Having received and set up my Panasonic P42V20B I realise that it's crying out for one thing - a decent sound system to go with it. I've already 'upgraded' it with a pair of Creative Gigaworks T20 2.1 speakers, but I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to kill a few birds with one stone.
At the moment, the house needs three things; a speaker system for the TV, an iPod dock and a speaker system for my decks. So I got looking for one device that can do all of that and came up with three options:
The original Zeppelin seems like a great choice as it's relatively affordable, sounds fantastic, looks fantastic and would sit nicely mounted on the wall underneath the TV. And at less than £300 it's a good price for something that sounds pretty impressive.
But most reviews have said that the Zeppelin is blown away by the Arcarm rCube - which isn't particularly affordable, coming in at £500. And while it sounds fantastic (it certainly has the edge on the original Zeppelin) it also has a load of features I don't need; namely being portable and usable without a mains connection. On the upside, it does do wireless streaming with the dongle which might come in handy, although docking the iPod isn't the end of the world.
And lastly we have the improved Zeppelin; the Zeppelin Air. By all accounts it's up there with the SQ of the rCube (if not better) and improves upon the analogue connection of the original Zeppelin with a DAC to process the data from the iPod. But it's £500 and all the AirPlay stuff doesn't really matter to me, at least not at the moment.
Music-wise I generally listen to various form of dance/electronica and have a vinyl collection that numbers in the thousands (hence liking the idea of being able to connect the decks to this device) so whatever device I pick, it needs to be able to handle the sort of genres I listen to. But then again, my Spotify is full of all sorts of random stuff, so versatility is somewhat important.
One thing I do need, although I assume at these prices it's a given, is a remote control - I'm already getting bored with having to get up to tweak the volume of the T20's! And while I like to listen to my music at a decent volume, I'm not into shaking the windows out; so it needs to fill a room with quality sound, but also provide clarity at lower volumes. Not much to ask, eh?!
Right then, over to you knowledgeable types - any recommendations or opinions on where my money should be going?!
At the moment, the house needs three things; a speaker system for the TV, an iPod dock and a speaker system for my decks. So I got looking for one device that can do all of that and came up with three options:
The original Zeppelin seems like a great choice as it's relatively affordable, sounds fantastic, looks fantastic and would sit nicely mounted on the wall underneath the TV. And at less than £300 it's a good price for something that sounds pretty impressive.
But most reviews have said that the Zeppelin is blown away by the Arcarm rCube - which isn't particularly affordable, coming in at £500. And while it sounds fantastic (it certainly has the edge on the original Zeppelin) it also has a load of features I don't need; namely being portable and usable without a mains connection. On the upside, it does do wireless streaming with the dongle which might come in handy, although docking the iPod isn't the end of the world.
And lastly we have the improved Zeppelin; the Zeppelin Air. By all accounts it's up there with the SQ of the rCube (if not better) and improves upon the analogue connection of the original Zeppelin with a DAC to process the data from the iPod. But it's £500 and all the AirPlay stuff doesn't really matter to me, at least not at the moment.
Music-wise I generally listen to various form of dance/electronica and have a vinyl collection that numbers in the thousands (hence liking the idea of being able to connect the decks to this device) so whatever device I pick, it needs to be able to handle the sort of genres I listen to. But then again, my Spotify is full of all sorts of random stuff, so versatility is somewhat important.
One thing I do need, although I assume at these prices it's a given, is a remote control - I'm already getting bored with having to get up to tweak the volume of the T20's! And while I like to listen to my music at a decent volume, I'm not into shaking the windows out; so it needs to fill a room with quality sound, but also provide clarity at lower volumes. Not much to ask, eh?!
Right then, over to you knowledgeable types - any recommendations or opinions on where my money should be going?!
