WOW! I love it. Admittedly its not one of these DVD/surround sound systems, but simply a tasty hi-fi system I bought second hand, auxillaried into the telly via a scart lead. The hi-fi looks nothing special but it beats my old panasonic something rotten! Its an Aiwa 3cd mini system and has something like 2 x 100w RMS on the "woofer" speakers, ahem, 40W I think on the centre speaker which sits on the telly, and 20w going to the little satellite speakers which are nailed up now at the back of the room. It seems there's a gap for a dedicated subwoofer, so will be looking into that.

Sort of gives watching the telly a new meaning (ok, its only changed the "hearing" part of "watching the telly" but it sounds well cool) Bass really thumps now, and general audio quality I would say is vastly superior now. :speaker: Sound coming from seemingly everywhere in the room.

Anyone get any sound gadgetry (for the home ) for Xmas. I got this a few days before Xmas as an early pressie to myself and the new house.

must admit that this makes quite a difference, i know i am using an amp with (half)decent speakers and proper active sub but it certainly rocks compared to "normal" telly

active sub... There was a nice gap on the back of the hi-fi for a phono lead labelled "subwoofer" Wonder where to get one from? (not done any audio work outside the car before. )

and 20w going to the little satellite speakers which are nailed[/b'] up now at the back of the room.

The devonutopia patented speaker fixing method? Speaker mounts are for nancys Jason, eh??

The devonutopia patented speaker fixing method? Speaker mounts are for nancys Jason, eh??

There weren't any in the box, but as long as the nail has a big enough head to fit through the lower "big bit of the gap" and then happily support the speaker as the head won't pass through the "little bit of the gap" at the top (when the speaker sits down) then I say, job's a good'un and it's doing the same job as a mount. (plus, you can vary the angle of pointing up and down with how much welly you give the nail with the hammer. )

I have an Altec Lansing speaker system connected to the DVD player in my bedroom (surround sound's a bit OTT in bed ) it's a 2.1 system, with 2 satellite speakers, one either side of the telly, and a whacking great powered sub. Plugs straight into the DVD player via phono plugs from the scart socket (with convertor) and has a wired remote control, and cost me a princely

PS great way of testing your surround system is to watch the final bank robbery scene in the movie "heat" - the gunfire sounds come from everywhere!

I was going to buy a Panasonic all in one surround system after I saw it in action at the out laws. Very impressive.

then I made the mistake of buying What HiFi magazine and being infected by geeky techno opinions. To be fair, the system I bought sounds feckin incredible, but sometimes it can be too loud for a mid terrace and I have to watch me fillums in the afternoon. The bass rattles SWMBO's collection of miniature shoes.

For the geeks:

Mission M70 speaker package with active sub.

Yamaha HTR 5540 6.1 surround Amp.

Pioneer DV-565A multiregion DVD

Panasonic TX 32 PD30 tellybox.

I just hope the bailiffs appreciate the sound quality when they come to re possess it all!

I just hope the bailiffs appreciate the sound quality when they come to re possess it all!

- turn it up loud, you won't hear them knocking!!

*sigh* No rear surround speakers for me til we get the carpet replaced... going to run nice flat cables round behind where the sofa will be.

Amazing how much difference it makes though - having a centre speaker primarily for speech really helps to differentiate speech & music, etc

J - do you have a RicherSounds near you? Might be a good place to pick up an active sub...

As we're being techie, I have a marantz sr4400, currently hooked up to a pair of old tannoy speakers with a fairly old mourdant-short centre speaker. Will be upgrading the speakers when we do the lounge & carpet...

Hooked up to it there's the sky box, xbox, tosh multi-region dvd, and a tosh recordable dvd/hd wotsit... and an ancient hitachi 32" WS tv...

it's true you cannot beat a good surround sound, i have been into dvd and digital sound since it really came out over here in 1997 !!

I have :

Pioneer VSA E03 5.1 Amp 60watts per channel

Pioneer DVD444 Multi Region Player

Kef KHT2005 "Silver Egg" Speakers plus Kef 250 watt active "downfiring" sub

Philips 46" Widescreen Rear Projection TV

It does the job but really annoys the neighbours !!! Not that i care i think they have got bored of asking me to turn it down.

Stuart

I must admit i'm liking my new dolby digital setup alot - Yamaha 750se, B&W and a little bit of REL is quite awesome!

I've been into Home Cinema since the early 90's in the days before Dolby Digital etc. I started with a faily cheap Dolby Pologic amp and a Laser Disc player. Have steadily upgraded over the years to my current setup.

It's definately a lot cheaper now, I used to pay over

Lee, blimey someone else who knows what laserdiscs were, i never mention them on forums because generally people go huh !! I too had an old Pioneer Pro Logic Amp with a Pioneer Laser Player i remember Star Wars Trilogy on Laser was the best version you could get.

Those were the days mere mortals didnt know what Home Cinema was.

Lee' date=' blimey someone else who knows what laserdiscs were, i never mention them on forums because generally people go huh !! I too had an old Pioneer Pro Logic Amp with a Pioneer Laser Player i remember Star Wars Trilogy on Laser was the best version you could get.

Those were the days mere mortals didnt know what Home Cinema was. [/quote']

I still have the Star Wars Trilogy on PAL laser disc and on Japanese NTSC laser disc with dolby digital sound track. I can't play DD on laserdiscs any more though as the new amps don't have an RF modulator. Probably still have over 50 laserdiscs although I have sold over 100 discs.

If you look at the third shelf of my rack you'll see a Pioneer Laser Disc player, cost me

Lee

I sold all my lasers as i slowly replaced them with dvd's, sell out i know !!, but i made a small fortune on ebay !!.

My father in law had one of those players that played both sides of a laser saved getting up in the middle of the movie. Of course one of the bonuses of dvd well all except Lord of the sodding Rings.

Stuart

Thought I'd post a pic for those who haven't a clue what we are talking about.

I put a CD in the pic for size comparison. Laser Discs are also double sided and some films would fill 3 or 4 sides hence the double discs.

Cheers

Lee

My current setup at full retail would be around

You paid all that money just to watch Ready Steady Cook?

So' date=' are laser discs better quality than DVDs?

And should I upgrade to Component video leads instead of SCART?[/quote']

Ready Steady Cook is a lot better than Corrie and Eastenders that's on the setup all the bloody time.

A lot of the magazines slated DVD's when they first came out, the first DVD's were not encoded that well and the first players were poor. Early DVD discs and players produced a very digitalised pictures with artifacts and smearing.

Things are a lot better now with DVD encoding and the players are far superior. A good laser disc will rival a cheapo DVD player from the supermarket but then you are pitting a

One day we will probably having the same coversation about some new format versus the old DVD's.

Sony and a few other companies are trying to get the Universal Media Disc (UMD) off the ground as we speak. They can store software files, movies, pictures and music and are the size of a small CD. Get your wallets ready...

I think I'll ask Richer Sounds to demonstrate SCART Vs Component next time I go in.

If your not wanting to spend the earth the "Sterling Cables Gold" range from Keene are pretty good.

I've used them a lot when setting up systems for friends and family and still have some in my setup.

http://www.keene.co.uk/pages/cat/11lea/11F.html and click on the Sterling Gold Home Cinema writing on the left.

Cheers

Lee