty)


I would not plan to change anything about these systems, just run them with my TX-NR515 as long as I can, till a new AVR with HDMI2.1 et al comes into my price range.


I feel like getting an entire speaker package, in which the speakers and sub are somewhat 'paired' is the best use of my money.
Buying something like the XLS200 or even Gemini II, will lead to a leap-frogging where the sub far out-classes my current speakers. Then ill be into the deep water of finding speakers to match.
Sadly I don't think I have the time / energy or money to spend getting that right.

 

[xPETEZx]

With your onkyo I'd probably go for the wharfedale, as onkyo apparently are a bit harsher/forward sounding?

Sw-150 sub isn't bad for £150 but it won't shake the room. Bk are better build. There's xls400 monolith+ but at that of money I'd be looking at monoprice I'd movies are your thing. I've got a couple of monoprice subs.

On the one hand, if your aim is to (a) get a working sub and (b) improve a bit over the Tannoy SFX then either package above will do that. Like @hornetstinger though, I have reservations about the Q Acoustics sub.

IMO the intent of it is obvious. The QA designers were given a challenge of coming up with something 'wife friendly', or at least a more acceptable choice than a big cube. So they made something that could be hidden behind the sofa. In the process they had to make a lot of compromises. Sound quality and performance were secondary considerations to aesthetics. They made it tall and slim so it could be hidden away. There was only space for a 6.5" driver on the side face, so they put two in hoping that purchasers would be fooled by the argument that the combined surface area of twin drivers would somehow magically equal one bigger unit. It doesn't. My bet is that no one buys this as a standalone sub for its performance. Although a bit more money, I think that of the two packages that the Wharfedale is the better option.

That's not the end of the story though.

Package deals have an appeal on a few levels. The principle benefit is for the manufacturer - they sell more product and so keep out competitor brands from dealers. For the dealer it's an easier sell because customers hate making decisions. From the consumers point of view, a package should represent better value than buying individually, so lets have a look at that.

I've used AV.com and Richers for pricing and compared individual item costs versus the package prices to see how much is saved. With the Q Acoustics the saving is just £17. On the Wharfedale it's even less. It's just £7.

The other consumer argument to justify packages is what you said "It's all designed to work together." That's true of the centre and front pair. Getting those to match for tone is really very important. It's less important for the surrounds, and it has absolutely no relevance when it comes to subs. If it did, then all the companies that started out making standalone sub ranges wouldn't have survived their first year or so of trading. No one would have bought their products. Companies such as REL, MJ Acoustics, BK, SVS, Cerwin Vega, HSU Research, Sunfire and Velodyne would have all gone bust.

You might not be familiar with all those brand names, but the fact that they're some of the best-in-class product brands says to me (and should say to you) that subs don't need to be from the same manufacturer as your main speakers. In fact, I'd go further than that and say quite categorically that there's a very strong case for avoiding package subwoofers because there's almost always a third party product that does bass better.

So where's this heading?...

Given that either package isn't saving you much compared to buying the speakers individually; and knowing that matching the sub to the main speakers for tone isn't important in any way; and that better subs dig deeper and hit harder; and that you're likely to keep a third party sub after upgrading the main speakers two or three times so you don't lose money.... then other than "they're cheap" is there any real justification for buying either the Wharfedale or Q Acoustics sub?

Let's look at how you'd set up a package sub:
Park it in position. Wire it up. Run the amps auto set-up wizard.

Now let's look at how you'd set up a 3rd party sub:
Park it in position. Wire it up. Run the amps auto set-up wizard.

So it's the same. There's no difference.


Oh, my apologies, there is a justification; the warranty. Okay, so let's look at the warranty.

You get a 5-year or a 6-year warranty thrown in by the retailer depending on who you buy from.
You had your Tannoy speakers for, what, ten years before the sub went bump? How would a 5 or 6-year warranty helped you with that?

Warranties are good on products that are known to be unreliable and likely to fail within a few years. Ordinary loudspeakers don't fail unless they're abused which wouldn't be covered under a warranty anyway. Sub failures aren't unknown, but usually it's well past any warranty period. Dealers throwing in a free warranty are canny. They've done the maths. They'll know the risks and so offer the warranty on the basis that it will generate far more in sales and profits than it costs them in claims. They're betting on a sure thing with speakers and subs. The exception is TVs. But any company offering TV warranties that aren't insurance underwritten will have such a strong relationship with the TV manufacturer that they get favourable terms anyway. I know this because I used to supply AV product to several of the big name AV retail companies for a well known manufacturer.

The bottom line here is that the retailer's warranty costs them very little, and it gives you a warm and cuddly feeling, but the chances of you actually needing it are slim to none. It's a marketing tool.

Thanks both!

As always, really appreciate detailed response.

To put this bed. ORdering the XLS200 right now.

I actually measured up, and the Q Acoustics sub wont fit where I would need it. Its too tall.
Likewise... the speakers on both are a little too big.
I am hoping to totally re-arrange the living room in a few months (with Landlords help, need an old fireplace removing!)

So for now, ill get this sub in. Then if/when living room is re-arranged, get suitable speakers.

 

[xPETEZx]

The XLS200 arrived! Beautifully built. The finnish is lovely.

I am not 100% sure how to set all the dials on the back, so for now have set it:

Low Level Gain to "Half", so notch at the top.
Filter to "Out/LFE"
Frequency to Max 120Hz
Phase to 0

I will then run the Amps setup using the Mic again. That should suffice as far as settings go on the Amp right?

 

[xPETEZx]

Yeah, you're right with the settings there.

FYI, the Low Level Gain is a bit like the volume on a set of PC speakers, and the receiver's output is like the PC volume. Between the two of them you'll come to a happy medium. If you find that when you do the receiver speaker wizard that the sub is being tweaked up or down more than 3 or 4 dB then you can adjust the sub's LFE Gain to compensate and then run the settings wizard again.

The Filter Out/LFE setting overrides the Frequency control. There's some discussion that BK subs sound marginally better with Out/LFE set to off so that the frequency control is operating, and then you set the frequency to 120Hz before running the wizard. I wouldn't obsess about this though.

Phase set to 0 is correct. The receiver will take care of tweaking the phase of the source signal correct for speaker/sub timing which is what phase does.

What you're doing with the low frequency controls (Gain, Filter, Frequency, Phase) when using them with an AV Receiver that uses a wizard is getting the sub controls 'out of the way'. You're letting the amp do all the settings.

The other dials are for blending the sub directly with speakers where the feed is via that round connector, the Neutrik plug. This is a high level (speaker level) connection via a cable that connects directly to the front left and right speaker terminals on the amp. You see, the sub has two sets of crossover controls and then blends both internally. In this way the front L&R act like large speakers, but you still get the benefit of all the LFE-home-cinema-T-rex-stomping-about stuff. It's probably more than you're ready for right now so I wouldn't worry about it.

As always, Thanks for a great response. Will run the setup wizard again later.

Cant wait to play some games and watch a movie with the sub in play!

 

[xPETEZx]

I'd recommend dual subs for smoother response and output.

Maybe for future Will see how I get one with just one.

Also subwoofer EQ either antimode or minidsp

Where would I find this setting?