I think if you go for the Sony or something equally budget then sooner or later you'll find its limitations and be back here again for advice. In short, IMO they're a waste of money.

Yamaha do some cracking AV packages based on a proper AV amp and proper AV speakers.

Here are some links:

RXV-361 Receiver NSP110 speakers

Why is this better than an all-in-one, you might ask. Well for a start it isn't going to cut out during the adverts! But seriously, this gear might be entry level for Yamaha, but it's real home cinema gear.

The amp has a decent range of inputs, proper AV set-up facilities for speaker distance and size which means a more convincing surround sound effect. It has a full compliment of surround processing modes including Dolby ProLogicII, and what's even better is it uses much better quality electronics (192kHz DACS) to decode the sound.

The speakers are budget but are still true home cinema speakers. e.g. The small satellite speakers attach directly to the amp, not the sub. This is important if you ever fancy upgrading. The Yam kit will allow you to add better quality front speakers or a new centre speaker without having to change all the speakers at once.

The amp & speaker kit is available for around £200 or less from most of the volume box shifters. Do a search in pricerunner.co.uk for RXV 361 and you'll find the discounters easily.

Stop wasting your time and money. Buy something that will do the job. You won't look back, I can almost guarantee it.

Regards

Great advice there from Chris.

Ignore it at your peril!

Oh yes, and Chris, is it a real problem having speakers that are of lower wattage than the amplifier? My amp outputs 75w x 5 channels, however my speakers are lower than this. However, I have set the speakers to "small" on the amp settings as it says "if the cone diameter is smaller than 12cm set speaker size to small" and they are about 10cm diameter.

Having lower wattage speakers than your amplifier is only a problem if you like to listen loud

Provided you are sensible with the volume control you should be OK. Strange as it may seem you could do more damage the other way round, ie higher wattage speakers than amplifier!

If you crank up the wick on a low powered amplifier to get a decent level of noise out of the speakers you could run it into clipping. This is where basically it runs out of volts in the power supply and chops off the tops and bottoms of the waveform if you looked at it on an oscilloscope.

This generates all kinds of nastiness that could have as serious an effect on your speakers health as feeding too many watts into them! At least with a high power amp you can run it at a lower volume where it is under less strain and so producing less garbage. The only danger left is someone cranking it up to 11, whereupon you are liable to find the speaker cones lying on the carpet

Oh and another thing to watch for. Check out the impedance of the speakers. Most amps will be rated into a specific impedance, usually 8ohms. If your speakers are 4ohms they will draw twice as much current as an 8ohm speaker at the same output voltage. If the amp isn't designed for 4ohm speakers it could run out of current capacity if you turn it up loud. Which could result in the protection circuits cutting in or (if there are no protection circuits) the amp producing yet more speaker threatening nasties.
Last edited by chrisjr : 16-03-2008 at 14:23

Ah I see, thanks Chris Junior (any relation to Chris Frost? )

Well my speakers are 4 ohms, with the subwoofer being 3.5 ohms and my amp is rated at 6 ohms per channel (x 5 channels). Hmm...

Annoying thing is I can't find the wattage for my speakers anywhere. The manufacturers just didn't include it, only the impedance and frequency response.

Actually t'other Chris is Junior (sadly for me if he is not lying about his age in his profile )

Should be OK running 4 ohm speakers off your amp. As I say just use a bit of caution on the volume control setting. Although the amp may be rated into 6 ohms it does not necessarily mean it can only drive 6ohms. But you can't break Ohms law which relates voltage, current, wattage and resistance/impedance.

So 4 ohms will draw half as much current again as 6 ohms at any voltage. Provided you don't try to draw more current that the amp can deliver you should be OK.

Odd that the speaker wattage isn't given. That is one of the more important parameters to know. After all if they are rated just 10W you wouldn't want to plug them into the PA amps at an Iron Maiden gig would you!

Take it you have tried the manufacturers website (if there is one)?

Thanks


Chrisjr's advice is good on this. Distortion is bad, so avoid under powered amps.

IMO most equipment spec's should be taken with a pinch of salt; that includes amplifier wattages too. There are exceptions of course, but very often you'll find that the amp power quoted is at a high distortion and at a specific frequency where the amp & speaker combination used for measuring produces the greatest output. It's not real life unfortunately, but big numbers sell so the manufacturers changed their measuring techniques to produce those big numbers.

