Alex Butcher wrote:
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.
Same here, though only bits and pieces until now. I'm happy that
Richer are a no-nonsense vendor a good few steps up from the likes of
Currys/Dixons/Comet et al.
Currys are great if you want to buy a fridge or freezer.
Dixons are ok for portable audio, laptops or lower end digital cameras -
that said I got my first digital SLR (Canon EOS-300D) at Dixons at The
Mall, but they seem to have a better range. Normally I'd go somewhere
like Jessops for camera kit, the staff at the Whiteladies Road branch
have always given me excellent service. I ended up buying a digital
compact camera (Canon A95) there, as well as a couple of lenses, Cokin
filters and various other accessories.
Comet... the one at Cribbs is pretty good, as long as you've got some
idea of what you're after. Got my telly there in the 2005 January sales,
32" Panasonic flat CRT for £399. Also got my Sky+ box there, and a lot
of other bits. Including an espresso machine (kind of essential for a
caffeine addict such as myself).
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.
Was that the 540A Amp/540Cv2 CD/MS902i speaker bundle for 400? Or
some other combination of components?
I think I was looking at the 640 series, although the 540s are still
very good.
Don't know what the 902 speakers are like, but I'd imagine they'd be
pretty good. I've got the 908s myself (floorstanders with a 10" sub-bass
driver built into the side) and they're awesome.
If you do go for this system, it might be worth seeing if you can
persuade the nice man at Richer Sounds to upgrade you to a higher
speaker in the Mordaunt-Short range if you pay the difference.
However, if you're thinking of home theatre, I'd seriously consider
going for an AV receiver right off the bat.
Damn. That's the decision I've been wrestling with almost from the
outset. I thought I'd had it settled, on the basis that I already
have a Samsung all-in-one HT system that does 5.1, dts and Prologic
II well enough for my needs. It also has a digital input that I can
use for any future HTPC. HT isn't really /that/ important to me (I
feel that surround sound is largely only being used by showy "effects
movies" of which I'm increasingly tiring, some impressive live music
DVDs notwithstanding), but a HTPC that can record DVB-T audio/video
to HDD, burn to CD/DVD, act as a fixed mp3/ogg jukebox, copy CDs etc.
would be useful to me, and more flexible, modular, functional and
cost-effective than dedicated units.
You'd be surprised actually. Once you get past the crash-bang-wallop
demo material, it's surprising that it's the subtle surround effects
that make the difference. On one particular DVD I have, the most
impressive surround moment is during an outdoor scene when you suddenly
realise there's bird song happening all around you.
Yes, I was looking at the next model down in Yamaha's range - the
RX-V657 for 300 notes. Or maybe, something at the bottom of the range
(e.g. RX-V357) with a plan to upgrade when the 757 is at the same
pricepoint.
As long as you get something with lots of digital inputs you'll be fine.
But if you're planning to get a basic model and upgrade later, then my
advice would be to get the better model straight away if your finances
will stretch. Otherwise it'll end up costing you just as much, perhaps
even slightly more.
Let's say that by waiting you get the 757 for £100 less. You're probably
going to lose at least that much on depreciation of the "lesser" model.
So you haven't actually saved anything, and if it depreciates more than
£100 you'll have ended up spending more.
Bear in mind with the 757 you're paying for the amplifier and
DSP/surround. (The model number starts DSP-AX, meaning there's no
tuner.) With the RX-V models you're paying for an AM/FM tuner, which you
may or may not want. There is an RX-V757 available, just as there was a
receiver version of my DSP-AX620, which surprisingly enough was called
the RX-V620. Expect to pay around £50 more for having the tuner.
I'm still watching TV and DVDs on a 4:3 ex-rental CRT, and I have no
plans to upgrade it unless it dies (and it's gone eight years since I
bought it now).
Yup, ex-rental stuff is often a good deal. We bought a Panasonic TX25T2
25" 4:3 set in 1993, which lasted (with one repair) until December 2004.
I replaced it with another Panasonic, the 32" widescreen one that I
bought from Comet (mentioned above).
I also have a Ferguson 3V43 VCR (rebadged JVC HR-D725), manufactured
June 1985, I bought it in December 1993 for £120 from Rumbelows
(remember them?), few repairs, new belts, new heads (£30, fitted them
myself), needed a new power supply in March 2001, but nearly 21 years on
it's still going strong. And the picture on it puts any modern VCR to shame.
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.
Yes, that was precisely my thinking.
Other interesting thing - comparing using a Technics SL-PG590 as a
transport against a Toshiba SD-530, the DVD player actually sounds
better when the SPDIF signal is fed into an offboard DAC. There's more
detail, the sound is clearer and the soundstaging is more precise. Not
sure why this should be, but it's repeatable, have tested it using
several combinations of DAC, CD player and DVD player, using both
optical and co-ax digital connections.
