What Audio System Powers Your Home Theater?

FusionJunky asks: "My cohorts and I at The GeekPad are working to develop our home theatre into something a little more robust. We picked up a 36" Sony Television and a respectable DVD Player...now we're ready to tackle audio. We've noticed we have this optical out capability from the DVD player, and a bunch of other new fangled plugs back there, and we were wondering what the Slashdot community uses for home theatre audio. We'd like to keep it under $1500." I'd be interested in what you all feel is the best system for the buck, from your choices in tuners to speakers.

Re:Ha-ha, Bose?

I absolutely love my Onkyo amplifiers. I have 3 of them, including the monster that drives my home theater. It has 6 channel output for room a, and 4 channel output for room b. It will allow me to listen to music in one room while watching TV in another, all driven on the one amplifier. Combine this with Dolby Digital decoding and 3 digital inputs and you have a killer amplifier.

As far as speakers go, I much prefer my infiniti system. I have infiniti overtures in the front, quadpoles in the back and a really nice center channel. If you can only afford to buy one really good speaker, make it your center channel. You won't regret it.

As for subs, I like the velodyne 16" subwoofer. MMMMM, bass.
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Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com

Reality Check by an Audiophile

Many of the systems being suggested here aren't that good. Klipsch's are like every other horn system, they are efficient at certain frequencies, and inefficient at others. And like other horn instruments, like trombones and trumpets, they have frequencies where standing waves set up, and make the system louder or softer. This makes horn systems fine for auditoriums and stadiums, where you need high volume and low fidelity, but poor choices for home where you have lower volumes, and lower background noise. Bose is adequate, but they are better at marketing than engineering.

In the myth arena is Monster Cable, green markers on CD-ROMs, CD-ROM stabilizers (inertia/momentum rings), titanium vibration isolation cones, and vacuum tubes. If someone ones me to post more on those, I will, but they are of no proven benefit, and are aimed at those with money to waste.

What you are after is something you are happy with. In the end, what you buy matters no more than whether its an AMD or an Intel in the box. If you're happy with it while it's running, and you are comfortable with what you spent -- then you've got a good system. There are various people who fancy themselves to be "golden ears", able to somehow hear statistically insignificant levels of distortion that even the best musicians cannot hear, and marketers continually create products aimed at people who don't want to be left out; who want to feel they are in this top tier; who purchase these overpriced, snake-oil products because some "friend" recommended it.

My system: Accoustic Research AR-5's for the front channels, powered by a Carver amp, with a Carver preamp doing the Dolbly decoding from a Pioneer 414 (?) DVD player. The center channel is an RCA center channel picked up for cheap at Radio Shack. The rear channels are from some place that was discontinuing the model, and instead of $300/apiece, I got them for $75/apiece. The subwoofer is under construction, and I've got more amps for it.

You need: good, full-range front channel speakers, preferably about 2 cu. ft. in size. A decent center channel, smaller rear channels (since Dolby surround and all those cuts all the bass and much of the high-end). A subwoofer is optional, but with the big front-channel speakers I've got, I don't really need it when playing Bond films or The Matrix.

Know what's important

Spend about $300 on a stereo. I got a nice Sony combo unit from Circuit City for around $350. I paid extra because of the 50+1 CD changer.

Spend the other $1000 in good alcoholic beverages.

Drink large amounts of the beverages.

You're system will sound just as good as everyone elses, your dick will be the same lenght as it was before, and if you're lucky you might have a jolly good time.

Re:Review sites...

Although it is more for the audio enthusiast (as opposed to home theater), I like goodsound.com [goodsound.com] both for equipment reviews as well as sound, generic buying advice.

Re:CSW speakers have never failed me...

I have to dis agree with you a little bit here. No matter how good your speakers are it's going to sound pretty bad if you have a shitty amp.

However, spending an extra dollar on the speakers is going to get you more than spending the extra dollar on the receiver. If I were going to go out and buy an audio system today and was willing to spend $1.5k I'd be looking to spend about $400 on the receiver (the JVC RX-8000V I have sells for about this much and has quite good sound and lots of features) and the remainder on speakers.

