Upgrade - Which route would be more beneficial to the ear

iqofafish

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I'm just trying to figure out what upgrade option with a budget of £600-£800 would give me greater gains.

Current set-up consists of, Sony STR-DG820 with Tannoy F1/FC Custom fronts, with Tannoy EFX rears and a Tannoy EFX sub.

Option 1. Upgrade the AV receiver to something like an Onkyo TX-NR609, and replace the sub with a BK XLS200 MK2., keeping the Customs in place (to be upgraded at a future date)

Option 2. Keep the 820 in situ and upgrade the Tannoy Customs with Acoustic Energy Neo 3 V2 floorstanders and Neo V2 centre. Replace the EFX rears with the Customs. Think the EFX sub would then be removed entirely and then maybe put a BK XLS200 MK2 in place if need be.

Both of the options will eventually take place, it's just a case of which way round to do it with financial constraints.

Wondering also if it may be beneficial to pop into Peter Tysons and get a demo of an Onkyo with Tannoy V1 speakers and a Sony AV with the Neo's to see which option sounds better. Not perfect obviously, but closest demo scenario to my situation.

Appreciate people thoughts and pointers on any pitfalls or issues I have missed.

Thanks.
 
Can you provide room dimension and a quick sketch up of the room plan and speaker placement?

How will the system be used (music/movie ratio) and do you plan to listen to stereo source in 2.0 or 2.1?

Do you plan on buying everything new or don't mind used?

What do you find currently lacking with the system?
 
What MI55ION said above, and you said £600-£800, each of those options comes well below that. To be honest you're in a slightly unusual place where you could gain quite a bit from either an AVR or speaker upgrade given your budget, but at the same time not enough to make a worthwhile upgrade to both. What you could do also mostly depends on your answers to the questions above.

Just as an idea, I would suggest spending that budget on an LCR set for now, relegating the F1 Customs to rear duties, and then later on getting a sub, and a new AVR afterwards. The last two items depend on what you'll find missing - power/clarity, or low end - and also of course on your budget. If you will be able to find £300 or so later on then a sub could be a better idea, whereas a significantly better AVR would probably be closer to £500 or more.

As I said, it all depends on the room and (most importantly) what you would want to improve first.
 
Thanks guys. The system will be used for a mixture of 2.0/2.1/5.1. I use it for everyday tv, film viewing and music. No issues with buying used as the Customs were bought 2nd hand anyway.

As for what I think is lacking..........I'll be brutally and honest and say it's more a case of "scared i'm missing out on something itous".

The sub is ok I guess, bit boomy, but as it came with the EFX sats as a package and the whole thing cost about £100 it's never going to be on a level with a £300 sub.

The rears are ok and was only going to replace them with the Customs as they would be spare, but with the room being quite narrow, may end up just leaving the rears as is.

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Thanks guys. The system will be used for a mixture of 2.0/2.1/5.1. I use it for everyday tv, film viewing and music. No issues with buying used as the Customs were bought 2nd hand anyway.

As for what I think is lacking..........I'll be brutally and honest and say it's more a case of "scared i'm missing out on something itous".

The sub is ok I guess, bit boomy, but as it came with the EFX sats as a package and the whole thing cost about £100 it's never going to be on a level with a £300 sub.

The rears are ok and was only going to replace them with the Customs as they would be spare, but with the room being quite narrow, may end up just leaving the rears as is.

image

Ah, that old one - most people would probably just call it "upgrade-itus", and mine's alive and well too, thank you..

I would still say that you can gain something on all fronts, and it comes down to your preference / amount you're willing to spend / what you may find in the Classifieds. A better sub would definitely give you cleaner and probably deeper low-end, better speakers (front three at least) would most likely improve overall sound quality, and a better AVR would help too in terms of power/control and potentially calibration as well (ie: one of the more capable Audyssey models such as MultEQ XT).