I used to make my own cables up, but these days, I just buy
cheap-but-serviceable ready-made cables - especially for fiddly
connectors like SCARTs. Maplin have a 75ohm ready-made co-ax cable
for 5GBP which was what I had in mind - cheaper than optical, and
saves two domain conversions (i.e. electrical-optical and back
again).
If you can get a suitable 75ohm co-ax cable for a fiver, that'll do the
job just fine. I use a slightly more expensive one for one simple
reason... the plugs fit more firmly in their sockets, and are less
likely to fall out. When you've got as many cables behind your system as
I have, that's something that it's worth spending a couple of quid extra
for!
Arcam AVR-250 AV receiver £1,000 Arcam DV-79 DVD/CD player £1,000
Now you're into a different league.
I don't doubt it! No, based on my usage patterns, I can't really
justify to myself spending that much on HE gear. Each to his or her
own, though. After all, folks who compulsively upgrade mean that good
gear gets obsoleted quickly and sold in Richer for modest sums to us
mortals! :-)
Well, there is that factor!
Arcam kit is fantastic though. When I got the AVR-250 I happened to hit
it lucky as Sevenoaks had it on offer for £899 (so £100 off).
And when I got the DV-79... well I happened to be in the right place at
the right time. Radford Hi-Fi were closing down, and a bit of
negotiation secured me a DV-79 (worth £1,000) for about £530. :-)
A chap in Audio Excellence offered the rule of thumb that if the CD
player is less than 200GBP, a DVD player into a
200GBP AV receiver will probably sound better. What say you?
It's very difficult to say.
My Technics SL-PG590 sounded better going over SPDIF into the Yamaha 620
than over analogue (using the Yamaha's DAC instead of its own). But the
SD-530 sounded better than the Technics... and also had the benefit of
being able to play DVD-Audio.
I'd say that generally a decent DVD player into a £300 AV amp will sound
better than a £150 CD player. By "decent" I mean something like a
Toshiba or Cambridge Audio, not a "supermarket special". These will
generally have a high level of jitter on the digital outputs, which will
throw the error correction on the amplifier's DAC into overdrive. Which
in turn will make the sound... not so good.
I'm pretty happy with the idea that using thick cables for speakers
is a good idea, given the current drawn. I got Richer to throw in a
few metres of Gale XL189 when I bought the Gale Monitors a few years
back. These days, I'd probably go with some XS84F/XS85G 12A speaker
cable now.
The XL-189 is good stuff. I use that for the LF on the system here in
the office, which is slight overkill in itself:
Creative MP3 Blaster USB sound card
Arcam Black Box 50 DAC
Yamaha DSP-A592 AV amplifier
Eltax Symphony 6/Symphony Centre/Millennium Mini speakers
Using XL-105 for the HF and centre/surrounds.
Conversely, let's just say that I'm rather more skeptical about the
benefits of fancy interconnects (assuming no audible mains hum, etc)
and leave it at that. Maybe I might pick up one to test with. :-)
There's fancy and there's esoteric. Then there's snake oil.
If you went for the Cambridge system described above, you'd want to pick
up an Atlantic interconnect for a tenner. Try swapping between the
freebie and the Atlantic and you'll hear a world of difference.
Whether you'd hear a difference with higher spec cables is uncertain. I
did some experiments here swapping between a Cambridge Atlantic (£10),
Pearl (£15), Pacific (£30) and Chord Cobra II (£55). Amplifier in use
was a Technics SU-VX600.
First test, running between Technics SL-PG580 and amplifier. Swapping
freebie for Atlantic made a huge difference. Swapping Atlantic for
Pearl, Pacific or Cobra II made no audible difference.
Second test, patch digital out of Technics player into Arcam Black Box
50. Then try different cables between the DAC and amplifier.
This time around you could hear a significant improvement with each step
up, right up to the Cobra II.
The rule of thumb with cables is 10% of your budget, but this is just a
guideline. It's worth putting a decent interconnect between your CD
player and amp (if you're using the analogue out on your CD player). If
you're using digital, any decent well screened 75ohm cable will do the
job (as long as it's properly made).
For speaker cables, generally the thicker the better (thicker cable ==
lower resistance), although if you're using silver cables you can get
away with a thinner cable.
When I bought the Avant 908s Richer threw in two lengths of Audio
Innovations bi-wire (I was previously using XL-105 for HF and XL-189 for
LF). I really wasn't expecting a difference, as the XL-105/189 is good
stuff. But I figured as it was a freebie I'd give it a try...
I was absolutely blown away by the difference it made. I can only
describe it as like having a veil lifted off the music.
The bi-wire version is only about £4/metre, well worth it I'd say.
(For the record, I initially hooked the 908s up on the existing runs of
cable, and swapped the cables after a couple of days. Just in case
anyone interprets that description as "I swapped the cables at the same
time as the speakers" - which wouldn't be unheard of!)
--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions
http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/
IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation
Newbie's first seperates system
Linear Mode
