Hi there,

If this thread is in the wrong place, I'm very sorry - I'm new here

Also sorry it turned out so long

Anyways, my parents are redoing the lounge and I've tasked myself with sorting out the sound side of things. Have quickly come to realise I know little/nothing about home cinema, so it's not gonna be easy (for me, or you )

Anyway: As it stands, we've got an olde toshiba 28" crt in the corner of the lounge, with "surround sound" that came with it. And a bulky aiwa "look how big my woofers are" hifi.

I've managed to pursuade them that as part of the refit they should combine the two into a proper home cinema system, which they've gone for.

I've even managed to get them to take out the old gas fire (has been done now) so that the new TV (we're thinking tosh 32" wl66) can go in the middle of the room.

So. My questions:
1) What sound setup should we go for? We want something that will sound good for movies (although, clearly, almost anything we get will be better than the included surround sound the last TV had) and something that will sound good for music, too. Think we're looking <£1k.

I've been reading on here/general web a bit and think I fancy either the MS genies or the KEF 2005.2s by way of speakers and maybe the denon avr1907 or the sony STRK880 for an amp.

This normally adds up to around £800 (from creative audio or richer sounds), leaving around £200 for DVD/cabling.
(the nice thing about creative audio is that cables are included in the denon/kef setup - although it's a fair drive from here (oxford)(apparently they dont ship KEFs)).

The DVD player - I'd like multiregion, divX, upscaling and HDMI, but don't mind too much. I also wouldn't mind it being a recorder so I can burn stuff off of the Humax (9200t).

Budget isn't too strict, as long as I can show my dad it's money well spent

2) Who're the best people to buy from? As I mentioned, CA including the cables makes them a bit cheaper than RS, but will be about 6 hours round trip. (vs half hour to richer sounds)

3) The front speakers - we're getting new units in the lounge. This is going mean a media unit in the middle, then a bookcase (with doors) immediately on either side and a "bridging unit" above the TV joining the bookcases.

The media unit is 150cm across and the TV is around 90cm - will the speakers be too close to the set if we stand them on this unit? (will probably be about 15cm away on each side).

The other option is to have them the other side of the bookcases in each corner - probably around 140cm feet away from the set. And will the bookcases muffle the sound if we wallmount them in the corners? (they will be in little gaps around 30cm deep (the depth of the bookcases) and around 40cm wide. Could also, possibly, standmount in this space (so angle them into the room a bit) - but god knows where the sub would go then

4) The rear speakers - They're going to be angled into the room in each rear corner around 100-150cm behind the sofa I guess. I'd like to standmount them, keep the cables tidy, as we've just painted the room, so aren't too keen to go messing up the walls again. The stands for the kef's/ms's, however, seem to be around 90cm high. It just doesn't seem high enough for the sound to "clear" the back of the sofa comfortably? Is the only option to stick them up on the wall. If so, any tips for getting the wires out of the way without completely wrecking the decorating?

Thanks very much in advance.

[Ian J]

Originally Posted by jaz_the_walrus

1) What sound setup should we go for? We want something that will sound good for movies (although, clearly, almost anything we get will be better than the included surround sound the last TV had) and something that will sound good for music, too. Think we're looking <£1k.

I've been reading on here/general web a bit and think I fancy either the MS genies or the KEF 2005.2s by way of speakers

Have a look in the speaker forum powerbuys here where there are a couple of makes worth looking at.

If you can accomodate full size bookshelf speakers the new SVS package of four monitor speakers, a dedicated centre speaker plus the same SB-12 subwoofer that I run in my far more expensive system is possible unbeatable for music and movies at the special forum price of £859

The other make in the speaker powerbuys is Canton and I heard a 5.1 system based on the Canton CD151 at Bristol at the weekend and that seemed to be punching well above it's £600 price point. We only heard it with movies and my guess is that it would lose out to the SVS in the music stakes as the main speakers are much smaller