Piecing together a sound system.

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smackaholic
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Piecing together a sound system.

Post by smackaholic »

Bought a veruh nice Sharp Aquos 46 incher a few months back. Now I need a decent sound system for it.

I was thinking of just using my old but pretty fukking awesome polk monitor 5s along with my old kenwood amp.

Is it worth my while to get an actual surround receiver/surround speakers? Do you gain much having that 5 channel or what ever it is stereo dealio?

I guess a really nice polk or bose surround system would be the way to go, but, folks ain't giving them away. I could pick up a cheap surround system, but, no fukking way the sound matches my old polks.

Could I use my polks as the side channels/sub and maybe just buy a surround receiver and a center channel?

One of you AV geeks help a brotha out.
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ElTaco
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Re: Piecing together a sound system.

Post by ElTaco »

I'm far from a Sound engineer, in fact my hearing sucks big time. Since I don't have an impressive movie studio setup, I just wanted better sound than the TV puts out without having to run millions of cables through the new house so I got one of those sound bar setups with a separate wireless Sub. In hindsight, I probably could done better with a standard sound system, but I still appreciate not having to run stupid cables for the 5.1 or even 7.1 sound. The sound bars have come a decent way, but I would say, this system is just slightly better than what the TV puts out. Far from 3D or 5.1 sound...

First, you should be able to use your existing awesome speakers with any half way decent Receiver. If you are going to spend the money on a good sound system, stay away from wireless. You should be able to use your speakers as the front left and right speaker, than just get a center speaker and two rear speakers + sub for the surround 5.1 (or even 7.1 if you want to go that high).

I think the big deciding factor is: What type of video do you watch. Regular TV (cable/satelite, etc..) will not make much of a difference because most of them don't send digital 5.1 sound, but if you watch a lot of HD/Blueray content, specially big Hollywood war/action flicks than it may be worth it and if you play a lot of action games it may be an improvement. I would also probably consider the room. If you have small kids, you'll probably get a lot less use out of it.

I do know that I have seen some Receivers now come with Calibration built in. Not sure why this is so new, I seem to remember some of the nicer Receivers doing this even 10+ years ago, but I guess now the Receivers have Microphones built in so that it can tell you the optimal placement of the speakers in the room and the optimal sitting area to bear the best sound.

That is all I know, fairly basic. I'm sure some of the music fanatics / Movie buffs will have much more relevant data/info to provide.
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smackaholic
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Re: Piecing together a sound system.

Post by smackaholic »

thanks for the reply tac.

i dug out my old audio equipment and tested it. unfortunately 1 of the speakers has a bad woofer, the other has a bad tweeter. not really sure yet if i will replace them. i am looking at a set of polk satelite speakers that hopefully will go cheap. i may use them and see if i can use my one good woofer as a sub.
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Re: Piecing together a sound system.

Post by Dinsdale »

I have a sweet set of Monitor 7s.

They'd work great for front surround speakers, if I was so inclined.
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Re: Piecing together a sound system.

Post by smackaholic »

ended up buying a JBL Propack 600II system off some dude on CL. It's not bad, but not up to the sound of my old monitor 5s. I may end up selling it though as i just scored a set of infinity SM82s at a yard sale for 10 bucks. One woofer needs refoaming, but, it is no big deal. Also found a Bose center channel at the salvation army for about 6 bucks. I hooked these three up to the JBL system and they kick ass, even with one woofer pretty much foamless. I will probably throw the bose center channel on feebay as they regularly bring over 100 bones.
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