On Fri, 2005-09-23 at 20:09 -0700, Maditude wrote: > This is probably rather off-topic, but here goes:
A little? This is the slim audiophiles list. Audiophiles hate home theater and everything it means. I think, er.... > The home-theater system that came with a new tv recently purchased, > can't seem to drive my in-wall speakers. Presumably because my > speakers are 8 ohm, while the speakers on the theater system are all 3 > ohms. What makes you say this? Can you not hear any output? did you try and the amp blew up and smoked? Speaker impedance was really, really important with tube amps. And it is important if you are putting lots of power into the speakers, as all speaker impedance numbers are "nominal" and many speakers go way below their nominal rating at specific frequencies. But most modern solid state amps can drive low impedance speakers and typically provide most power into them than more normal speakers. Within limits of course, driving a 3 ohm speaker that really drops to one ohm with lots of power approximates a short. But even then most modern amps have protections. And I assume that this is a current theater setup. > As it turns out, the dvd-player part is too big (it's a silly 5-disk > changer) to fit in the cabinet available anyways, so it's got to go. Your old DVD player? or the new one that came with the home theater rig? If you are looking for a decent and small DVD player, I just bought at Philips DVP642/37, it is wide like the rest of the stuff in the cabinet (cable box, amp, etc.) but only about an inch high. And it plays everything. Maybe not DVD-audio, but all sorts of computer generated video and audio. > My dilemma is that my wife is irate because: > 1) She really wants surround-sound (it did sound very nice with the > speakers it came with) > and > 2) there's a pair of now-useless speakers in the wall (had planned on > them being the "rear" two speakers). Surround speakers do not have to have much, if any, fidelity specs. They for sure do not need to be audiophile. So you may be in luck there. > If I was to buy a regular 5.1 receiver, do I need to make sure that it, > or any dvd player connected to it, has anything other than the usual rca > component cords? Regular 5.1? not a 6.1? or 7.1? Just having two rear speakers is so last century. Are you planning on getting a subwoofer for the .1 part? (you should, action movies need a sub for all the bombs and crashes and explosions and stuff.) I think you need a bit more background on home theater stuff. Most of them put out the audio on a single RCA using S/PDIF. Or on a optical link (toslink). And they put out the video in many formats, usually a yellow RCA composite, a DIN S-video, and newer ones will have three component jacks in either RCA or BNC and maybe a firewire or HDMI. Plus there are speaker wires going everywhere. And usually a mic, or instructions to get a Radio Shack sound level meter so you can balance the 5, 6, or 7 speakers. There are also theological arguments about whether or not the surround speakers should be dipole or not. And where to put the rear speakers, some go beside your sofa, and others behind. Which is why 7.1 is there, so you can have two beside the sofa and two behind. >From there, it starts to get more fun. -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