I would avoid like the plague any sort of setup that has 5 tiny little speakers and a huge subwoofer to make up for their lack of bass and midrange response. I find that these setups leave a lot to be desired in terms of midrange and bass response. Boston makes some excellent speakers and are definately worth checking out in particular their VR series.
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Think highs

For our house, we ended spending the most amount of our cash on small speakers that could produce some nice highs and then using a relativly high cross over point on our subwoofer. Something about our living room just seemed to suck the highs out of pretty much any speaker we could find until we bought 4 infinity reference monitors and a sony center channel. Tied it all to a Velvodine (sp?) 10 inch powered sub, ran the optics out of the DVD and into the pioneer receiever, plummed the whole thing via SVideo into an RCA projection TV. Only regret is owning the projection TV, the colors just arent there like in a tube.

Ditto on Paradigm...

Unless you go really high-end, Paradigms are tough to beat. They're usually the best value at any given price point -- bless the Canucks and the strong dollar. Buy whatever model you can afford. If you're mainly interested in Home Theater, then I'd go with the matching speakers all-around. If music is more important, I'd devote more money to the main speakers, then the center-channel, then the surrounds (which is what I did). I'd still use the same brand all-around to make sure the timbre matching is good. Get a subwoofer if you want better rumbling tanks/stomping dinosaurs/earth-shattering explosions (actually, a powered subwoofer also helps with music by taking the load off of your receiver for the low end). Of course, if you live in an apartment or condo, the subwoofer might make you unpopular with the neighbors.

As far as A/V receivers go, I'm a fan of Denon, but I can't argue with NAD. Onkyo is also pretty well regarded.

Re:Optical vs Coax digital outputs

Like any cable there are quality control concerns. But from what I've seen there wasn't much difference in build quality with the monster brand VS a generic.

The problem is really in transmission. A cheap LED system like TOS can have issues with minor power surges and spikes. In a big AV system there can be a lot of different compoents pulling large power loads at various times. A Laser system generally is better regulated, and has a very constant wavelength. Cheaper LEDs do not. You have to understand that most of the TOS transmitters cost about a dollar each in mass. You're not looking at a high quality, over engineered part. It does what it does and generally it does is well enough. But I wouldn't stake my life on all the bits getting to the destination in tact. Just the majority of them.

Careful setup as important as gear

While it's easy to fixate on what gear to buy, of as much importance is how well the gear is setup, particularly the speakers. A great system cannot perform to it's full potential if it is not setup properly. Proper setup can make the difference between a system sounding good and a system sounding great, and proper setup doesn't cost much extra money.

The most important thing is that speakers be positioned properly and mounted on rigid stands. Speaker positioning is a large topic that I can't go into depth here but there are many excellent articles on the web (use Google). Important things to remember are that corners are never a good spot for speakers. The stands should be heavy (most can be filled with sand or lead shot) and mounted on adjustable spikes. The spikes are adjustable so you can match the contours of your floor (which is never perfectly flat). This allows you to set the stands so when you put your hand on top of the speaker and try to wiggle it the speaker will not move. This is important as if the speaker can wiggle than some energy will be lost. Any setup can get you 90% of the way there, but in high performance audio it's that last 10% where all the action is (and your ears/brain can really tell the difference). Trust me on this one, spending some bucks on nice rigid speaker stands with spikes on the bottom (use floor protectors under them if you have a hardwood floor) makes a big difference, it's not just cosmetic.

Subwoofers also need careful placement. While your brain cannot localize deep bass, improper placement can cause phase cancellation with the other speakers which creates comb filtering that sounds bad. Many subwoofers have phase adjustment but there is no substitute for proper placement in the first place.

In short, it's not worth spending a lot of money on good audio equipment if you don't bother to learn to set it up properly. Spending a few days with trial and error speaker placement, using your favorite and best sounding CD for reference, can make all the difference.

Stereophile [stereophile.com], a magazine dedicated to ridiculously expensive audio reproduction equipment, has some nice articles on low/zero cost "tweaks" (such as speaker placement) that can greatly improve the sound of your system. Some of it may sound pretty tweaky, and some of it is, but by and large it is sound advice (no pun intended). Search their archives for "Fine Tunes"

Burris

Optical vs Coax digital outputs

Some people are very against the optical connectors for digital out and swear by the RCA jack digital outputs instead. The reason they cite is Jitter, however it's more a technical probelm than it is anything you'll actually hear. Personally I get a kick out of having fiber optics connecting my components.

