I've just been quoted £1850 for this little lot and was hoping its a good deal, it seems so in my opinion...

Amp:
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.c...7/product.aspx

Up-scaling DVD player:
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.c...8/product.aspx

And finally the speakers:
http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.c...8/product.aspx

The package also 2 KEF speaker stands, 2 QED hdmi cables and QED speaker cabling throughout

Your thoughts?

 

niice

 

all i can say is.....You've more money than sense.

my home "cinema system" cost me the grand total of, wait for it....£60!

£30 for the DVD player and £30 for the sub an 5 speakers (yes 5.1 surround for £30)

it works a treat too.

i wouldnt dream of paying £1800 for entertainment equipment, no matter how rich i was.

but in answer to your question....yes it looks nice.

 

Quick search on google and I add all this up to £1600 or near enough, not including the cables/stands...

Considering you'll "hopefully" get some help and support from the shop, the extra £250 seems a fair price to pay.

Onkyo, denon and kef are all good reliable manufacturers, just not a fan of those egg speakers, but I've never heard them, so it's really a "gut feel" rather than an informed comment


Aren't there any other amps in the same price point as the Onkyo that offer similar functionality ? Might be worth a side-by-side listening comparison with the speakers to see which sound you prefer

 

If the amp upscales video to 1080i is there any point in buying the dvd player? Would you not be better going for a blu ray player?

 

I really rate my Onkyo amp. I have the SR674, which I got for £299 (should have been £500 odd originally). It's superb and more than enough for what I need.

I looked at the Kef Egg's, but went for Tannoy Arena's instead. I liked the look of them more and there wasn't alot in it pricewise, although the Tannoys set is supposed to be £1500 I think.

 

I wouldn't dream of paying £60 for my home cinema system Each to their own

 

 

I bet if you put them side by side you wouldnt even be able to tell the difference in sound

 

Assuming you've not managed to bag yourself some top quality components at rock bottom price, I bet I would be able to tell the difference in the dark

I chose the equipment I use by doing side-by-side comparison blind tests and could tell the difference between amps and speakers at the same price point, let alone 30x or more

 

the biggest thing thats attracted me to the amp was its 4 hdmi inputs and its DTS-HD/Dolby true HD sound capabilities.

To add, the hdmi leads are £50 each, 6m of QED silver anniversary speaker cable (£5 a meter) and then a further 20m of QED qudos speaker cable (£2.50 a meter) and then the stands are £130 a pair iirc.

I'll admit i've not heard or seen any of these products in the metal as yet but sevenoaks have offered to order all the bits in for me to listen and look at. A friend of mine is big into his home cinema and he pointed me in the general direction and I took it from there picking things with the right functions for the right price etc

 

I've got a ps3 for blu ray.

 

No offence mate but if YOU can't tell the difference side by side you may as well stick to the £60 job, anything else would be wasted.
To people really into their sounds there is no comparison.

Rob84 good choice with the Onkyo mate, superb bit of kit.

 

Unless the HDMI leads are very long (5m or more), you are being shafted on their price

I can only recommend you go to the shop and listen to different amps and speakers until you find a combination that you like, and, that's within your budget.

You mention Tru-HD/DTS-HD, etc... the Denon DVD player won't do that. For £100 more or so, you could have a PS3 and blu-ray, as well as standard upscaling DVD

 

If you've got the PS3 (now that you've said it), drop the DVD player and save yourself £200 !

Use the £200 towards better speakers and/or amp

 

the hdmi leads are qed jobbies and after another phone call, he's going to do them for £35 each. they're 1m versions.

 

There will be no noticeable difference between those hdmi leads and £10 ones from ebay...

KEF are nice speakers though, even low end ones such as these. Personally I would spend more on speakers, less on the amp, and ditch the dvd player.

 

Totally agree, amps are just for christmas, speakers are for life (<- trying to convince myself I need a new amp...).

 

those speakers are £1k!!! Thats bloody expensive for me lol. I'm stretching my budget really to cover those speakers.... will be worth it though imo

 

If you ditch the DVD player, and find a slightly cheaper amp, you've got £200-300 odd more to go towards the speakers Not costing you any more

 

I have the dvd player and it is awesome, no it's not Blu ray but as you say you are sorted for that-it's upscaling is great.
I also have KEF satellites but the cheaper 1005's and I think they sound really good, so those ones should be even better.

 

My new 606 and Monitor Audios turned up today

I wouldn't go with the upscaling DVD, the 606 does it anyway, much better off getting a PS3

This little lot came to £900

 

i could have swore this post was titled FAO home cinema lovers

 

Greg!!

I'll be knocking on your advice door when i'm due to go to Sevenoaks Hi-Fi

 

Looks a quality set up, but have you auditioned the set-up??

If your spending a few quid stick to the golden rules:

Never buy solely on a magazine review.

Always demo the kit your interested in, preferably back to back with other brands.

Avoid buying every seperate from a single brand, might look nice & uniform, but generaly most manufacturers are known for specific sources (amps, cd, dvd etc) and mixed systems normally perform better.

And don't discount older gear, I run a Yamaha DSP A1, old pair of REL subs, and Mission 762s, and still the bizz' in movie mode.

 

As posted above, forget the DVD player if you have a PS3 (keep the firmware upto date) You could get the KEF2005.2s for £600. They look identical, but possibly not quite as good, but I doubt you'll notice £400 improvement in the 3005s.

 

lmfao at 60quid

my home cinema sytem cost around 7k yamaha 7.1 surround

 

Right lets clear up some misconceptions!

Upscaling DVD players - POINTLESS! I'll bet you are plugging it into an LCD or plasma that does 1080i at least. So the TV upscales everything input into it anyway. DVD (SD) aswell as SD TV (Sky, Freeview etc) is all 576i (if PAL, if not it's 480p NTSC then converted to 576i to fit the screen). So a TV with 1080 lines has to upscale (ie enlarge) any source with less native lines - such as SD DVD and SD TV. Same way VHS has worked for decades - PAL VHS has something like 280 lines (might be 240) and CRT TV's have 576 - so all VHS has to be unscaled to fit.

So any DVD player connected by say just a scart will be upscaled by the TV. All an upscaling DVD player does is add HDMI connectivity - and some don't even do that (some can upscale via component)

Next, HDMI leads. £50? Are you joking? It's a digital lead - no matter how much it costs it ain't gonna transfer 1's and 0's any bettre Admittedly, I'd pay a tenner for a HDMI lead as opposed to the 99p ones you get free with stuff, but what you are paying for is the joining of the cable to the connectors, and the quality of the connectors themselves. The "core" of the cable makes no difference in digital cables. Same with optical audio cables. I know people who have spent £50 on an optical cable and yet a £10 performs just as well!

Now, you say you have a PS3 for bluray - so why the hell are you buying an upscaling DVD player? Considering the PS3 also upscales SD DVD's (even tho upscaling it pointless, see point one). Just use your PS3 for games, SD DVD, Bluray, and hook it up to your Network and stream video and music from your PC's etc.... It's a mini media centre!

My system is by no means state of the art - I have a 36" CRT TV, a DVD player (which incidentally does upscale, but I don't bother with that), a Freeview PVR, a Media PC, a Sony AV Reciever (which handles all the multichannel audio from the DVD player and PC via digital audio cables) and a set of Mission speakers - big fuck off floor standers for the fronts, dipole rears, sub and centre. Total spent? £750-£1000? But I bought most second hand, new it would have been £2k+....

 

£60 Hime cinema LOL, mine cost me about £4k. I got the Onkyo 705, awesome amp and dts hd and true HD sound is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nice setup there m8!!!!!!

