Surroundsound - recommendations for what I should be looking at

mojojoejo

mojojoejo

mojojoejo

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Hey chaps,

Basiccally, I need to get some form of surround sound going on in our front room, and basically due to a very well received tax rebate I'm thinking that's an excellent idea!

Now I'm no audiophile, I just want something that doesn't sound crap (rather than something that sounds amazing) for a small living room scenario. The tricky bit is that we have a lot of kit which is currently running through the TV (HTPC, 360, Wii, V+ Box, PS2 - and occasionally the SNES) and I'm not sure the best way to approach this.

The TV in question seems to have an HDMI audio out, so one thing would be leave everything hooked up to the TV as is, and then just HDMI the TV into the amp/surround sound thingy. Well, I think.

Some advice on where to start looking a this would be appreciated, budget is around the £200 mark optimistically - but flexible within reason.

Having tried to do some online research I've got myself a bit bewildered and figured I would seek advice on here, incase there is a better way I could look at doing it, or if there is anything that fits the bill for what I've outlined.

Any help you could provide would be gratefully received :)
 
TVs don't always output proper digital sound (often only stereo) so you may have to connect your bits separately to the amp. I think most people will recommend the Yamaha AV 63 package - yours for £200.
 
Cool, thank you!

What would the best way to hook everything up to get surround sound on all the gubbins? Are there alternatives with more inputs that would be worth looking at?
 
Everything goes via the amp, out to the TV (see below)

Source 1, 2, 3 ...
¦
HDMI
¦
Inputs of AV receiver
Output of AV receiver
¦
HDMI
¦
Input of TV
 
Hmm ok.

Well currently the HTPC, V+ and Xbox 360 all use HDMI, the wii only does Component in, the PS2/snes can go in via the usual RGB, and they're not always used so they can be left out of the equation for now.

How do HDMI splitter boxes affect things?
 
The Xbox can output via optical straight to the amp if necessary.
The HTPC can probably output either optical or coax depending on the motherboard (or separate sound card if that's what you're using).
No idea what outputs the V+ box has but probably optical.
Not sure about the Wii but I think that's just stereo...?
PS2 is usually just stereo (part from a few select games iirc).

Otherwise, an HDMI splitter (which I'd assume splits the video and audio correctly).

Sounds like you'd probably be able to get it all plugged into the Yamaha, hopefully without the need for a splitter.

Bear in mind that only 5.1 sources need HDMI/optical/coax to benefit from surround sound. So, the Xbox and the HTPC will be the only ones there that will need this sort of connection for the audio.

Hope that helps.
 
So you need an amp with 3 HDMI inputs a component input and 2 RGB inputs.

Plenty available that fit the bill. Cheapest probably the Sony 820.
Doesn't have s-video in, just composite so the PS2 may look slightly worse than with an RGB.

You'd obviously need to get the speakers separately.
 
Cheers for all the input guys, I appreciate it, with the computer I've been using an HDMI cable so the audio and video both go through that way, for that I could just have that go to the TV, and then audio to the AMP separately - correct?

now all I need to do is wait for the money ;)
 
Hmm, doing some looking it seems like that particular model has been discontinued :(

Can anyone make any other recommendations for me?

<3
 
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