Anybody who refers to a digital connection having "jitter" doesn't understand the technology.

The real reason to go with coax over digital is that you can use regular video cables instead of more expensive, and shorter, optical cables. Not all cables will work on the coax connection, but a given cable either will or won't work; there is no qualitative element involved. Plus, I hear that the optical cables use plastic fibers rather than glass, which probably explains why they aren't very long.

So go with coax, because it's going to be cheaper and more reliable.

Receiver--connections

The first thing to decide in a receiver is what type and how many connections you need.

Figure out how many audio-only components you have (or will have) and how many audio/video components you need to support. If your receiver doesn't have enough inputs to support them, you're hosed (or have to mess with a secondary switch; ick).

For example, I need:
DVD player: audio/S-video inputs, optical input
VCR: audio/video inputs, audio/video outputs
ReplayTV: audio/S-video inputs, audio/S-video outputs.
and so on.

You can use splitters on the non-digital outputs, if you don't have enough.

Keep in mind with the S-video and composite connections that in most cases you need to hook up both, unless all your components only use S-video. Many receivers don't convert between the two, so you'll need to use the composite out if you're relying on a composite input somewhere.

In defense of tubes

If you don't think tubes can make a real difference, you've either never heard a properly set up tube audio system, or you've simply ignored the evidence of your senses in favor of the pseudo-scientific snake oil of the mainstream audio world. Well-designed tube amplifiers with proper speakers sound far better than virtually any solid-state amplifiers. There are sound electrical engineering and psychoacoustic reasons for this, but they're lost in the simpleminded marketing bullshit of watts and THD specs, often to the point where listeners make up nonsense like "euphonic distortion" to explain why the tube system sounds so much better than their "audiophile" solid-state systems with gobs of power and low THD.

The basic problem is that the human ear is very good about filtering out signal-following distortions even at high levels (which is why a subwoofer with 10% distortion, like an excellent $2000 Velodyne, is even tolerable), but is extremely sensitive to distortions that don't modulate along with the signal. What we find in the electrical real world of the amp-speaker interface is a lot of mechanically stored energy messing with the signal. Say the amp spits out a big pulse of energy. The speaker stores MOST of that energy as mechanical crud, then spits it back into the amp as an electrical signal, maybe tens or hundreds of milliseconds later (speakers are maybe 1% efficient... where does the 99% go, except to mechanical and thermal dissipation? And a speaker motor also works as a generator for mechanically stored energy in the suspension. This is high school physics). That energy coming back from the speaker in a highly distorted, nonlinear way gets fed back to the beginning of the amplifier via the global negative feedback loop (required to make transistors even remotely linear) as *error correction*, and thus modulates totally unrelated signals occuring well after the original pulse.

And that's just the *beginning* of the problem. This is a very, very difficult problem, despite the simpleton math the marketing departments of the audio makers feed you.

Triode vacuum tubes are the ONLY amplifying devices linear enough to follow a voltage signal accurately without a feedback loop. The better tubes have distortion so low it is difficult to measure. And, as they approach their output limits, the distortion in a properly designed amplification stage is mostly second harmonic - so benign is is inaudible at less than 5% levels, and is perceived as an increase in loudness beyond that. A triode output stage can absorb reflected energy from the speaker via its own impedance, without feeding "error correction" back into previous stages. Thus, a triode with no negative feedback is MUCH better behaved into complex reactive loads with mechanical energy storage - i.e. speakers. The relatively high measured THD of such amps just shows the stupidity of THD measurements.

I could go on into numerous other shortcomings of transistors as amplifying devices for music, but this is a start.

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Review sites...

Check out http://www.audioreview.com to look at reviews for different components. It's a good place to start looking at a ton of different devices.

CSW speakers have never failed me...

I have a full set of Cambridge SoundWorks speakers in my setup right now. I used their MovieWorks 5.1 speaker system (large center channel, matched pair for left & right, matched pair for left and right surrounds, and a BassCube 10), and added an extra pair of surrounds for the left and right rear surround channels, for a full 6.1 setup. The entire set cost me about $1600, however, so that might fall a little out of your range. They do have less expensive sets, however, and I've never had a problem with their sound quality.

