We don’t all live in or near big cities. Local cinema where I am is pretty poor: I have bigger screen (angle subtended by the eye) at home, and I can watch movies whenever I want, no booking, without people munching things next to me or behind me, or walking in front etc. I do go to the cinema for particular new releases, but tie it in with travel so I can get a decent cinema. In an i-Max or other good cinema, when not at the peak of a film’s release, the experience can be really good. If there was one locally I’d go more often - but home cinema even then would have a place, being complementary, rather like hifi vs live band.
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But the artists you want to hear have to be playing! And the venue has to be good (I hate stadia and other huge venues) - and for some acts these days the ticket cost plus cost of travel and accommodation I think I would soon overtake what I paid for my hifi! The beauty of recorded music is that you can listen anytime you want call me whenever you want.
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Absolutely. As I said above my concert going days are over.
Admittedly, I wrote bigger cities in my last post, but even smaller cities usually have very good equipment, which may be due to the fact that 83% of the Swedish population still prefers to see movies in a real cinema. But I suppose that conditions can look very different in different countries.
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Absolutely, of course there are many advantages as well and one need not exclude the other.
I still love live music, just limited to my music preference and not huge venues or silly money. So far this year I’ve enjoyed a Pink Floyd tribute band, a Guns ‘n’ Roses tribute band, an Italian performance of Turandot, and a Celtic music festival.
For movies and bluray concerts I’m running a stereo setup through my main Naim system and a 65” OLED TV and find this to work very well for a smallish room. My speakers have really nice imaging, so I find that there is real a element of full sound in the room (particularly width, and oddly enough height). I had run a sub when I had a 252/250 DR but moved that to the lounge and the main TV set up (using a Nova) when I went to the 552/300 DR and found this to sound cleaner without the sub.
I do like the idea of a full surround system though, but I’d want to go full-in and do it properly, and really, one hi-end stereo system is more than enough. It also really needs a suitable room, as the one I have (and even the lounge) doesn’t suit adding rear speakers due to doors and stairs etc. Which is to say, I’ve decided to stick with 2 channel done well, or 2.1 in the case of the Nova in the lounge.
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In my near 30 year experience with surround sound, to achieve the best experience at home for movies you are going to have to invest in a decent 5.1 or bigger system, which is going to cost decent, not high end money and if your not prepared to do that then the fall back option is to stick with your very good stereo system and enjoy what you already have.
I read the What HiFi review of the new Sony AV Amp you mentioned and it got a good review, but for a little more you could get a Denon AVC-X3800 (about the same cost of your Qutest) which is a What HiFi Award Winner and for more money than that the much better Denon AVC-X4800 which has much better audio with High-End DSP chipsets etc etc without the High- End cost.
Then you need a good centre channel speaker, ideally best to match your stereo speakers, (I know Klipsch do good centre channel speakers) but not absolutely essential to match them up, plus a good subwoofer and then half decent rears only to make the 5.1 as a minimum or more if you want to go bigger than that.
So a decent surround system is going to cost some decent money, without a decent budget I would not recommend you get into surround sound because you obviously value very good sound quality and I think you will not be satisfied with the performance of a cheap surround system.
I don’t have any experience with sound bars so can’t comment on them.
I think your best option is to go and listen/demo a few AV Amps/Surround Systems and see if they are really appealing to you, then you will know if it’s worth investing in it or not and if so, how much you are then prepared to spend on it.
As others have said modern AV Amps are very good now and you can get good performance for a decent/reasonable price without going High-End Equipment/Cost.
That’s one of the saddest, most dispiriting things that I’ve read on this Forum in many years!
This has made me think a bit more about the Nova setup in our lounge, which runs with Totem Hawks and a single Totem Storm sub, so a 2.1. Adding a centre channel would be attractive, but I’m not sure there is a simple way to do this without a seperate AV amp, unless there is something like a powered centre speaker that can then output to the Nova or run two optical outputs from the TV to a sound bar and the Nova.
But then I though about the new Linn Seleck all in ones, as an alternative to the Nova, as you can add AV cards to them for running upto 5.1, which seems a lot more versatile over the Nova…… might think about that and see if there is a 3.1 option with the Linn. Rear channels is still a challenge for cabling, but I think Totem have some wired connectivity tech that might cover that?
I seem to recall that Naim once made a five-channel amp, intended for use in an AV system. Or is this just my over-active imagination running away with me again?
Hi Mike,
I dont know too much about sound bars but Im pretty sure you can connect them to the TV with HDMI eARC/ARC rather or as well as optiical so you can send the normal single TV optical out to your Nova.
As I understand it some soundbars also have preouts for front L&R and also wireless rear speakers so would be worth checking them out.
They made the NAP 6-50 which was a six-channel power amp intended to be used as part of a multi-room (not multi channel) audio system.
Then there was the NAPV 175, a three-channel power amp intended for home theatre use. Either you could use it to power your LCR channels and have a separate stereo amp for the surrounds, or use your stereo amp for L&R and use the 175 for the centre and surrounds.
I run my 5.1 system from a Sony AV amp, but using the same L&R speakers as my 2.0 Naim music system. I have been wondering about tracking down a NAPV175 and using Naim amplification for all 5 channels. However, the NAPV is 50WPC and my NAP200 is 70WPC, so wouldn’t that mean the channels would be unbalanced?
Mark
Hi Ebor
If you went for a NAPV 175 would you then not also need a 5.1 processor to decode the multi- channel signals to pass onto the amps and also the subwoofer.
Not sure what the advantage of that approach would be over your current Sony AV Amp?
Not at all Graham. It would be if it bothered my wife or myself but we now choose to listen at home only. No big deal I can assure you. YMMV as they say.
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Thank you, Ebor, it’s always good to know that I still have some grip on reality!
I very much doubt that you would notice much actual difference between 50WPC and 70WPC. Would you be intending to use five identical loudspeakers? I imagine that different speakers in the system would make a much bigger difference.
As for tracking down an NAP175, I would have a word with James Allney at TomTom Audio in St Albans, who is a wizard at tracking down hard-to-find Naim items. Or speak to a Naim specialist such as Peter Swain at Cymbiosis.
Exactly. That is my conclusion. Do it properly or not at all. If I had that kind of money to invest then I would have bought a Hugo TT2 rather than a Qutest DAC.
I know that many insist that the centre channel is vital. But I’ve also heard arguments to the contrary. Centre channel speakers are rarely as good as the main stereo pair so bear in mind that a good portion of the sound will be routed through an inferior speaker.
I ran a full Naim surround set-up many moons ago with a DVD5/AV2 and IBL’s as the front pair. I set the AV2 to ‘phantom centre’ mode and it was absolutely fine. Never really got all this stuff about the centre speaker ‘locking’ the dialogue to the screen. Stereo systems are quite capable of producing a solid centre image, so why should AV be any different?
Of course with a massive screen as in a commercial cinema then a centre may well be required as the L and R pair will be very far apart. But in a domestic setting I don’t see it.
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I had a look online just now. Rayleigh HiFi (in Essex) have an NAP V175 for sale, if that’s worth pursuing.
Plan would be to continue to use the Sony for decoding then run the five individual pre-outs into the Naim’s - my usual 200 for L&R duties, 175 for the other three.
Advantage (I assume) would be that a 200 and a 175 would outperform the power amps in the Sony.