 

My systems getting on abit now, but still does the job, tho im thinking about a new amp

Amp sherwood rd-6106r , these dont even make 10quid on ebay now! If your on a tight budget i recomend this, mines allways full of cat hair as its a warm place to sit, and is used everyday for hours and driven hard

front speakers MISSION 753 freedoms 10 years old+ but still going strong, get some real abuse.

centre B&W 2000IFS, looks wank, sound good.

rears some eltax dipole things, that actually sound good to me, want some mission 77ds's tho

8" Gale active sub, in the corner that booms away

No HD screen here, 44" thomson rear projection screen

couple of satellite recivers, media centre PC and a couple of record decks

 

You're more than welcome, but I'm a long way from your local sevenoaks !!!
Sounds like there's good advice coming from folks near you too

I am not telling you how much mine cost

 

it cant be as bad as 60quid

gwan tell us matey

 

That was my thinking, the Monitor Audio package became too expensive for me with the sub package, and after listening to it without, I decided there was plenty of bass for me and the neighbours Plus I don't really have anywhere to put a sub.

 

After finally getting an amp that can drive my Mission M74's hard enough, I no longer bother with the sub when listening to music - just set the amp to stereo and the Missions provide so much bass you'd think the sub was on! They probably kick out more bass than my little Mission sub anyway! The sub's only there for multichannel movie audio - as the LFE stuff is directed away from the fronts to the sub, to allow the fronts to be more punchy, and the sub to take the booms, bangs, explosionsand rumbles - which it does okay, but I reckon I could use a more powerfull one!

I like to biamp the front speakers with an old analogue 2ch amp, like a nice Cambridge or something, to get the best from em, but I can't be arsed to buy and set up all the switching and isolation gear for em, as it's long and expensive.....

 

By the way, you can also get the KEF 3005 non SEs for £599.

 

If it's a 2ch film yes. I tend not to bother down-converting multichannel to stereo, but on occasion I have hit the wrong button and had a multichannel (say 5.1 DTS for example) play in stereo, it's okay, but the spatial sound is blatently missing. Same with TV, you can tell straight away the speech/dialogue is coming from the left and right and not from the screen (the AVR I have is very comprehensive for setting up multichannel imaging, allowing the speech/dialogue to sound very much like it is coming from the centre of the screen)

For TV I tend to have the TV's speakers on, which on my TV are below the screen, as opposed to left and right. This makes for a narrow soundstage, but does help imaging with the speech/dialogue sound focused on the screen itself. Switching the amp on and having only the left and right (as TV audio is stereo as standard) add's a wider soundstage, which is good for music, and well encoded programmes where you can tell a sound effect is coming from the left, or right, of the soundstage. Knocking the volume of the amp a couple of dB behind the TV means the wider soundstage is there, but doesn't detract from the speech/dialogue too much - almost making it a 3.0 set up - Left front, centre and right front

Some DVD's I have, mainly music ones, live gigs etc, have 2.0 stereo LPCM audio tracks aswell as the 5.1 Dolby Digital, and on these I much prefer the 2.0 track. The LPCM is far less compressed the DD track, and it brings a much fuller sound to the listening expirience as opposed to the spatial sound of multichannel. Strange tho, this only really applies to music dvd's (DVD Video discs, but as I said, live gigs etc) as opposed to films.......

 

Well I went and bought some gear... £1900 spent in total!!

In the end I got the dvd player and the amp in the original post BUT the KEF speakers didnt sound like they should cost £1000. So in the end I went for a Monitor Audio Bronze Reference speaker package, which comprises of 2 BR5 floor standing speakers, a BR-LCR center speaker, 2 BR-FX rear wall mountable speakers and a BRW-10 sub.

Should take about 2 weeks for it all to come in the shop but after hearing and seeing it all in the shop I know i've got the right package. shame I couldnt afford the golds, or even the silvers for that matter.... ah well.

Pics when its all installed and working!