Post Your Home Cine & HiFi Kit...

I've just ordered a Sonos Playbase and Sub for the living room. I'll use my two spare Play 1's as surrounds. My TV passes 5.1 via optical so I won't lose out on 5.1. It means however that my two amps and gigantic Monitor Audio Gold 5.1 setup is going. I'll be sad to see them go, however they take up a lot of space, having 267 remotes is a pain in the arse and unfortunately my amps are not cut out to drive £7k speakers. While I may notice a diference, I don't think it's going to be massive as I simply don't use the setup anywhere near its potential. I've read a lot of people doing the same to downsize and have no regrets.

Setup would go from the following:
Sky Q
Nvidia shield
Amazon fire TV
PS4
Sonos Connect
5.1 amp
Hifi amp
OLED TV

To the following:
Sky Q
PS4
Apple TV
OLED TV
Sonos 5.1

Fewer remotes, fewer inputs to worry about and probably space for an XBOne. Oh, around £3.5k+ in my bank account. Oh, fewer cables too!
 
ChrisD. said:
I've just ordered a Sonos Playbase and Sub for the living room. I'll use my two spare Play 1's as surrounds. My TV passes 5.1 via optical so I won't lose out on 5.1. It means however that my two amps and gigantic Monitor Audio Gold 5.1 setup is going. I'll be sad to see them go, however they take up a lot of space, having 267 remotes is a pain in the arse and unfortunately my amps are not cut out to drive £7k speakers. While I may notice a diference, I don't think it's going to be massive as I simply don't use the setup anywhere near its potential. I've read a lot of people doing the same to downsize and have no regrets.

Setup would go from the following:
Sky Q
Nvidia shield
Amazon fire TV
PS4
Sonos Connect
5.1 amp
Hifi amp
OLED TV

To the following:
Sky Q
PS4
Apple TV
OLED TV
Sonos 5.1

Fewer remotes, fewer inputs to worry about and probably space for an XBOne. Oh, around £3.5k+ in my bank account. Oh, fewer cables too!
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I thought about going down the Sonos route but where I'm living at the moment is a Victorian flat conversion in the middle floor, the speakers I have are probably overkill here as I imagine the neighbours can hear them as clear as day. Full sub and surround would never get any use :-(

Maybe one day when I'm no longer in London
 
What I posted in the Sonos thread:

I wish I’d have tested this sooner, ie, before arranging someone to view and potentially buy my amps and MA gear. I took my Sonos Playbar from the bedroom, two spare Play 1’s I have and connected it all up to my TV in the living room.

First of all I grouped the Sonos Connect (connected to my HiFi amp and G300 speakers) with the PlayBar and Play 1’s. I then played a few songs and I really don’t know why, but I was shocked at how poor the Playbar sounded in comparison. True play did improve things, but there was still no match for the stereo setup of some very expensive speakers combined with an amp which cost nearly twice as much as the PlayBar itself.

Then I pulled the Fire TV HDMI cable from the amp and plugged it into the TV and experimented with Plex, Amazon TV, Netflix etc. I usually play my Plex stuff off my Shield as it supports DTS HD pass through. I used a tip earlier in this thread for detecting 5.1 and although I got it to work on some stuff, it proved problematic on others. That said, even my Mrs said things sounded ‘odd’ when playing through Sonos. I tried a few different settings but ultimately was never happy with it so I’ve decided that I’m going to keep my AV gear.

No doubt if I had a smaller living room it may have been better and granted, I don’t have a Sub to test with, but I didn’t expect such a drastic difference in sound quality and it’s made me appreciate what it is that I have. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised, I’m comparing a £1300 setup to one costing much, much more.
 
ChrisD. said:
I’m not sure why I’m so surprised, I’m comparing a £1300 setup to one costing much, much more.
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So glad you put that at the end.. I was thinking.. well.. yeah? :)

I still daydream about getting another 5.1 setup and my old one was not expensive at all but I still think it was more immersive than my soundbar.

Issue is the soundbar IMO is almost as good with far fewer wires etc.. that an my GF is literally deaf, hearing aids and everything so there's a limit to what it's sensible to invest in without it being rather selfish.
 
Sonos do a 100 day return policy if you buy from them. I think I'll try the PlayBase out anyway and see how it compares. I'd suggest if anyone is thinking about it to try it out themselves and return if needed.,
 
matt100 said:
In fairness it's a bit of a OMG my fiesta is slower than my ferrari moment :D
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Oh I know, I guess I didn't appreciate what it is that I currently have. I would have expected it to sound quite similar at lower normal music/TV listening volumes, however it was at the lower volumes where there difference was more pronounced.
 
