Page 1 of Home cinema/hi-fi.......

I am looking to get a home cinema and Hi-fi setup in my flat. I have been looking at the Yamaha DSP-AX620 as the AV, and mission speakers (M74 - mains, M7C1 - centre and M7DS - rears).
Are these a good combination together? Can anyone please explain why these are good together?

This lot will come to about £700 - £800, and that is stretching my budget a bit. I would also need a DVD player to be able to use the system. Can anyone recommend a DVD player to go with this lot?

How could I make this system into a hi-fi system fairly cheaply (i.e. CD, Tape, Tuner, etc.)

If anyone could suggest a better setup (home cinema, and hifi) that would come to about £600 - £800 then I am all ears.

Thanks in advance,
PiKL

That`s what I`ve got - except mine`s the RX-V620RDS (AX620 with tuner). What can I say? It`s stunning!

My DVD`s a Tosh SD100E (which I`ve had for about 18 months). There`s just so much choice now - what`s your budget for a player?

Mine was also bought to replace my existing hi-fi amp. As to adding extra components - go for the RX-V620RDS and you get a tuner thrown in. You don`t desparately need a CD deck - your DVD player will be able to handle them - make sure you use the bitstream output, as internal DtoA can be iffy. Do you need tape? You could look at minidisc. The Yamaha also has MM-phono (turntable) input.

If you`re already at the stretched end of budget, I`d suggest going for the best home cinema kit you can afford (and don`t forget the cables - I spent another £100+ on those) and add to it later. At least you`ll have a solid foundation.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 8th August 2001, 15:06

Also, you could always make do with the supplied interconnects and upgrade them when you can, but believe me, decent cables maketh the system.
Neon`s suggestion is sound - the RDS tuner comes at very little extra, and the Toshibas seem to be well respected as CD players as well as DVD players. Only thing to watch out for is multiregion - I`ll let someone with one fill you in on that...
I have a cheap Cyberhome 512 - upgraded to multiregion. I have played briefly with it as a CD player, but it`s miles behind my usual Marantz CD17. Looks like the Tosh is the way for you - what with that and the RDS receiver, you`ll have very few boxes and a cracking system!

Also, check out www.hifijunkies.co.uk - some stuff cheaper than Richer Sounds.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 8th August 2001, 16:36

My SD100E is multi-region. I *think* I got it from http://www.upgradeheaven.co.uk/ but it was a while back! I know a number of people who`ve bought from techtronics.com and got their fingers burned when their machines went wrong. Not literally of course ;) - the after sales they got was so cr*p, I wouldn`t want to recommend them (although a lot of people do).

You could look at the SD110E (which I guess is a replacement for the SD100E) or the SD210E, which is a tad more upmarket.

hi neon,i own a yammy dspx620 and it rocks!as for dvd choice i would say the tosh 210e,plays everything i`ve thrown in it up to now,including mp3.as for speakers i own b + w,again i would recomend these,got great detail and sound good with music too.i picked mine up second hand out the loot,and hav`nt seen an adition without at least one pair for sale.at the moment in the manchester edition is a cc6 centre and 601`s fpr £150.

If I was to get the Yamaha DSPX620RDS and only mission M74`s (to cut down on the cost) would this system still rock, or is it the 5 speaker setup that MAKES the system. Neon, what happens if you disconnect the center and rear speakers? Does the system fail to impress?

I would ideally like to keep all of the seperates either the same make, or to have similar appearences. The Yamaha AV is gold - does anyone know of any cheap(ish) multiregion CD/DVD player that would be a good match for the Yamaha AV?

I am very new to buying seperates (this would be my first attempt). I currently have a not very good hifi system (aiwa - and believe it or not the CD player has broke ....... lol) and would like to start setting up a new and more powerful sound system.

All of your comments are grately appreciated.
PiKL

You can get the Yammy in black.
I run my DVD through my hi fi at the moment (until I can get a yammy 620 or similar to do the business with the extra channels) - sounds miles better than through the TV, so I would guess rocking is still on the cards, as long as you can do output to 2 channels on the yammy - Neon`ll tell you - sounds funny if you run the 2 front channels rather than 2 channel output - all dialogue disappears, as this comes from the centre speaker.

What about getting 2 fronts plus centre, and using your old hifi`s speakers as rears for the moment - currently I have my PC`s speakers running for rears (as they have built in amp) - pretty crappy, but has shown me how much an improvement 5 channels is!

This item was edited on Thursday, 9th August 2001, 12:38

I bet it does sound very strange just having sound coming out of the main speakers without any dialogue. Does the Yamaha give a stereo output then to stop this from happening if you only have 2 speakers?

My current stereo is pants, and really just want to throw it out of the window! I don`t think that I would want to use it for the rear speakers as the speakers themselves are starting to distort and rumble for no apparrent reason - I think that they have been battered over the years.

What sort of DVD player should I be looking out for - I mean do I need to get one with 5.1 outputs on it, or can you run a 5.1 signal through the digital output? I have looked at some of the DVD players with 5.1 outputs on them and they are all about £300 which is definately out of my price range for the time being.

PiKL

Firstly, you can tell the Yam what speakers you`ve got. If you`ve got no centre, it`ll put the centre channel into the mains.

So you don`t need a centre.

You can also tell it you`ve got no rears. What it does then is to matrix the rear channels into the mains for a pseudo surround sound.

So you don`t need rears.

As with most systems, you can tell the Yam to put the sub channel into the mains too (the M74s are excellent for handling this).

So you don`t need a sub.

Actually, if you`ve got headphones, it`ll give surround sound using those.

So you don`t need mains.

Which is all pretty cool, but a no speaker surround sound system DOESN`T IMPRESS THE GUYS AT WORK!

;)

Oh, yeah - mine`s black. Yam that is. Fnaar.

DVD players? You don`t need or even want one with internal 5.1 decoding - the Yam does it all for you ... and sooo much better.

This item was edited on Thursday, 9th August 2001, 17:29