looking for surround sound home cinema system

[Sam Gangee]

That reminds me of an incident. A friend of mine moved, temporarily, into a terrace house with neighbours of non-UK origin who liked to play music very loudly. After weeks of complaints, the noise suddenly abated. It turned out that the noise had brought down the neighbours' ceiling, together with the loudspeakers.

Overheating is indeed a major consideration. Place the unit on an open shelf away from any source of heat. If that's not practicable, use forced ventilation to blast cool air through. Cheap equipment is usually cheap because the manufacturer used the crappiest components available and was economical in the use of heatsinks and fans. You can make the equipment last significantly longer by keeping it cool.

 

[chapeau]

Yes, build quality is essential. But it's difficult to know whether your amp is cheap because it has cheap components in it or because the margin is lower.

A £2000 amp isn't 10 times better component wise than a £200 amp. So the simplest way is to look at rated power output into all channels driven.

And my 7.1 AVR comes in at 130W per channel into 8 ohms all channels driven, It stays cool even when people in the house across the street can sing along to what I'm playing - and no fan inside or outside the case. That's because it's hardly breaking into a sweat, it's just vastly overpowered for what it needs to do.

So get an overpowered amp for what you are planning to use it for, don't cover the ventilation grills, and it will do just fine.

 

[Sam Gangee]

Just a quick heads up: for audio equipment, a rating in "Watts" is meaningless. It has to be "Watts RMS". A lot of sellers still try to fool you with "Watts" or "Music Power". Don't accept any rating unless it's in Watts RMS.

 

[chapeau]

I'm pretty sure that any advertised 'Watt' measurement is RMS by default in the EU by law. You can be sure that if you see W(att) in any amp literature it means RMS.

Though RMS Watts when it comes to amps is equally questionable. Root Mean Square really only means something when you are dealing with sine waves - voltages or amps........

All that matters is you can compare things, and if you see two 'Watt' power outputs advertised in the EU you can assume they are measured the same way.

You will see peak power advertised (eg active subwoofers) but in that case you will also have to have an RMS value given too. Peak power is important here because subwoofers are peculiar beasts in that you need a large amount of available burst power to stop them moving once they have got going.

 

[Sam Gangee]

I'm pretty sure that any advertised 'Watt' measurement is RMS by default in the EU by law. You can be sure that if you see W(att) in any amp literature it means RMS.

How I wish! Unfortunately not. You only have to peruse the Amazon.co.uk site for "400 watt speaker" to see that it's not so. Those sellers rely upon your ignorance.

Bear in mind that a system driving 4 x 400 Watt speakers needs to have a PSU capable of supplying 2 kiloWatts! (= 4 x 400 + 400 for inefficient conversion.)

Though RMS Watts when it comes to amps is equally questionable. Root Mean Square really only means something when you are dealing with sine waves

Correct - which is why it's also necessary to state the conditions under which the power is measured. Often something like 1kHz sine wave.

 

[chapeau]

Well, we are talking about amps and not speakers, but I searched amazon.co.uk for '400 W amplifier' and checked every one on the first page. All specified that this was 400W max, in the blurb you would find something like

• 400W max. output - equivalent to 2 x 45W RMS plus 3 x 12W RMS

Re: measuring at 1kHz. I am sure you know this, but impedance of a speaker is highly dependant on frequency. Most 'power' will be found at low frequencies, certainly below 1kHz.

So it's not simple!

but if you see an amp which can output "130W per channel, all seven channels driven into 8 ohms" then you can be sure it's going to be a monster in an average living room and never really start to warm up to a level that is problematic.

(and let's not get into what 8 ohms means - all you know is that two 8 ohm speakers are much the same)

And that avr draws over 2kw of mains power at full blast...... So I'm told, never got it that loud, the windows wouldn't take it

 

[Sam Gangee]

Re: measuring at 1kHz. I am sure you know this, but impedance of a speaker is highly dependant on frequency.

(It's "dependent" not "dependant".) Yes, that's precisely why it's important to specify the frequency at which the measurement is made, otherwise it's meaningless.

BTW *I* was discussing loudspeakers. That's why I wrote: "You only have to peruse the Amazon.co.uk site for "400 watt speaker" to see that it's not so."

 

[chirpychippy]

I must admit that I am rather embarrased now with two of my postings one of which I have already apologised for and the other one enquiring about a cinema surround sound system for £400.

Its not alot but we upped the budget to £600 for receiver, subwoofer, and speakers. Currently we are trialling a Bose lifestyle 2.1 home entertainment system, it is not the Cinema Surround Sound experience that I had set my heart on but on painfull realisation I now realise that my earlier budget nor my current budget just doesnt come close to what one would expect to pay.

By chance friends of ours, unbeknown to me, has a relative who works for Bang&Olufsen, following a brief conversion with this chap he soon brought me back down to earth with a bump.

I dont particulaly like the Bose somits either save more money or forget about it for a while.

Thank you, I have learnt alot.

 

[chapeau]

Its not alot but we upped the budget to £600 for receiver, subwoofer, and speakers. Currently we are trialling a Bose lifestyle 2.1 home entertainment system, it is not the Cinema Surround Sound experience that I had set my heart on but on painfull realisation I now realise that my earlier budget nor my current budget just doesnt come close to what one would expect to pay.

It does if you go second hand, see my earlier post. The only kit I bought from a shop is the sub and the tele. Works great, saved a fortune.

(Kept short to avoid speling police)

 

[JBR]

I bought this a couple of months ago:

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/hcs-home-cinema-speaker/ht-as5

New, not second-hand. Now superseded but, in my opinion, very good sound.

(I bought a separate BD recorder, btw.)

 

[chapeau]

Reet

Just been poking around on the second hand forum mentioned earlier

Panasonic DMP-BD55 £60
Loads of perfectly decent 18 month old receivers < £150
B & W VM1 surround system £300

Five hundred quid + postage and they will always include postage if you ask.

Not saying that's the setup for you, just showing what's around.

And to be honest, a system costing five times more isn't going to sound five times as good.

You just need to have the nerve to buy second hand, but avforums is full of amazingly honest people who really look after their kit and are never happy unless they have bought the next model up.

If you want to get all audiophile then spend your money on speakers and not the amp. Most amps at normal volumes sound much the same (don't believe anybody who says otherwise) but different speakers make a big difference.