evilspoons
12-27-2010, 06:35 PM
Hello! This is my first post here, and I'm looking for some advice. I have a condo (apartment) that I moved into recently, and I want to construct some sort of stereo.
I have a 46" Samsung TV with absolutely awful speakers. They made the TV super thin, which is useless since it's in a deep cabinet anyway and left out any possibility of fitting decent speakers into the unit. Voices on blu-ray movies and even regular TV can get muffled and hard to understand... ugh.
I also am quite the music-listener and I'm picky about sound to the point of annoying other people. I'm the guy who sets up people's TVs and stereos when I go to their house for a party or something. I currently have a harmon/kardon iPod boom box thing that serves the majority of music duties for my apartment and while it sounds quite good for a boom box, it's still just a boom box. I also have a Dynaudio system in my Volvo that I'm pretty happy with (it's currently my best stereo).
My condo has an awkward layout (click here for floor plan - red is existing TV, green/blue are where equipment and speakers would go (http://members.shaw.ca/slipstream3d/floorplan.png)) that makes running surround sound speakers more of an investment in construction than I want to undertake, so I'm 100% fine with a 2.0 system at the moment. As much as I appreciate bass I don't want to annoy my neighbours.
Summary: I want a system that I can listen to TV, HD movies, video games, and a wide range of music on.
I am thinking bookshelf speakers on stands. I have room for floorstanding units, just likely not the budget.
I visited a local high-end audio store and played some Eagles and some Arcade Fire tracks on Paradigm speakers (either Atom or Micro monitors, not sure) driven by the Denon 100th anniversary PMA-A100. Aside from some midrange weirdness I can't really describe, it sounded fantastic - the only catch being the amplifier alone was $2750 - I'm thinking more like $1000 for the speakers and the receiver/amplifier.
Now, I also have a source of equipment. My dad has some late 1980s-era Yamaha stuff sitting in his basement. It's a two-channel integrated amplifier that weighs 50+ pounds, a DSP, a receiver, and maybe a couple other bits. I'm going to get pictures or model numbers of it as soon as I can. Is any of this worth using or are all the caps going to be garbage since they're almost as old as I am?
He also has a pair of Magneplanar speaker that were used with said Yamaha equipment, but something is wrong with one speaker - the wire "coil" that runs back and forth along the big plane is broken in one spot. Can these be fixed or will it make one sound different than the other?
Opinions? Thanks!
I have a 46" Samsung TV with absolutely awful speakers. They made the TV super thin, which is useless since it's in a deep cabinet anyway and left out any possibility of fitting decent speakers into the unit. Voices on blu-ray movies and even regular TV can get muffled and hard to understand... ugh.
I also am quite the music-listener and I'm picky about sound to the point of annoying other people. I'm the guy who sets up people's TVs and stereos when I go to their house for a party or something. I currently have a harmon/kardon iPod boom box thing that serves the majority of music duties for my apartment and while it sounds quite good for a boom box, it's still just a boom box. I also have a Dynaudio system in my Volvo that I'm pretty happy with (it's currently my best stereo).
My condo has an awkward layout (click here for floor plan - red is existing TV, green/blue are where equipment and speakers would go (http://members.shaw.ca/slipstream3d/floorplan.png)) that makes running surround sound speakers more of an investment in construction than I want to undertake, so I'm 100% fine with a 2.0 system at the moment. As much as I appreciate bass I don't want to annoy my neighbours.
Summary: I want a system that I can listen to TV, HD movies, video games, and a wide range of music on.
I am thinking bookshelf speakers on stands. I have room for floorstanding units, just likely not the budget.
I visited a local high-end audio store and played some Eagles and some Arcade Fire tracks on Paradigm speakers (either Atom or Micro monitors, not sure) driven by the Denon 100th anniversary PMA-A100. Aside from some midrange weirdness I can't really describe, it sounded fantastic - the only catch being the amplifier alone was $2750 - I'm thinking more like $1000 for the speakers and the receiver/amplifier.
Now, I also have a source of equipment. My dad has some late 1980s-era Yamaha stuff sitting in his basement. It's a two-channel integrated amplifier that weighs 50+ pounds, a DSP, a receiver, and maybe a couple other bits. I'm going to get pictures or model numbers of it as soon as I can. Is any of this worth using or are all the caps going to be garbage since they're almost as old as I am?
He also has a pair of Magneplanar speaker that were used with said Yamaha equipment, but something is wrong with one speaker - the wire "coil" that runs back and forth along the big plane is broken in one spot. Can these be fixed or will it make one sound different than the other?
Opinions? Thanks!