As far as a receiver goes, I'm using a B&K AVR307 system. It's THX EX certified, and it has more inputs/outputs than I can possibly use. Plus it's upgradeable for future standards (you can swap one of the logic boards and upgrade the software). And it has a serial port for hooking into a home automation system. But that piece was about $3500 alone. I decided that I'd rather spend the money on a really good receiver, since the receiver is going to limit the quality of any other component in the system.

-Todd

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My Two Cents

A few things I've learned while shopping recently for a music-listening system (only 2 channels):

1. You may have the impression that one $500 amp is going to sound pretty much the same as another $500 amp (or $1000, or $2000...). It's not true. And it's easy to prove. Go and find yourself a high-end audio store and listen to a half-dozen different setups. And I'm not talking about your local stereo-videogame-and-toaster store here, I mean a real high-end store that sells $10,000 turntables and such, and you can actually listen for ten minutes in a quiet room. Oh, and listen to the same (music, movies) everywhere you go. You'll notice a suprising amount of difference in the sound.

2. Different speakers and amplifiers have different sounds that sound better to different people. Go and listen to a handful of systems and figure out what you like.

3. Unfortunately, all the audioreview.com reviews seem to follow this pattern: eight out of ten reviewers say "sounds great. If you only have $xxx to spend, this is the (amp|speaker) you should buy". Then there's two reviewers who absolutely hate the sound because it's too bright or lifeless. This is true of $500 stuff and $5000 stuff. Since every review follows that same pattern, it's impossible to compare two pieces of equipment realistically.

4. Cheap equipment will drag down the sound. $2000 speakers won't sound too hot on a $200 amplifier. Try and spread your money around to maximize overall system performance.

5. I know I said this in #1 and #2, but go and listen to a bunch of systems at good stores. You really don't need to be an audiophile to hear the difference. Just go and spend a few afternoons hitting the stores and you'll be glad you did.

6. Many high-end shops will let you try stuff out at home. Ask and see if they'll let you.

7. There's a lot of BS floating around out there. Don't believe what other people say. Go and figure it out for yourself.

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I know a little something about this...

I've spent the last 2 years spending everything I had on audio and home theater. I was such a nut I had 2 seperate systems. One was exclusively for 2 channel audio listening and the other was attached to a 61" Sony XBR300 TV for home theater.

My current home theater rig consists of the following:

61" Sony XBR300 TV

Lexcion DC-1 Preamp (rumor has it George Lucas had one of these things :) )

Parasound HCA-1206 power amp

Toshiba 5109 DVD player (has progressive out)

Sony DSS

Some damn SVHS VCR that I have yet to use

Citation 7000 series speakers

Now... all of that stuff retails for something on the wrong side of $30,000, but you'd be a fool to think I'd actually spend that much money on it. I picked up the power amp, preamp, and speakers all used, at an average of about 1/3 of retail pricing.

So... my whole hearted recommendation is spend some time looking at the used market! Also, stay away from the Good Guys, Circuit City, etc. These stores carry CRAP. Find a local high end dealer and talk to them. Usually their prices are movable and you can do some wheeling and dealing. Also, checkout auidoadvisor.com [audioadvisor.com]. They currently have what appears to be the deal of the century at the moment... A complete KEF (excellent speaker brand) 5.1 speaker system for $900.

Here's a short list of good brands to look for:

Electronics (receivers, preamps, amps, etc.)

NAD

Parasound

Some Denon/Yamaha

Anthem

Sherwood Newcastle (make sure it's NEWCASTLE!)

B&K

Adcom

Speakers:

B&W

Paradigm

PSB

KEF

NHT

Aerial

Energy

Boston Accoustics

Brands to stay away from:

Sony (some of the ES Stuff is okay)

BOSE (don't by it, no matter what)

sub $500 recievers from ANYONE (these things are just piles of junk)

Kenwood

Sherwood (non newcastle stuff)

Yamaha speakers

Cerwin Vega

JVC (their SVHS VCRs are the best, however)

Awia

Also, here are a few good links to used audio sites:

audioshopper.com [audioshopper.com]
audiogon.com [audiogon.com]
jmsound.com [jmsound.com]
jeffsoundvalues.com [jeffssoundvalues.com]

Hope that helps, and for what it's worth, I've spent a good amount of time these past few years learning about all of this crap and if you use the guide above you should get a perfectly good system. I've left out super high end brands, thinking most people not be interested, but if you are just ask.