Kenwood series 21

leeroy175

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Hi Guys

Ive been browising on here for along time and have been amazed what you guys do and the knowledge that you have. I have just brought my first house and am waiting for all the paperwork to be completed so really excited, When i move in a want to have a nice TV setup and Surround Sound/audio setup. My dad got me a Kenwood series 21 setup a few years back and i love it, the problem is i have a CD player (5 disc changer -dr350 i believe), A receiver and a cassette deck. I really want to run surround sound through it, but im unsure what to do i guess that i need to get the Kenwood Av Controller - cv350 (ive been quoted £1000, and Power Amp M-A300 (cant find one) and obviously the surround sound speakers. Any advice on these products or other Kenwood products or Other makes (not got alot of ££ at the mo so want to try and keep it low :) )

Thanks for the help guys and keep up the good work, i love looking at all ur projects and set up's , hopefully i can add mine when i move in and set up

Cheers Lee
 
Can you give us a bit more information on the Series 21. What is it? A quick google reveals a set of speakers. There are a few examples on ebay. What exactly do you have? It appears to have been fairly high end a few years back so should sound good but will lack modern connection options like HDMI which are now standard.

It might make more sense to start again to be honest, particularly as you said you don't have much £ to spend. There are a few bargain AV Receivers going around at the minute but don't take too long as stocks are getting low on some of them due to manufacturers' revamping their ranges. By starting again, you would be able to bring your system bang up-to-date. Perhaps keep the Kenwood setup for now for music.

You mention a CD player and a tape deck (what is one of those!?). This would indicate a stereo setup for music but you want surround sound. What do you have to connect? Do you have a bluray player for example? Bluray players use HDMI for passing HD lossless audio. Some more expensive players also have on board DACs and can output over multi-channel analogue connections. This is useful if you have an older AV Receiver etc.
 
What sort of AV receivers are available and how much money. Can u explain more about a basic Surround sound setup, what components i need, speakers ect and how to connect them all up because thats what i am finding confusing. The stereo is really good quality, but the ones on ebay have surround sound capabilities, so i didnt know if it was worth purchasing the seperate kenwood components that i need to build my system up as a surround sound unit.

Thanks for the response

Regards

Lee
 
A basic 5.1 surround setup would consist of an AV Receiver, which is effectively an AV Amplifer with a built in radio tuner and 5.1 speaker package. The .1 refers to the LFE/Subwoofer which handles the low frequencies that standard speakers cannot reproduce. This is particularly important with movies and for systems with small compact speakers which are fine for movies but no so good with music.

At the budget end (sub £500):

For £200 or less you have the likes of the Yamaha RX-V467 and Sony STR-DH810

For £250 - £300 you have the likes of the Yamaha RX-V667 titanium Yamaha RX-V667 black and Sony STR-DA3500ES and Denon AVR-1911

For £350 - £400 you have the likes of the
Yamaha RX-V767 and Denon AVR-2311

There are obviously other options from the likes of Pioneer, Onkyo and Marantz. Onkyo have just launched their new kit and as usual it offers a lot of bang for your buck.

Speaker wise - Boston XS, Jamo HCS5 A102, Tannoy SFX and Q-Acoustics 2000 series are all partnered with these sorts of receivers. Quantum Electronics might still have some of the MA Bronze 5.0 in stock (no sub but you can always add one later).

To be honest, budget speakers might not be worth bothering with if your present system is any good. I would get out and demo.

If you buy the right AV Receiver, you should be able to connect all your sources via both audio and video cables or HDMI which combines both and have just a single HDMI cable going to the TV. Do you have any older equipment that uses analogue video output (composite video/CVBS - yellow RCA, component video/YpBpR - green/blue/red RCA) or games consoles like wii, Xbox 360? Some receivers have a feature called video conversion aka upconversion which can convert analogue sources to HDMI. If a receiver has upscaling (altering one resolution from one to another), it can also upconvert analogue to HDMI. Regardless, the modern AV Receiver can act as a hub enabling you to switch/route all audio and video equipment through it.

The speakers connect to the speaker terminals on the AV Receiver using speaker cable. A standard setup would include 5 speakers (Front Left, Front Right, Centre, Rear Left and Rear Right). The (powered) subwoofer connects from the pre-amp subwoofer output to one of the inputs on the subwoofer e.g. Left using a RCA subwoofer cable.

How everything connects up will really depend on what equipment you have. You mentioned a CD player and Tape Deck. These will connect to an AV Receiver in the same way they do at present i.e. RCA phono cable.

You may well be able to incorporate the Kenwood speakers in a 5.1 setup using the Kenwood equipment or if the specs are compatible with an AV Receiver mentioned above. Using a modern AV Receiver would allow you to use the latest audio formats and features.

The above mentioned equipment is at the budget end. If music is important, I would be looking at the more expensive options quoted above and perhaps the next models up plus a set of full sized speakers. It will all come down to your budget and expectations and the sources you intend to connect. I would visit a dealer and get some recommendations and demonstrations of what is available so you can compare it with what you have at present.
 
Hi

Thanks for the info, when i mentioned a price in my first email i was meant to write 100 instead of 1000. Ive had a look at the av receivers that you have listed and i like the yamaha one, i think that as you have stated keep the kenwood as a stereo and purchase a receiver and speaker/sub kit, i think that makes more sense and will look smarter.

Thanks for the responses they have really helped me to understand more about a basic set up, im trying ot understand more but its quite confusing at times lol.

Thanks

Lee
 

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