Spec me an audio set up

jamesy505

jamesy505

jamesy505

Associate
Joined
19 Mar 2011
Posts
2,339
Location
Glasgow
I've just purchased a LG OLED G3 77 inch TV and looking to get a decent sound set up. I'm pretty much a newbie on audio, so not entirely sure what the best setup would be.

The room my TV will be in is L shaped, but for the purposes of the positioning of the TV, the main part is 410cm depth and 340cm wide.

I'm looking for some help as to what audio equipment I should look to buy, which will complement my new TV.

My budget is around £750

Any recommendations would be appreciated
 
You'll need a avr and at least stereo speakers and a subwoofer.


That's not a high budget so I'd probably go for stereo with avr, and leave center, sub and surrounds until you save up the remaining. All depends if you want a final good system so prepared to buy in stages of if a cheaper 5.1 is ok enough. IE if you expect bass. That shakes your house in £700 avr/7.1.4 system that's not gonna happen .

Also do you want 5.1 7.1 7.1.4 , down the line , one or two subs etc?

Avrs are pretty expensive now they've doubled price.

If you buy standmounts you'll need speaker stands as well.

For avrs there's Yamaha and Denon.
Speakers got a big choice but in price range q acoustics, wharfedale, Dali, b&w, kef, XTZ

Best if you go to AV store and ask to listen to few speaker brands to get idea of house sound.

Blind buying second hand speakers is one option but risk you'll buy a brand you don't like the sound of.

You could buy wharfedale 9.1 second hand they're cheap enough to try out, use for a bit, if you don't like them reuse them in another system.

Also depends if you want to change and upgrade speakers ie a hobby or just want to plonk a system down and never change bits and upgrade etc. door example I've owned a few speaker brands over the years. This is affordable with budget speakers, as £150 speakers isn't a big outlay , but becomes more difficult as you go higher .
 
hornetstinger said:
You'll need a avr and at least stereo speakers and a subwoofer.


That's not a high budget so I'd probably go for stereo with avr, and leave center, sub and surrounds until you save up the remaining. All depends if you want a final good system so prepared to buy in stages of if a cheaper 5.1 is ok enough. IE if you expect bass. That shakes your house in £700 avr/7.1.4 system that's not gonna happen .

Also do you want 5.1 7.1 7.1.4 , down the line , one or two subs etc?

Avrs are pretty expensive now they've doubled price.

If you buy standmounts you'll need speaker stands as well.

For avrs there's Yamaha and Denon.
Speakers got a big choice but in price range q acoustics, wharfedale, Dali, b&w, kef, XTZ

Best if you go to AV store and ask to listen to few speaker brands to get idea of house sound.

Blind buying second hand speakers is one option but risk you'll buy a brand you don't like the sound of.

You could buy wharfedale 9.1 second hand they're cheap enough to try out, use for a bit, if you don't like them reuse them in another system.

Also depends if you want to change and upgrade speakers ie a hobby or just want to plonk a system down and never change bits and upgrade etc. door example I've owned a few speaker brands over the years. This is affordable with budget speakers, as £150 speakers isn't a big outlay , but becomes more difficult as you go higher .
Click to expand...
Thanks, that is a lot have a look at
 
hornetstinger said:
Also are you gaming? 4k 120hz etc? Need vrr. If yes you'll need a avr that supports hdmi 2.1

If not then you can buy a older hdmi 2.0 avr so save money, or even just second hand and that'll do.
Click to expand...
Yes, I'll be gaming 4k 120.

I can probably up my budget to £1k if that made a difference.

I was thinking of a 5.1 setup, due to size of the room and cost of anything more.
 
You should be able to squeeze a couple of pairs of Diamond 9.1 with the 9.CS centre speaker into £1000 easily enough with a decent AVR.

It all depends on your expectations and whether or not you want to expand to an ATMOS setup or 7.1 in the future, I find the Diamond 9.1's to be fantastic speakers for the price personally.
 
