Went to a hifi shop, came back with the following spec - your thoughts?

[Beansprout]

Edit: I haven't bought anything yet - the following is just a quote!

Not sure if we're allowed to mention hifi shops on here, I can't keep up with what OcUK sell. But it was 'that big cheap one' who sell a lot of Cambridge Audio stuff!

Essentially I'm after a surround sound system for movies & xbox 360, and have a medium-sized room - about 6x6m at a guess. I like a good amount of bass, but clarity is also important. Don't particularly like an overly bright/harsh sound - I prefer a warm sound.

The system won't really be used for music but when it is, I listen to rock and jazz/blues, so I expect that means attention to detail and good tight bass is preferable?

I didn't have time to listen to any demos today, but this is what their chap put together when I suggested a budget and also that I liked Mordaunt Short's stuff:

Toshiba HDE1 (£200)
Onkyo TXSR605 (£399)
Mordaunt Short 906i (£299), 905i (£120) , 902i (£150) and 309 (£230) speakers (in 5.1)
£160 worth of cabling (no way I'm spending £50 per HDMI cable...I'll cut that down)
Discount - £200
Total cost - £1360

A friend has some Mordaunt Short speakers and they're very nice indeed, but I'm wondering what else is available in the ~£1000 - £1500 range, as I'm aware that this hifi shop only stock a few brands our of the huge selection on the market.

And also wondering if indeed if there's any point spending this much over, say, £800 (eg. a cheaper amp and the KEF KHT 2005s?) - sadly they don't sell these - the best satellite package I could find were some other Mordaunt Short ones.

A couple of other questions come to mind:

> The Onkyo amp is supposed to be quite bright - any suggestions for a slightly warmer-sounding amp for a demo?
> Which other speakers are worth looking at? I've looked at B&W in the past and been impressed by their sound.

In summary...it looks like a good system to me but I'm very new to all this, and also naturally wary of jumping in, and don't pay much attention to any of the What Hifi reviews etc - I'm very cynical

Thanks in advance for any tips or thoughts anyone can provide

 

[Beansprout]

Cables were as follows:

2xQED HDMI - £50 each
Subwoofer cable - 7.5m - £30
30m [something unreadable] general speaker wire - £30

Mental - I reckon I can cut down on the HDMI (as above) and the sub cable, and then it'll be slightly more sensible. But that said, don't want to skimp on the actual speaker cable

An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable is an HDMI cable. A £5 one is as good as a £50 one, being digital the signal either gets there or it doesnt. Just my 2p

Just what I thought - I reckon an el cheapo cable from an auction site will do the job. High-street retailers want an arm and a leg for them all :s

on the amp, are they referring to the 605, never heard of the 60 S?

Corrected, sorry - it's the 605, which I think is the 2nd up in the range....looking at the other Onkyo amps, it seems the right one to go for with HDMI 1.3 and nothing else that I'll never use.

From my experience Cambridge Audio is horribly bright.[/qupte]
Friend's system sounds great, but on the subject of brightness I don't want to get something that sounds good while being hyped by the salesman, etc. So just wondering what else is out there, really.

Would a visit to a smaller/specialist hifi shop be a good idea? There must be a few in Plymouth, but I'm not a local so don't know which are reputable, etc

 

[Beansprout]

I'm liking all the advice about the cables....I knew HDMI is generally new and high tech and whatnot, but I thought £50 each was taking the mickey. But according to the salesman, you can really see/hear the difference....so they give a "discount" and then make up their money on the cables I suppose

Denon amps are generally warm sounding amps, but personally matching speakers to the amps makes a lot of difference.
As for packages try these people
http://www.creative-audio.co.uk/hotdeals_home.htm

Nice, thanks - will try a Denon

 

[Beansprout]

i've heard it said and mentioned on many hi-fi/av forums that usually cables is about 10% cost of total system - so £160 isn't to bad for everything needed.

Ogbyte

That's what I'd heard, too - but now seeing as there's pretty much no difference apart from the feel of the cable and the connectors, I wonder why he didn't put in more expensive speaker cable and cheaper HDMIs - I expect the profit margins on those fancy HDMIs are huge

I suppose you've opened them so it might be a little hard to take them back, but id recommend that you take them back anyway.