The flip side is that at normal listening levels you might only be drawing a few watts to produce a reasonable volume level.

Regards

Well Videologic have changed to Imagination Technologies since 1999, of which "Pure" is their main brand so they are only supplying chips for making DAB Digital Radios now.

So nope, nothing there either.

Anyway, thanks to both Chris'. I should be OK as I don't listen at crazy volumes.

So those two are a perfect combo? If so, I'll get them asap.

Edit: I just found this on ebay, any good?

Not the bargain it first seems.

The amp has no Prologic II and there's no subwoofer included in the sale.

Considering the auction stands at £56 with 17hrs and 7 bidders it's likely to finish at a higher price - maybe £100? Add on top the pretty hefty £30 P&P plus the cost of buying a sub and you might end up close to £180 for a secondhand package. £20 more gets you something brand new and up to date. This Ebay sales looks like poor value to me.

My final piece of advice to you is to go buy a new kit.

That's correct. Although there ARE good deals to be had on eBay, you have to weigh it up against the cost of one new, without the delivery (you can pick up in store) and without the hassle in a way (not as described, doesn't work, etc).

As Chris F has pointed out, without a subwoofer and no Pro Logic II this is a RAW deal! I mean no Pro Logic II?

Best to get the ones Chris recommended... new!

Ok guys, point taken. I'll just have to transfer my Paypal cash into my bank and spend from there instead :P

Great! When you get your system, just in case you don't like it feel free to blame Chris F.

Seriously, I can't see you going wrong with the system that Chris suggested.

Just ordered these, the receiver will be here on Tuesday..maybe a day or so later for the speakers, will let you know how it goes...

have a similar system just a few models above - really great sound.

The thing with Yamaha is the sound is neutral- a lot of companies (llike sony) mess around with the amp to generate brilliance or bass but after a while it gets tiresome on the ear. Yamaha to me sounded flat at first but after a while you could tell the sound you were getting was the natural element not OTT

Just some advice for that setup- go into the setup menu and change the subwoofer crossover a little higher- Yamaha set it as 90 but for thoes speakers i found it was too low and 160 is better- you get warmer sound then - this all depends on your source, ear and room acoustics etc

Got the receiver, whoa wasnt expecting it to be that big lol. But the speakers will take a while longer to get, seems that Digital Direct only sends out to the card's address, bah.

So when I get the speakers (hopefully this week) what cables from them should I connect to the receiver and which ones should I connect to the subwoofer? Sorry, I'm rather confused by it all lol.

Regular speaker cable from the amp to the speakers.

Phono out from the "subwoofer pre out" on the amp to the phono input on the subwoofer.

-Chris

Just got the speakers now, gonna set it all up tomorrow hopefully. Will let you guys know the results

I did notice that my PC sound card has some digital inputs which are black and orange, they are labelled S/PDIF-Out and S/PDIF-In. Any idea if I would be able to successfully connect that to my amp or subwoofer with whatever cable is required (any help on what that cable is would also help a great deal) until then I'm stuck with my headphones. FYI the sound card is a realtek one.

Use the S/PDIF-Out. You need a jack to phono cable. Connect the phono end to your amp.

The S/PDIF carries all the surround info including the digital signal for the sub. The amp will sort out theses signals and send them to the correct speakers. Your sub should be connected to the amp, not the sound card.

My PC is connected to the TV through DVI though, and that doesnt carry sound. I thought the only way to solve it would be to connect a cable to the sound card to the amp, any suggestions? Btw, any idea what cable would work with S/PDIF if thats the one to use?

Adam, that's exactly what I said to do in the previous post.

Silly me! I just noticed that the PC has an optical slot at the back, sonofa...I went through the same thing with the DVI slots! If I hook up an optical cable from there to the amp, that would work?

Adam,
I've read your last three posts again and again. Look, I don't want to be rude mate, you've got to try to read and understand the replies.


To which I replied...


I know you're asking for help and no-one is obliged to reply, but if someone does give you the benefit of their time and knowledge then please try read and understand their posts.

All the info you need is in that reply. It's also worded in plain English. If this still doesn't make sense then perhaps it's time to get somebody in to hook up this gear for you.

Sorry Chris, all of this is incredibly new to me.