Alex Butcher wrote:

After years of putting up with a gradually-dying twelve year old Aiwa
midi system, I'm thinking about picking up my first basic seperates
system. I've been reading around, and I plan to buy from Richer,
because most of the HiFi shops in Bristol tend to start rather
significantly further up the foodchain.

Right, just looking at the Richer web site now. Bought a lot of kit
there over the years (the Bristol branch in particular), and I still use
them quite a lot.

possibly a MythTV HTPC I'm thinking of building.

Until I read this part I was thinking of Cambridge Azur stuff, which
really is rather good. However, if you're thinking of home theatre, I'd
seriously consider going for an AV receiver right off the bat.

The Yamaha DSP-AX757 (£400) is really rather awesome. I have the older
DSP-AX620, which for the money (cost me £299 reduced from £399 about 4
years ago) was incredible. There's really nothing to match Yamaha for AV
under the £500 mark, and even music replay is pretty good for an AV
receiver.

Partner this up with a Toshiba SD-350 for £80 and you've got one
cracking system. The Toshiba has HDMI (so if you have or plan to buy a
flat panel display that'll come in handy), and plays all the usual, MP3
discs, and also does DivX. Only thing it doesn't appear to do is
DVD-Audio (my previous player was an SD-530, which does DVD-A).

You'll find with most AV receivers that a DVD player makes a perfectly
good CD transport, provided you use the DAC in the AV amp. Use a co-ax
rather than optical cable if possible, don't worry about spending vast
sums of money on a co-ax digital cable though. Just go down to Maplin
and get a metre or so of MIL-spec 75ohm co-ax (about £1.50/metre at the
last count) and a couple of gold plated phono plugs and make your own up.

If you want to move a bit further upmarket, cross over Whiteladies Road
from Richer Sounds, turn right, walk about 20 yards up the hill and
you'll find Sevenoaks Hi-Fi. From here, I would recommend without
hesitation:

Arcam AVR-250 AV receiver £1,000
Arcam DV-79 DVD/CD player £1,000

Now you're into a different league. This is the system I have, and it
blows the old Yamaha 620 into oblivion. The Yamaha receiver at the
£1,000 mark does sound a little more involving with movies, and again
does a pretty good job of music - but to quote What Hi-Fi, that would
always be qualified with the words "for an AV receiver". The Arcam needs
no such qualification, it's incredible with music, period. Even the DSP
modes for music actually work, for a change.

I'm running the AVR-250 into Mordaunt-Short Avant 908 floorstanders,
905C centre and 903S bipolar surrounds, and a B&W ASW-1000 sub.
Currently the system is running in 5.1 configuration with the fronts
bi-amped due to lack of space to install 2 pairs of surrounds (the
second set are boxed up in the spare room atm) but when I move into my
new house shortly I'll be setting up the full 7.1 system. Using Audio
Innovations Silver bi-wire cable for front speakers, currently
105-strand OFC for the surrounds (identical to Richer's Gale XL-105 but
bought on a 100m roll from CPC for £20!) which I'll be replacing with
the silver cable once I get the system properly set up in the new place.

Contrary to what some people on this group will tell you, it's worth
spending a few quid on decent speaker cables (and interconnects for
analogue). Nothing completely over-the-top, the Audio Innovations silver
is damned good though.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation