Hi-FI sound zone

Looks like i'll have the honor to create the first topic in this sub-forum

The question of this tipic is - are you into quality sound? A good home-cinema maybe? And by quality i mean Hi-Fi and Hi-End. And it's not about Hi-Fi sticker you see on cheap electronics these days. I'm hoping to find audiophiles among Seikai fans and hear about their stereo systems. If you got one- let me know about it, as well as of your impressions and music preferences!

Anyway, as for my own Hi-FI - I own slightly old but kicking Denon 2105 AV receiver:

...which was surprisingly good for middle-range receiver back in 2006 among all the rest (under 1000$) "bringing hi-end sound to masses" as they said about this one.

... and fresh set of Mordaunt-Short Mezzo acoustics (speakers) that i bought a couple months back

These have truly changed my views of Hi-FI for while they are priced as some cheaper solutions (about 550$ for the fron pair) they blew many middle-end Hi-FI speakers (typical floor-standers that are around 1000$) out of the water. If you're into quality sound that is as close to original as possible, especialy when it comes to live instuments and you listen to wide range of music styles from classical opera to metal but you only have 500$ - these are for you. The only other speakers that are close would be B&W 685s for they are slightly more..."muscular" i'd say but at expense of speed and detail...B&W would be good for those who don't listen to classics much or stuff like Blackmoore's night in favor of rock/alt rock etc. And i don't believe all kinds of electronic and "bum-bum" stuff needs quality sound due to it's simplicity.

As for accessories - i use MonseterCable "Reference" (bought it cheap, under 30$/meter) and something i am proud of - a custom made supports made from 10mm armor plate filled with mix of sand and 12g drumming, each weighting around 40kg, of course it's mounted on steel studs (if it's the right word) on top of granite plate (stole idea from "Stereo" magazine).

I'll try to add more information on sound of these and some photos of my own later. But i hope to hear about your sound solution no matter if it's a lot more expensive or cheaper one. I'll also try to add new stuff here every time i hear new speakers, headphones, receivers and stuff since i visit hi-fi shops often.

Denon AVR-4802 (think the first three letters are right)
Really poor double Bose quad cube + subwoofer setup
Really bad room design that the stuff is in.

For myself:
Astro Gaming A40 Surround Sound Mixamp
Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 headphones

Read AV magazines and was into home theater gear for about 2 years,
so I'm somewhat familiar with it all. I've run a lot of wire... for example I wired
most of an old house with Belden MediaTwist Cat 6... which is a royal pain in the
rear to terminate and strip.

Most amazing audio demo I've ever heard was in a sound booth using a Denon 3802
on the old THX lightning ball & shatter, I forget what the brand name of the speakers was
at the time... but the whole rest of the day I was vibrating. Core rattling, earth shaking, fantastic sound.

Well, I had the opportunity to use several old systems in the past. It does only make some difference when the movie you watch is compatible. Other than that you have to watch a lot to make it worth.
So, yes it's nice to have but most of the time it's no different from being idle.

Hmm, not sure what you mean - i watch movies all the time - full HD or just DVD - they all come with 5.1-7.1 dts/dd sound tracks so all movies made during past 20 years are compatible and availible with with sorroud sound i think.

But hi-fi systems are not about movies since any 5.1 sound even in movies is heavily compressed - that's why AV receiver is needed as it is capable of decoding and decompressing dd/dts sound stream in hardware and in real time.
The true purpose of Hi-Fi is music...

I've got an old Denon (actually a panasonic rebadge/upgrade) LA-3500 LD player.

Really the audio of the Dual! series on LD was far better even in stereo on that than
DVD in surround sound. I could have went with uncompressed Dolby DTS though via the LD.

I have a small bedroom so any stereo system would blow it away.
Has anyone tried the BOSE system that they keep advertising on tv and if so is it really as good as they claim it to be?

I've got the old bose system as I mentioned before... ain't real impressed and you can get a lot better for the same or less money.

The room design plays a huge role in how well your sound will sound.

Mitsuki, you should never listen to advertisement - reviews of serious hi-fi magazines help too, but usualy you just go to the store and listen. Better pick CD of realy good quality and something you know well. This part cannot be avoided if you want to make the right choice. I have a few CDs with nearly perfect sound, of course only live instruments because electronic sounds are too primitive to contain enough details.
Speakers must be plugged into decent receiver (Denon or Maranz should be in every store) and the only "settings" you need is to turn "direct" sound option on which disables any equalizers/tone controll etc and just let you hear sound as it is.