Treated myself to some kit last year, not much has changed but I finally got rid of my NAD C320BEE for having an annoying fault. Replaced that with the Denon AVR below and a friend sold me his Kef speakers, so I get to enjoy 5.1 now :D

As it stands:

Denon AVR X2300W
Kef Coda Floor standers (rear placement)
Heybrook HB150 (front bookshelves) (they still live, after 13 years!!)
Mordaunt Short MS308W Subwoofer
Kef 80C Centre speaker
Sony BDP-S370 Blu Ray
LG 42LD690 (still working after 9 years yay!)
 
New ampa Denon x2400h to replace x2000 which didn't seem to like ARC, but may be my tv. Highly recommended peter Tyson customer services. Saturday delivery and door to door swap.

All i need now is a subwoofer to go with tannoy eclipse 5.1.5

I put it on imgur and someone immediately commented on ventilation even tho therest grills underneath and the back behind the amp is off :p

(the purple throw was to stop me scratching floor)

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ChrisD. said:
Stuff
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You're surprised that an overpriced lifestyle product is nowhere near as good-sounding as a high end home cinema setup with proper speakers? Honestly :p

Time to put it all back, sell the Apple TV and Fire TV, use the Shield, and buy a Harmony Elite :)

I couldn't ever bear to part with my AV system, even if I lived in a flat. You don't have to have it loud to appreciate how much better it is than any one-box solution.


Edit:
Since this is a 'show us your clobber' thread, I think there have been a few minor changes since I last posted here - namely a new carpet and a couple of new bits of kit. Oh and I did some OCD cable management and added some lights to my cabinet for a bit of added chavviness.

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Equipment list:

  • Kef Reference 3.2 mains

  • Kef R200C centre

  • Kef Q100 rears

  • BK Monolith sub

  • Audiolab 8200DQ preamp

  • Meridian 557 power amp

  • Yamaha RX-A2070 receiver

  • Squeezebox Touch

  • Panasonic 50" LED LCD

  • Nvidia Shield TV

  • Panasonic Blu-ray player

  • Xbox One

  • BT YouView box

  • Chromecast Audio

  • Logitech Harmony Elite
 
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@Howard, I would sell the Fire TV, but Netflix and Prime Video are pants when using the Shield. :(

I also put the speaker covers on, they're far less in your face now, I'll get some pics up soon.
 
ChrisD. said:
@Howard, I would sell the Fire TV, but Netflix and Prime Video are pants when using the Shield. :(

.
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Really? How so? I regularly use both services on my Shield and I would consider the experience absolutely perfect. Crystal clear high-bitrate video and proper Dolby Digital Plus audio (which is more than I can say for the Apple TV and its annoyingly unnecessary transcoding of all audio formats). And it passes through every audio codec under the sun via Plex, as well. It's the best media streamer I've ever used. I'm curious as to what problems you've had :)

I look forward to new pics of your setup!
 
Howard said:
Really? How so? I regularly use both services on my Shield and I would consider the experience absolutely perfect. Crystal clear high-bitrate video and proper Dolby Digital Plus audio (which is more than I can say for the Apple TV and its annoyingly unnecessary transcoding of all audio formats). And it passes through every audio codec under the sun via Plex, as well. It's the best media streamer I've ever used. I'm curious as to what problems you've had :)

I look forward to new pics of your setup!
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To be fair, I don't think I tried Netflix. I seem to recall Prime Video playing in an odd zoomed in aspect ratio and not being anywhere near as stable as it is on the Fire TV. That said, I also had a lot of issues with Plex and I did a factory reset on the Shield and since then Plex has been absolutely fine, even with 30GB+ BD rips. I'll give Prime Video and Netflix another go.
 
Top Loaders FTW!!!!

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I don't think I have posted my ML setup before. For many years this was my cornerstone for headphone amp listening. It has seen many amazing headphone setups come and go like sennheiser opheus, stax omega 2, sony r-10, sony Qualias and Grado headphones like Hp1/2. Ps-1 and so many rare headphones.

So I decided to sell it and before I set it up for the potential buyer to audition it I took a few pics as I spent a lot of time with this setup before I switched to Burmester. Sad to see it go but needed the space as I am about to start auditioning amps for my speaker.
 
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