Fortunately not bought anything yet - I'd never buy something like this without a bit of research first

 

[Beansprout]

^ I like that idea, may try

Acoustic energy sell some of their b-stock items on 'a well know auction site' at 1/2 price. They currently have a few Aelite 5.1 packages up for ~£1000, these retail at ~£2000 and are stunning. 5 star rated in mags, I have the lower Aegis 5.1 for home cinema and Aelite 3 floorstanders for stereo and they are truly excellent. I bought the aegis' B stock from them, couldn't tell they weren't new (honestly) and they arrived next day. B-stock are normally review or demo items so far as i cna tell. A superb company and highly recommended.

As for the amp etc, well look on AVforums.com - there are 20-30 new classifieds on there everyday, you can get a 3 year old £1000 amp for ~ £200 (i.e. an 04 Denon 3803), and a 3806 for about £500 - perhaps better than buying new? It is by far the best source of AV info on the net IMO

Nice one - thanks, will look into that - I think I've found a local shop which does some AE stuff.

B&W, B&W, B&W....Owned so many speakers and the only ones which have consistently impressed me have been B&W. They just released the new 600 series which sound fantastic.

They're absolutely stunning in terms of looks, I'm going to listen to some tomorrow - but they're over budget I think

 

[Beansprout]

Onkyo make fairly bright amplifiers as far as I am aware, and Mordaunt Short speakers are a little bright. This is unlikely to lead to a combo that you will be happy with. The speakers are only ever so slightly bright, so something like a Denon amp would stand a good chance of getting the sort of sound you are after.

Thanks for the advice, will see what I can find

i'm another B&W fan myself, but the thing with audio equipment is almost never how good each piece is, its how good they are together. the best speakers and the best amp you can get within a given budget, may not produce the best sound when paired.

That's what I reckon too - the B&Ws are quite a bit more expensive, so the Onkyo might not do them justice.

Got a demo booked at another local hifi shop on Saturday - they haven't got the new B&Ws yet, but have got the KEF 2005/3005s and some MA RS6s. Should be good fun!

 

[Beansprout]

Well, this is interesting! Had a demo (my first ever, since this is my first foray into home cinema world) at Sevenoaks yesterday and they were brilliant. the salesman knew his stuff - let me see for myself rather than try and blind me with technical words, but also explained where necessary. He did a great job of showing me what's what

Started off with the KEF 2005 system, then swapped the centre to the 3005 centre and then a full range KEF IQ2C. The difference was astounding!

But that wasn't quite enough - still lacking a bit of involvement. So we swapped the front 2 satellites for a pair of KEF IQ3s and put on the opening parts of Moulin Rouge. Satine's voice was amazing - it was fully right in front of us!

But - the 2005's sub was then shown up...so out that went...and in came a REL Quake. Tiny little thing but wow - it was absolutely brilliant. Tested it out on the opening dance scene in Moulin Rouge which has a great bass track and for the first time I could hear the cello and double bass, rather than just a 'boom-boom'.

So my latest spec is as follows..

Onkyo 605
2x KEF IQ3 (front)
KEF IQ2C
Rel Quake
2x 2005 satellites (rear - might swap these for the KEF IQ1s if I have room)

Total cost (inc. some 'free' cabling) - £1460. Wonder if I can do the same as suggested above and lower the price by cutting down on the doubtless excessively expensive things they've added, but I expect it's the hifi world's way of providing a 'discount' - you can have the discount, but only if it's spent on these expensive cables which carry a large profit margin.

After a bit of reading, the only other setup I'm interested in is B&W's new 600 series, purely because I've liked their previous 600 series speakers and don't want to buy older speakers (I think the KEFs have all been out for a while now.)

Maybe 685s for the front and 686s for the rear - the KEF IQ3s probably compare to the B&W 602 (now 685), but that does bump the price up by about £120 - eek.

Then the HTMC1 (I think) centre and either a B&W sub or the Rel Quake. But they won't have the new series in stock for a couple of weeks yet

 

[Beansprout]

All sorted and paid for! Demo'd the new B&W 600 series today (685s and the HTM-1) and it was totally stunning. Only went for around £50 worth of semi-decent cabling in the end (QED Silver Anniversary + much cheaper stuff for the rears), and no HDMI as I'm holding off on the HD DVD until Christmas

Me = Excited

 

[Beansprout]

Nice one Dom! The QED SA is very good speaker cable, probably the best performance/price cable around.

Wicked

Reading the thread, maybe I focussed a bit too much on the cost of the cabling in my first post - oops!

Also my comment about not going for the What Hifi stuff - the 685s just won product of the year yesterday (I didn't know this until after when the Sevenoaks guy mentioned it, though )