Here, i tried to make a small FAQ as for factors you usualy pay attention to:
1. Sound stage - how well performers are placed in "virtual" space before you. If it's jazz - each musician should be in his own place on the "stage". It's "surround" that every serious hi-fi speakers try to achieve and which is truly possible only with Stereo and not idiotic 5.1 7.1 systems with artificial stereo-to-surround stuff for the poor and misguided (exception - movies).
2. Detail - mostly of highs and mids. If there's recording of bell ringing - you must hear every detail of it and it should be very "real"(smaller bells have very complex sound while all of them are still in almost same range of frequencies). Basically you just listen to sounds you could have heard in real life and decide if they sound realistic enough to you.
3. Bass must be adequate. Usualy there's no such thing as "more or less" bass for speakers of above certain class. You must hear exactly the amount of bass that was intended by sound director. Best test - recording of real dums. Most of the people who have no clue about quality sound always feel as if hi-fi speakers are underpowered when it comes to bass, but in reality - they just don't add unnecessery bass where it should not be but they will blow your place to hell if recording contains something devastating. Though Bass should be detailed as well and go as low as possible and stay clear... but it should not sound as if it's coming from empty barrel - booming? - this is bad sign...
4. Finaly - good front pair of speakers will not cost less than 400$ or you already sacrificed much of what i mentioned above.
5. This all doesn't matter if someone's music tastes consist only of simple music which includes almost all purely electronical and rap/hip-hop/techno stuff, though there are many exceptions among these as well.


JGZ, why aren't you impressed - heard something better in the same class?

As for mid-priced stuff i can only recommend B&W685 (any 600 serie is pretty good) if power and flexibility is what you're after or Mordaunt Short Mezzo 2 (or others) if it's speed and detail you're after.Also Kef usualy has something to choose from, but Bose - whenever i tried to pick something they never impressed me. The ones i heard can be described as "too much of American sound" which mean excessive bass and not very good highs., just like Koss headphones for example. But if one needs something cheaper - there's usualy smaller versions of good speakers.

Lately i tried Monitor Audio Silve and Gold serie, but for some reason i wasn't impressed by sound as much as i was impresserd by 1900-2800$ price tag. I guess i'll keep looking for pinnacles of what's under 1500$ - just like Mezzo is for under 600$ range.

Well first off they were put in a huge room which is terrible for acoustics.
I'm a old home theater magazine nut... had like 250 issues or something before I stopped.
Plus I steeped myself in internet discussions on hardware and had some people I knew at
the local "way too high priced A/V gear shop."

But the Bose system is wired back asswards, it's not designed so the subs can be run separately.
You have to run the cube speakers to the subs, then the subs to the cube speakers. Meaning you can't
attach the sub channel to anything on any standard receiver... effectively killing your subwoofers.
Secondly, the cubes are basically run with a form of phone cable... which IMO isn't the right way to go
at the distances being used.

I mentioned before that I heard a room setup of speakers at the A/V shop. Granted that was a room designed
for audio, and had proper placement... but oh were they awesome. They might have been acoustic research, or something technology... I really forget. But it felt as though every molecule in your body was being infused with sound. You could stand there and probably get a massage from the subs alone. For what was paid for this dual Bose sub+4 cube system back when the house was built by the previous owner... surely we could have put in a similar system like I had heard.

As I said before my room is pretty small.Also I perfer Classical and Oldies when I listen to Music.That should make a difference.With Classical you really don't need to have it booming away so loud(unless you're listening to say Wagner )
Personally I love Beethoven's music he the !!!!

Sorta related... I find Newgrounds to have a lot of interesting music. It's all free and every type is represented.
Going to be using some of it in my game mod.

Is your room a square, rectangle, etc?
Any windows or doors, other obstructions to make sound waves react different than say a wall.
Do you need sound dampening, like say adding a curtain or putting some fabric around the walls?

These would be some things to figure out...

As to a cheapo but good system... aye.. that is a tough one. I'd still stay away from Bose unless you have
a buddy who can demo in his own house... or find the perfect system used at a lot less than retail.

I prefer individual receivers rather than integrated (Bose/cheapo systems) since you can get a bit more lifetime use out of them, and if you want to upgrade it's usually a matter of swapping wires on the back panels and the old unit can be used elseware. Integrated says you have to use our proprietary speakers with this receiver or go play techie and reterminate the ends... which is a pain in the butt.

Denon makes nice receivers, but they are somewhat expensive. An AVR-2802 or even 3802 would be nice for what you're doing. Used, long as they have been taken care of can be really good. Mostly audiophiles that care to spend $3800 on a piece of hardware take care of the stuff. A 2802 right now on eBay is $30 to $400.

Speakers wise, I'm going to have to differ to someone else as I've not been in the game in a while to say what is good right now. There's older stuff that could be had cheaper, which I may know about, But speakers do tend to have some problems as they get old. So that's more of a mixed bag.

I would say that it's close to a rectangle.I have a double bed which takes up a lot of space.
There's one window in the back and my closet to one side.I also have my desk near my closet and dresser where I have my DVD player and
tv on the other end of my bed.
told ya it was small!!!!

My room got bad acoustics It's rectangular and most of the walls are not covered by anything soft... even worse - i have all kinds of weapons/pictures/masks on walls that probably do not make it any better.

it's not like i get too much echo, but i'm still not very happy with the feeling that sounds sort of blend...
It's hard to change it since i'll need to totaly rebuild room and it's kinda troublesome. That's why i do no buy realy expensive speakers and happy with my Mordaunt-Short so far. Though i'd say i consider their sound best among all speakers up to 1200$ price range.

Now, i've been thinking how to solve my problem. Traditional approach says that i should do something about walls and use soft materials (carpets etc) + set up "bass trap" but not long ago i ran into company that sells interesting materials based on cork and coconut. They showed many examples of usage in studios. But i'm not sure if a few milimeters thick cork can realy do that much...but it sure looks better than basalt plates
If i'll become realy rich one day and buy a new house - i'll order true audio room

Well with all you've got in there ML, it's nto the perfect room for sound, but it doesn't sound like you want
to sell off some organs to make it that way either.

Not sure if I've still got the one book, but if I can find it sometime here I'll get some scans of the guide on how to do a decent setup in a rectangular room.

Let's just say that it's so small that aliens would have a problem moving around in it!!!!
Seriously my room in the country is a lot bigger,considerably speaking,even though I have most of my books there.
This is why space is so important when it comes to storing my DVDs.
I really don't like to throw them around like some do.

Get a 400 disc spindle dvd player/changer. That'll shove more of em in a small space.

Either that or a massive hd dvd recorder.

Are they still making HD DVD players now that Blu-Ray won the war?

No, but you can get Xbox 360 HD DVD players cheap.
I think there was one company left that said they would make them,
but the point is moot, Blu ray won and there's trade in programs for
the HD discs... so might as well trade em and be done with it.

As long as my current DVD player works I'm not worried too much.Though I have to admit at times it drives me crazy.

Well, blue-ray is dying too - thanks to evergreedy Sony. Nobody cares to buy BlueRay players for as much as they cost.. Ppl either get it with PlayStations or use torrents more often
I feel HD DVD will get back when sony will finaly kill blue-ray with it's greed just like it always does with formats they try to monopolize.

Eh sorry, Blu Ray is coming down in cost and lots of people are peeved about
the whole idea of having to move to a new format so soon.

I know people for that matter, have DVD players plugged into 20 year old TVs
and think the detail is great.

BR players are showing up in laptops now, the set top players are in the 5-800 range
I believe. Give it 6 months to a year and it'll get down into the reasonable level.

But right now i don't see huge hype. blue-rays sell very poorly in here.
Mostly because there's no disks and writers cost too much. It will be year or more before (if) it becomes popular, but like i said - i don't see manufacturers hurrying to make blue-ray drives because Sony ask for insane $ per licenses.
Personaly i hoped HD-DVD will win cuz i know Sony is like Apple kind of company - always think they have right to ask for more for same s...

Oh I argee, I'm just saying that it will come down in cost to a usable point.

Sony is stupid, they've proved that with the PS3 and PSP mess. They don't get the
concept that you can sell more at a lower cost, and then actually make more than just
a few sales at very high cost.

But this is just like the transition to DVD, except it's too soon. Once the economy
comes around, and more people are buying "stuff" and the players get into the $200 range,
you'll see it take off like DVD did.

I think online distribution is the future. Even now all good players/media centers/tuners etc have ehernet port and able to use internet. In future you'll just have to bring up the screen with list of movies and select those you want to download, insert your creditcard to pay for them (or not, if you'll have thing cracked ).

If Sony and other companies who like to make fancy stuff will continue thinking "omg, it must cost a lot since it's ok when companies like us make tons of money" - instead of online store players we will have online torrent players Some develop such things even now...

Well they're not in development, there's quite a few already available.
The only thing really holding the online part back, is a lot of people already
know how to "find" their media online freely. The other thing is that broadband penetration
in the US sucks due to politics and the large carriers trying to snuff out the little guys.

Really if the large carriers had any brains, they'd let the little guys build up their networks, go to the trouble of running fiber or cable, and then just buy them out and take over once it's all setup.