Mitch Harding;155036 Wrote: > I've been a Slim Devices customer for a few years now, and I'm thinking > about upgrading from my old, mass-produced Sony home theatre speaker > set > that I've had for about 8 years. I moved into a house which has some > built-in home theatre speakers that are fine for movies, but I'm not > satisfied with them for music. So my goal is to buy a 2.0 or 2.1 > speaker > setup to use for music, and use the built-in speakers for movies. > Ideally > I'd like to select speakers that could be expanded to a 5.1 (or 7.1) > setup > in the future, if I move and/or set up the home theatre in a different > room. I know that ideally I'd have different sets of speakers for > music and > for home theatre, but at some point convenience becomes more important > to > me. I guess maybe I shouldn't be posting this to the audiophiles list > in > that case!
I will no doubt get negative responses from audiophiles for this, but I believe with the right speakers and amplification, 2-channel music listening and multichannel surround sound are not incompatible. In fact, I don't see what the problem is with Dolby Pro-Logic IIx Music for listening to music. It's very well-done, very subtle and not at all distracting like those horrid "jazz" "hall" "live" "virtual" etc. DSP modes of yesteryear. Here's what might be a good compromise - spend more on your L/R speakers, making them floorstanders, and get bookshelf versions of the same speaker line from the same manufacturer for the SL, SR, SBL and SBR speakers. Match driver sizes too. For example, I'm using (now discontinued) Energy C-5 floorstanders for L/R which have two 6.5" drivers, Energy C-3 bookshelves for SL/SR/SBL/SBR (one 6.5" driver) and an Energy C-C3 centre (two 6.5" drivers). The main drivers are all matched as are the tweeters - the C-C3 has two 1" mids for voice reproduction but otherwise matches the rest. This along with a 12" sub. These speakers are all timbre-matched so channel transitions are seamless. The two floorstanders work hard for music, even with PLIIx on (as I said, the effect is subtle). What I've done is add amplification for the L/R using an old Hafler DH-200 amp. My receiver has preouts (yours does too), allowing an external amp to be used. Amplifiers in receivers are notoriously underpowered, using an external amp particularly in the critical L/R channels for music listening not only adds reserve capacity to those channels, it decreases the strain on the receiver power supply, theoretically liberating some extra power for the remaining channels. > I'm using a Marantz 7500 receiver as an amp right now. In the future > I'm > considering getting a dedicated amp just for the music speakers, but > for now > I'm planning on using the Marantz with the new speaker I buy. It has a > pure > direct mode which I've been using for music. So in my new setup I'd > be > driving these speakers with the 7500, and the input would pretty much > always > be Squeezebox playing FLAC (with some 192k+ mp3s mixed in for good > measure). Heh, I'm using a Marantz 8400 - the previous generation to yours (i.e. no autosetup) but with a toroidal power supply, HDCD decoding and copper-plated chassis. Very similar. Marantz receivers are actually very good for music. The company has been known for this for some time. Better than the Denon receivers I was using previously - much warmer and more musical. The Denons were "analytical" and sterile-sounding by comparison. > Anyway, I've got a couple of questions: > > 1) Out of curiosity, does anyone have any idea of the quality of the > DAC in > the 7500? I haven't been able to find any info on that, from Marantz > or > elsewhere. My comparison tests (between SB2 DAC and Marantz DAC) have > not > revealed huge differences, but that could easily be due to the quality > of > speakers that I am using. Once I have nicer speakers, I'll compare > them > again. I believe my 8400 uses the same DAC as your 7500. I'm not 100% sure what DAC is in my 8400, but the 7400 used a Cirrus Logic CS4382. I believe the 8400 used the same one and there were no changes to the x500 series, so that may be it. I initially found that the SB3 analog sound was too warm, almost muddy. I believe it's caused by the receiver's A-D conversion for analog sources as the SB3's DAC should be comparable to or better than the CS4382. Digitally, using the Marantz's DAC, the sound was much crisper and brighter, perhaps a little too bright. For some reason the SB's analog output sounded much better after SlimServer 6.5 and I've been using it ever since. As with most receivers, all analog sources go through A-D conversion then back to analog because DSP effects are all done digitally. Tone, speaker level and even volume controls are often done digitally, necessitating an A-D conversion. The Pure Bypass mode does bypass this conversion, but I'm left wondering how volume and tone control is implemented - sure looks digital to me, with the encoder volume control... I found Pure Direct to be brighter and not as muddy on the SB3, but kind of harsh. Also there's no speaker level control or any subwoofer output - it's straight to the L/R speakers. I don't use Pure Bypass even though I know I should - maybe I've gotten used to how it sounds with PLIIx. Much better bass output, warmer sound. > 2) I'm looking for speaker recommendations, either 2.0 or 2.1, with an > eye > to eventually pairing them with some satellites to become 5.1 or 7.1 > My > budget for the 2.0/2.1 setup is around $1k. I know this is a low > budget for > speakers, but I'm not a golden ear by any means. Does anyone have any > suggestions? I know one suggestion is to audition speakers, but I > haven't > found many places around here which have a good selection of speakers. > Once > I've settled on a few options, I'll do my best to track them down for > an > audition. If you want to integrate this 2-channel listening with multichannel listening (see above), get floorstanders for L/R and bookshelves with the same drivers from the same product line by the same manufacturer for surrounds. Add amplification to the L/R if you can. Eventually I would like to get an HT preamp/processor (pre/pro) with a true analog bypass like the Bryston SP2. With a pre/pro you also move all amplification externally so you can use high-quality audiophile amps. -- Mark Lanctot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29736 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