Last edited:
Gray2233 said:
You should be able to squeeze a couple of pairs of Diamond 9.1 with the 9.CS centre speaker into £1000 easily enough with a decent AVR.

It all depends on your expectations and whether or not you want to expand to an ATMOS setup or 7.1 in the future, I find the Diamond 9.1's to be fantastic speakers for the price personally.
Click to expand...

Or how many channels Atmos in the AVR IE 7.1.4 means 2800 won't be enough need an additional power amplifier . Some models can repurpose surrounds to heights so check on that (5.1.2)
 
jamesy505 said:
Thanks for the replies. In some ways I'm glad I asked, in other way I'm overwhelmed by the choices
Click to expand...

www.av.com

Yamaha 5.1 Home Cinema System Builder at AV.com

Yamaha 5.1 Home Cinema System Builder at AV.com
www.av.com www.av.com

This is decent and should come with everything you need.

I believe it does 4k/120hz passthrough, but double check.

I'd take Hornet's advice though and see if you can demo the Diamond 9.1's somewhere before buying, they're a pretty popular entry level speaker so it shouldn't be difficult if you've a Richer Sounds or something nearby.
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
hornetstinger said:
Also are you gaming? 4k 120hz etc? Need vrr. If yes you'll need a avr that supports hdmi 2.1

If not then you can buy a older hdmi 2.0 avr so save money, or even just second hand and that'll do.
Click to expand...

Not 100% necessary. You can feed the tv 120x4k and eArc / Arc the sound out to avr/soundbar.

Did you get offered a soundbar deal with you telly purchase? There seem to be some deals out there for the matching gx sound bar?

It depends how far down this rabbit hole you want to go?
 
Last edited:
stuman said:
Not 100% necessary. You can feed the tv 120x4k and eArc / Arc the sound out to avr/soundbar.

Did you get offered a soundbar deal with you telly purchase? There seem to be some deals out there for the matching gx sound bar?

It depends how far down this rabbit hole you want to go?
Click to expand...
Didn't get offered a deal, but was browsing the LG website when buying the TV and seen it was being sold with the LG G1 soundbar.

There were also S80QR soundbar and speakers listed
 
jamesy505 said:
Thanks for the replies. In some ways I'm glad I asked, in other way I'm overwhelmed by the choices
Click to expand...

If you want a straightforward purchase then just opt for an LG soundbar as I'm sure that will give you decent sound. It might not be quite as good as a more complex option, but it's a lot easier to begin with, and you can always upgrade later. However, I think it will probably be more than adequate. See:

www.lg.com

Soundbars for TV | Bluetooth & Wireless | LG UK

Elevate your audio experience with LG's Soundbars. Enjoy immersive sound quality with our wireless soundbars built with subwoofers for amazing audio. Shop now.
www.lg.com www.lg.com
 
Last edited:
radderfire said:
If you want a straightforward purchase then just opt for an LG soundbar as I'm sure that will give you decent sound. It might not be quite as good as a more complex option, but it's a lot easier to begin with, and you can always upgrade later. However, I think it will probably be more than adequate. See:

www.lg.com

Soundbars for TV | Bluetooth & Wireless | LG UK

Elevate your audio experience with LG's Soundbars. Enjoy immersive sound quality with our wireless soundbars built with subwoofers for amazing audio. Shop now.
www.lg.com www.lg.com
Click to expand...

Not quite as good? lol

Also "upgrade later" means selling it off. With a AVR you can add, upgrade as needed, keeping parts you like, and re-using them. Ie, buy wharfedale Diamond 9.0 for L/R and later once you buy better mains then re-use 9.0 as atmos heights, or use them in a little hifi in a bedroom. When you upgrade again later, then re-jig it again.
 