I would say don't consider upgrading the AVR unless you're going to spend £500 or so second hand (for something new-ish). Have a think about what you would like to see improved, and either find a considerably better set of three fronts, or buy the largest (and best, obviously) sub you can fit & afford - the XXLS200 should be quite an improvement, yet of course I can't help but recommend going all the way to a Monolith; the ported design will go lower, and it's still a handsome beast.

Front speaker wise, you do have quite a few choices. Personally I'd recommend Focal, Dali or XTZ but they tend to be quite rare in the Classifieds. Do take a look though, ideally even go into some shops and listen to various models and see which sound fits your ears better, there can be a large variation in sound between different models let alone different brands and each person has different preferences.
 
Thanks for taking the time to answer those questions, it now gives us something to work with.

You can go about this in a few different ways but sooner or later everything will have to be upgraded if you want to step up a level or two.

My first suggestion is don't take small incremental steps, for a big worthwhile difference you need to think big even if that means buying used and taking your time to save up for the next purchase.

I would class the room on the smallish end of small. Lets get the obvious out of the way, it cant accommodate large floor-standing speakers. Quality stand mounts with matching centre, a quality sub with EQ and decent AVR would be an excellent start. The most difficult purchase will be to find speakers that are suited to your room, system and budget. As such i would leave this purchase to the end, until you've had a chance to do further research, make a short list of speakers you want to demo or buy if you're looking in the used market until something suitable comes along.

In the meantime, going back to your original question what would make a big difference with a budget of up to £800? I would start with the sub. Forget any preconceptions you have about bass or whatever distortion you've heard from the Tannoy 'sub', you haven't experienced real bass. A sub upgrade would give a significant boost to what you have been 'missing'. However with a big sub you must take in to account troublesome room modes that can only practically be addressed either with built in room correction software as found for example in some AVRs with Aydessey XT32 or an external EQ device such as the Antimode. The combination of sub+eq (not all eq are the same!) will provide clean boom-free bass that will add another dimension to your listening experience which you have yet to discover.

Lets assume you budget £400 for something like the xxl400 or Monolith, £150 for the antimode, this leaves approximately £250 for an AVR (£400 if you can find an AVR with Aydessey XT32). So for example, looking at the classifieds you can easily pick up a Yamaha 2700 for around £200 which is quite frankly stupid money for an AVR that retailed for £1300 just a few years back. Although it doesn't have advanced room EQ, it accepts HD audio, has quality speaker/bass management, ample power reserves, multichannel preouts (for future proofing) and very good DACs which will be a massive upgrade to what you have at present. Put it this way, to match its quality today you'd need to spend close to 1k+. Add the Antimode and your ears will thank you. That's where i would start.

Anyway, hope that gives you an idea, I'm sure others can contribute further and suggest a few alternatives.
 
Many thanks for taking the time to reply guys.

Plenty food for thought. Luckily the funds aren't available for a couple of months, so I at least have the chance to sit and read and look at my options carefully and not rush into anything. I'd not even heard of an antimode, so just goes to show how much there is to consider when upgrading. :blush:

Thanks again for the advice.:thumbsup:
 
Jos180 said:
Many thanks for taking the time to reply guys.

Plenty food for thought. Luckily the funds aren't available for a couple of months, so I at least have the chance to sit and read and look at my options carefully and not rush into anything. I'd not even heard of an antimode, so just goes to show how much there is to consider when upgrading. :blush:

Thanks again for the advice.:thumbsup:

Just wanted to add whilst doing your research in to AVRs don't get caught up with all the marketing bull, keep it simple and look at AVRs that concentrate on sound quality. A simple way to look at it with mid to high end AVRs is the less features it has the better the sound quality! Good DACs, flexible speaker/bass management, multi channel inputs/outputs, clean analogue signal path (most fail here) and real world power figures are all indicative of what you might expect to find from a decent AVR.

Oh and take a look here in case you think a Monolith or similar is too big for your little room:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/subw...ers/1670339-bk-monolith-thread-part-five.html

"Maybe I just got lucky because I just cant get over how much better the whole sound system sounds"

If you do decide to go down this upgrade road keep in mind it's very important to upgrade the AVR at the same time to one with better bass management and room Eq/Antimode.
 
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