hi fi and home cinema integation?

[Big Tabs]

I have had a yamaha RX-V377 for ages. It is okay, nothing special.

PMC FB1i's as front L & R with a PMC FB1+ centre speaker

Monitor Audio bronze 10" active sub.

some small 8ohm speakers from richer sounds do the rear L & R

HDR /Freeview box, a PS1 and a PS3 running through it. I have connected my classic ipod to it as well.

It sounds good. The pmc front end sounds sweet and I alter the sound dependent on what we are watching/listening to.

Watching the Glastonbury PJ Harvey set 2:1 - sounds fine.

 

[onlyconnect]

Personal view based on my own experience.

1. I don't think it is worth running two systems in the same room, one for stereo and one for home cinema. I did try this for a while with a Naim setup alongside a Yamaha receiver but it was a hassle and too many boxes.

2. I had a good experience retiring the Naim and just using the receiver for everything. I then went the other way after a house move (smaller) and just use the Naim now so we have lost 5.1 for the moment, it isn't too bad though. Long term plan is to have 5.1 in a different room as I do like surround sound.

Tim

 

[dweezil]

I contemplated surround but after messing around with settings have ended up with stereo.

We have so many eq settings available through the preamp and Bluray player.

I keep the seating position reasonably on axis and run an independent Room Perfect calibration.

Don't overdo any smile eq but give the subs plenty of low frequency headroom.

Been to a few cinemas where the centre speaker is loud and shouty; probably cheap horn jobs which might suit vocals but sound horrid.

 

[Mr Pig]

Pretty much all dialogue comes exclusively from the center channel; if you listen just in stereo there’s no way two listeners can hear the dialogue correctly.

So how come this disaster doesn't befall music on a stereo?

My speakers are about six-feet apart. I don't sit in the 'sweet spot', pretty much never but I'm usually in front of both speakers and never give it a thought. My wife will often watch movies on the settee at the side of the room and never complains about the sound.

The left hand speaker is still right next to the screen! It's not a sixty-foot wide cinema hall we're talking about here. Having yet another speaker squeezed into the already fairly small gap between the stereo pair makes...not that much of a difference.

In fact it can be worse as the center speaker often does not sound the same as the ones either side so there is often a mismatch. Two different speakers sitting next to each other both reproducing the same sound, but sounding different. I kept the center speaker in the TV room for awhile after I got rid of the rest of the surround speakers but it wasn't worth having.

Back in the day, largly UK Hi-Fi companies rallied against complexity for the sake of it. At that time button infested Japanese Hi-Fi's and graphic equalizers were filling the high-street. It was argued that a simpler, cleaner signal path and better quality components would sound better. It's the same thing. Dilution of quality for the sake of more boxes and buttons, or features, does not improve the fundamental quality of the sound. As anyone who's played about with the 'modes' on a crap AV amp can tell you. Cinema, Albert Hall, Jazz Club. Set it to whatever you like but shite is shite whatever flavor of sauce you pour on it.

 

[Suffolk Tony]

Obviously. But what I found was that mumbling, dull speech is primarily a function of the mix itself and it doesn't make much difference how you output it. When we had the multi-channel I remember messing about with the settings, turning up the center, trying different 'modes', etc and it doesn't work. Only to a very limited degree anyway. If the speech is too quiet compared to the other sounds in the mix the amp cannot turn up just the speech. It doesn't work that way. If the other sounds are also on the center channel they are getting turned up too. It's just the same as a bad mix on a CD or record. It doesn't matter what you do with the tone controls, you can't fix it.

What does make a difference is quality of playback. The Isobariks present movies in a level of scale and clarity that makes it much easier to hear what's going on. It's not very often that dialog is a problem. It still happens but it's better than it was on the surround system.

I'm not saying a good surround system can't be just as good, or even better. It could be. What I'm saying is that mumbling dialog is primarily due to the mix and how big a problem it is comes down to factors other than the number of channels you have.

Well, apart from the odd disc when Americans are talking very fast, I really don't have the problem, and I'm an old git with shot hearing. Using the centre speaker with the stereo speakers gives a much clearer dialogue than using just the stereo pair. Yes, you're right - a well-implemented surround system will easily top a very good stereo system. Yes, it gets very pricey, and requires a fair bit of effort, and with multi-speakers, it's a great advantage to use a sophisticated digital room correction system. Fellow PFM members who've heard my Atmos 7.1.4 system could confirm, It's not too shabby.

 

[torstoi]

PMC and for example ATC are very good brands..if they have a dedicated center to go with their front or stereo setup, that's perfect then.
My Oppo player for example has an excellent 'phantom center' setting, so the front speakers do the center duty quite great here..but that is my setup & it's very individual how good something works or not.
My front speakers are only 2m apart from another, so adding a center when no center matching my speakers is available would definitely screw things up in my case.

As my Yamahas are set, those are non negociable, you need a great audio section in your BR player though to cope for that..and it costs of course.
Otherwise doing cinema and hifi in one is absolutely possible..requires a bit of thinking and tweaking, but..that's part of the fun to me.

I've heard ATC 3 ways lately...very little doubt those are at least up to what I have at home, but at a multiple cost, that's the point.
If I felt I had to go for a center, I'd be heading towards ATC w/o doubt.
I understand everything and speach quality is suberb in my room, so in MY setup I'd create a prob where there is actually none.

I don't speak for everyones setup / player/ speakers, mind..

No the subs are not urgently necessary, true...the comfort is you can have a Dinosaur rave party during daytime when the movie gives that opportunity
..and just leave the woofers amps switched off during nighttime, so the neighbours stay in bed.
No need to readjust, reconfigurate anything...leaving the subs off is night-mode simply.

Cheers..

 

[Amber Audio]

Back in the day, largly UK Hi-Fi companies rallied against complexity for the sake of it. At that time button infested Japanese Hi-Fi's and graphic equalizers were filling the high-street. It was argued that a simpler, cleaner signal path and better quality components would sound better. It's the same thing. Dilution of quality for the sake of more boxes and buttons, or features, does not improve the fundamental quality of the sound. As anyone who's played about with the 'modes' on a crap AV amp can tell you. Cinema, Albert Hall, Jazz Club. Set it to whatever you like but shite is shite whatever flavor of sauce you pour on it.

You could argue that the reason all that hair shirt nonsense, belt drive better than DD appeared was because the UK guys couldn't make the stuff to compete with the likes of Technics, Sony, Yammy et al and make enough profit margin, so the flat earth mantra emerged - no tone controls, Belt Drive is better than DD cos of rumble and cogging etc.

End of the day the AV amp target market/buyer isn't you, I know 2 other people with big f*** off stereos in our town and about a dozen with some sort of decent surround sound system, more if you include sound bars (mainly cos it came with the telly to be fair). An entry level AV Amp and 5.1 speaker package makes perfectly decent noises for the price and most buyers will be pleased cos it'll be far better than a run of the mill flat TV on it's own ever could, it can also integrate with an enthusiasts 2 channel system extremely well if you put in the time, effort and money. When you go higher up the chain then a multi channel setup like Meridian Trifield and Lexicon Logic 7 DSP modes are fantastic in full swing, the newer stuff from Lyngdorf and Trinnov is amazing, but serious dosh.

You're correct if you want the best surround you have to spend the money, but you still get a really decent sound from the entry level kit these days from shops like 7oaks/Richer/Tysons, just because you didn't rate it shouldn't put others from having a dealer demo and a crack at integrating an AV.

 

[clivem2]

I have a main system in it's own room and my AV system which also streams music via a good system. For the AV system I went with simply 2.1. The speakers are very good floor standers (Viotti Towers), when listening to music with the AV system I switch the subwoofer off. I certainly don't need a centre speaker or about sounds behind me. Much depends on your preferences for the AV aspect.

 

[AndyU]

So how come this disaster doesn't befall music on a stereo?

My speakers are about six-feet apart. I don't sit in the 'sweet spot', pretty much never but I'm usually in front of both speakers and never give it a thought. My wife will often watch movies on the settee at the side of the room and never complains about the sound.

The left hand speaker is still right next to the screen! It's not a sixty-foot wide cinema hall we're talking about here. Having yet another speaker squeezed into the already fairly small gap between the stereo pair makes...not that much of a difference.

In fact it can be worse as the center speaker often does not sound the same as the ones either side so there is often a mismatch. Two different speakers sitting next to each other both reproducing the same sound, but sounding different. I kept the center speaker in the TV room for awhile after I got rid of the rest of the surround speakers but it wasn't worth having.

Back in the day, largly UK Hi-Fi companies rallied against complexity for the sake of it. At that time button infested Japanese Hi-Fi's and graphic equalizers were filling the high-street. It was argued that a simpler, cleaner signal path and better quality components would sound better. It's the same thing. Dilution of quality for the sake of more boxes and buttons, or features, does not improve the fundamental quality of the sound. As anyone who's played about with the 'modes' on a crap AV amp can tell you. Cinema, Albert Hall, Jazz Club. Set it to whatever you like but shite is shite whatever flavor of sauce you pour on it.

Some people aren't fussy about it. You sound like you are sitting quite a long way away from speakers that are quite close together, so you are kind of listening in double-mono anyway. But you simply can not get a well defined central image of a voice from a stereo pair of speakers unless you sit equidistant from them. And only one person can do that at a time. And it's the same for good stereo - ideally you want to be about as far away from the speakers as they are from each other so you and they form the apexes of an equilateral triangle. Try listening say to the BBC Radio 4 News and ask yourself whether there is a tightly defined narrow central image of the newsreader between your speakers. Having a picture means that your brain will often pull the sound towards the picture to some extent, but it is still my experience that a centre channel maximises intelligibility of dialogue in movies. It is how they are made. If you argue in favour of the simplest possible signal path, then 5.1 is the simplest possible signal path for movies made in 5.1. It doesn't matter where you sit on the sofa or in the room, you will always hear dialogue from the centre channel, which is where it belongs (except for the odd off-screen voice). Many speakers made for centre-channel duties will be so-called d'Appolito arrays - lots of vertical dispersion, much less horizontal dispersion, which helps intelligibility even more.

 

[Mr Pig]

But you simply can not get a well defined central image of a voice from a stereo pair of speakers unless you sit equidistant from them.

If you are the kind of person who always has to sit in the sweet spot to listen to music, and I know people who do, this might be a problem. I'm not one of those people. But I am not listening to 'double mono'! Nonsense.

At the end of the day I've had both surround and stereo systems running in the house at the same time and I have decided which works out the best for me. Everyone else is entitled to their own opinion on and if a different answer is right fort them then great. The OP can make his own mind up.

 

[clivem2]

I find a central speaker is good if you must have a central voice. A traditional stereo setup is much better when there are two people on screen talking...this gives a proper soundstage with voices in the correct place, ie not central. This for myself becomes more important with a large screen eg 65 inch.