I think the first steps are:

1: Do you want soundbar, 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 or advanced Atmos stuff.
2: Can you have speakers of any size or are you limited in space and wife/girlfriend appreciation factor? ;) i.e. Something too imposing vs stealth/flush mount.
3: Do you have a detached house or can it be loud loud if you want

Budget you have said £1000 and you need VRR 120hz/HDMI 2.1. So the first thing if you are going for surround beyond a soundbar, would generally be to get a decent AVR. As said, these have gone up loads in price and down in options. You could go second hand to save here.

For "proper" surround it arguably has to start with 5.1 at minimum for me. That's just my opinion though. L shaped rooms can be hard. I used to have one. The issue was mounting the rear surround on the side of the room that has the open space behind it. So you could go with rear surrounds on a bracket angled in off the rear wall, or just dipole ones that disperse nicely mounted flush to the rear wall to fill the space.
Subwoofer I wouldn't stress over too much, other than to say you need one for decent surround. It can generally go where is practical in the room and still perform fine in most cases.
 
jaybee said:
I think the first steps are:

1: Do you want soundbar, 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 or advanced Atmos stuff.
2: Can you have speakers of any size or are you limited in space and wife/girlfriend appreciation factor? ;) i.e. Something too imposing vs stealth/flush mount.
3: Do you have a detached house or can it be loud loud if you want

Budget you have said £1000 and you need VRR 120hz/HDMI 2.1. So the first thing if you are going for surround beyond a soundbar, would generally be to get a decent AVR. As said, these have gone up loads in price and down in options. You could go second hand to save here.

For "proper" surround it arguably has to start with 5.1 at minimum for me. That's just my opinion though. L shaped rooms can be hard. I used to have one. The issue was mounting the rear surround on the side of the room that has the open space behind it. So you could go with rear surrounds on a bracket angled in off the rear wall, or just dipole ones that disperse nicely mounted flush to the rear wall to fill the space.
Subwoofer I wouldn't stress over too much, other than to say you need one for decent surround. It can generally go where is practical in the room and still perform fine in most cases.
Click to expand...

Another option could be 4.1, phantom center can work well. Rather having a little center to squeeze in, use big mains etc.

Would suggest watching youtube videos, get a few home cinema mags, get idea of brands, speaker styles, sizes etc. and have a demo.

or risk buying blind.
 
Might be worth pointing out realistic expectations as well... if you have only ever come from TV internal speakers, pretty much anything you buy is going to sound very good in comparison, perhaps even a sound bar set to it's "surround" mode. This can in some ways be a blessing...on the wallet. :)
 
True Q Acoustics QTV2 was massive upgrade in SQ over stock speakers, and bass was pretty good in low mode (too boomy in medium/high) Not street destroying levels of bass but good enough for casual TV & movie watching. Bit lacking in midrange with the small drivers though. Easy to use, no inputs to change over - sound is always whatever the TV sends out.
 
hornetstinger said:
Not quite as good? lol

Also "upgrade later" means selling it off. With a AVR you can add, upgrade as needed, keeping parts you like, and re-using them. Ie, buy wharfedale Diamond 9.0 for L/R and later once you buy better mains then re-use 9.0 as atmos heights, or use them in a little hifi in a bedroom. When you upgrade again later, then re-jig it again.
Click to expand...
You don't seem to get that for the vast majority of people a high end soundbar system is vastly preferred, they are mostly plug and play without tons of settings to mess with, you usually get rears without having to trail cables around the room, they give massively better sound than the built in TV and with the likes of eARC don't need upgrading that often.

With his budget and the fact he seems quite new to audio I'd be looking at a high end soundbar and I'm sure he'd be happy. An AVR is going to eat most of his current budget leaving him with low end speakers.

Just looking at Very he could get a Sonos Beam, Sonos Sub Mini and 2 Sonos One SL for £889 assuming he's not used the new customer 20% off code before.

Which would get him a very good set up, with no trialing wires as long as he's got power sockets close to the speakers and is extremely easy to set up and gets monthly software updates and is less intrusive than a separates system and he won't have to find room for a huge AVR.

I'm sure if you have the room and the budget then a separates system makes more sense, but for the vast majority a high end soundbar is more than enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom