Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Markie on 25 May 2007, 23:42:00
-
Okay wife has had her way for some time now buying expensive furniture and the likes..
Now its my turn..ive marked a 46" 1080p Samsung tv for purchase :y
I was looking at some DVD surround systems to go with it and there seems to be a massive price difference...from up to £200 (Sony) and the over £500 stuff ( harmon Kardon, Denon, Kef etc)
Has anyone invested in an expensive surround system and is there a noticable difference.....?
Also about 4 months ago i saw a cool looking sound system with a Hard Drive - i think.....it let you listen to music in every room without hard wiring....wasnt cheap :-/ and i cant remember what it was....again anyone know what i am referring to and if there a good purchase? ?
:y
-
ive just found an example of the wireless sound system....
http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/product.do?sku=394351
Any thought from users?
-
I bought a samsung system 2 years ago for £250, a mate of mine purchased a system and paid about £600 for it.
His sounds no different to mine, in fact I would say the quality of the sound is better on mine.
I have always found Samsung to be top quality and sold a good prices. What really finished my system off was the 32 Inch LCD TV i got at Xmass (Samsung)
IMHO
:y :y :)
-
Markie
I have Harmon Kardon speaker hooked up to the computer.
£140 they cost the sound is amazing.
I play loads of music through the computer with a choice of 3000 albums and every one sounds great.
Hook the computer up to a good amp with some good speakers you cant go wrong.. :y
-
My old man's car has the Harmon Kardon "hi-fi" upgrade fitted, and it sounds.... OK. Not really what I'd expect for a £1000 or whatever it cost upgrade, I could get a better sound with half that.
But, that's a car so you can pretty much ignore any relevance it may or may not have ;)
-
I have Sony surround sounds system (second one), the one that has the DVD player and video player built in, was around £250 a couple of years ago, not sure if you still get them, sound is good though. To be honest there is not a lot of major Differrence when it comes the the sound quality between the systems available, just by a decent one that does what you want it to do :y
-
A lot depends on positioning of the speakers and the acoustics of the room.
-
A lot depends on positioning of the speakers and the acoustics of the room.
Agreed :y, I have mine strategically positioned to achieve maximum acoustics, good with war movies and that with the sound effects :y
-
Hmmm I await the comments from Mark, Martin and (if he is still alive!) Max... :)
-
Shouldn't that be:-
[size=40]The[/size] Administrator ?
-
Shouldn't that be:-
[size=40]The[/size] Administrator ?
He's in a funny mood this morning :-/
-
You get what you pay for, a decent DVD player starts around £50, the high def players are well worth a look with say the PS3.
Amps budget around £100 to something good for around £500.
Speakers you need 5 and possibly a sub woofer.
Reckon on spending as much as possible.
Player - consider the PS3 or a mid range Pioneer
AV Amp - Sony, Pioneer, Yamaha, Denon
Speakers - depends entirely on budget, but mine cost around £800 in sales
-
You get what you pay for, a decent DVD player starts around £50, the high def players are well worth a look with say the PS3.
Amps budget around £100 to something good for around £500.
Speakers you need 5 and possibly a sub woofer.
Reckon on spending as much as possible.
Player - consider the PS3 or a mid range Pioneer
AV Amp - Sony, Pioneer, Yamaha, Denon
Speakers - depends entirely on budget, but mine cost around £800 in sales
so its better to buy seperates...than a package that gives the surrounds speakers and woofer/speakers?
-
You get what you pay for, a decent DVD player starts around £50, the high def players are well worth a look with say the PS3.
Amps budget around £100 to something good for around £500.
Speakers you need 5 and possibly a sub woofer.
Reckon on spending as much as possible.
Player - consider the PS3 or a mid range Pioneer
AV Amp - Sony, Pioneer, Yamaha, Denon
Speakers - depends entirely on budget, but mine cost around £800 in sales
so its better to buy seperates...than a package that gives the surrounds speakers and woofer/speakers?
Definately - you get better VFM as well
-
You see I would disagree...
I used to own the Videologic Digitheatre DTS system...
Absolutely bl**dy awesome piece of kit with full 5.1 DTS sound. :D
Cost me £200 2nd hand (he bought it but never took it out the box!)
Everyone was very impressed with the sound produece (except my neighbours!)
If you can find one, well worth getting.
Check out the reviews: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=digitheatre+DTS+reviews&meta=
-
I'm alive...
just very busy...... no rest for the wicked......
there is an alternative suggestion for getting decent surround...
presumably... since you're posting here.... you already own a computer.
most of which have a DVD drive built in.
SOME also have a decent graphics card... a LOT of Flat screen telly's have a VGA or DVi input, some cards even have an S-video or TV output...
it's easy enough to add a reasonable quality audio interface which will outperform any sensibly priced consumer DVD player's output D2A converters...
and easy to add some semi-pro active monitor speakers and a sub to that..... using balanced (& therefore noise free) cabling between them and the interface.
and come in at about the same budget as Martin's system, or less.....
and get superior performance. (arguably.... in some cases... definitely in others)
all of which, sadly, is normally pretty wasted in the average domestic listening environment...
which frankly, doesn't really rate anything better than a typical £250-£300 package from Richer sounds
HDTV is bringing surround to the masses on a huge scale... but no one is actually pointing out that it's a waste unless you also have audio equipment capable of making the best of it...
and as for the broadcasters.... well, let's put it like this... a mate of mine is currently spending most weekends training BBC engineers how to mix for surround... as they've only just realised they don't have the expertise in house any more.... and the Beeb ARE at the forefront in this area..... as to the rest.... I think they're hoping to poach the Beeb staff .......... :D
But the consumer is largely entirely unaware that to truly benefit form any of this, they need to arrange their room appropriately and treat it acoustically to control the listening environment adequately to actually hear the mix as it was intended to be heard..
which can cost several times more than their Surround system....... if they only want to buy ready made solutions, or can cost as little as £150 if they are prepared to do some research and a LOT of DIY.
Max
(currently working on building surround mixing facilities for Sony PS3 game audio production teams , and doing some of those mixes myself.)
-
You see I would disagree...
I used to own the Videologic Digitheatre DTS system...
Absolutely bl**dy awesome piece of kit with full 5.1 DTS sound. :D
Cost me £200 2nd hand (he bought it but never took it out the box!)
Everyone was very impressed with the sound produece (except my neighbours!)
If you can find one, well worth getting.
Check out the reviews: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=digitheatre+DTS+reviews&meta=
Well if you ever come to Worcester I'll demo mine
Pioneer DV575K - £110
Sony STRDB930 - £500
Castle Pembroke fronts - £450 in sale
Castle Keep centre - £250
Castle Clyde Rears - £90 in sale 23 years ago
-
Receiver (http://www.homecinemachoice.com/reviews/hccreviews/Amplifiers/Sony/SonySTR-DB930.php)
DVD Player (http://www.homecinemachoice.com/cgi-bin/displayreview.php?reviewid=4839)
Speakers - well none of the magazines appears to put its reviews on the internet except the WV publications and they haven't reviewed these.
-
interesting to note that the Playstation 3 was mentioned earlier, it has been announced that the new firmware allows upscaling to 1080i of DVD's now
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32159/118/
-
interesting to note that the Playstation 3 was mentioned earlier, it has been announced that the new firmware allows upscaling to 1080i of DVD's now
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32159/118/
I have one of those - so maybe i should be moving it from one of the bedrooms into the main room for the Daddy 1080i TV :o
-
interesting to note that the Playstation 3 was mentioned earlier, it has been announced that the new firmware allows upscaling to 1080i of DVD's now
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32159/118/
I have one of those - so maybe i should be moving it from one of the bedrooms into the main room for the Daddy 1080i TV :o
I hope you are not still buying DVDs?
The PS3 plays Blurays and they are 1080, and from the internet no more than DVDs in shops
-
Bought a yamaha kit earlier this year for about £200 works well a speaker upgrade would be nice tho. Richer sounds are normally pretty good.