Components and order of importance in home audio system?

[DanOh62]

Hello,

Any advice on how to allocate my budget on a home audio system is greatly appreciated?

Here's the list of components listed in the order of importance. Is my ordered list anywhere close to being correct?

1. A/V Receiver
2. Front Left/Right Speakers
3. Sub Woofer (is it important to pair the sub with the front, rear or front and rear)
4. Center Channel
5. Rear Left/Right Speakers

 

[Actran]

AVR is #4 or 5 really. A mediocre receiver can do great things with great speakers, but a great receiver can't make bad speakers good. Also, your speakers will be "current" longer than your receiver so that's really where you want to focus your investment.

As for pairing the sub, it's not as important to pair the sub with your other speakers as it is to pair fronts and center, but there's flexibility there too.

I do a lot of movies (and am really picky on clear dialogue), so for me, the list would be as below:

1. Center Channel
2. Front L/R
3. Subwoofer
4. AVR
5. Rear L/R and others


For a music lover, I would suggest the below:
1. Front L/R
2. Subwoofer
3. AVR
4. Center
5. Rear L/R

 

[slipperybidness]

Hello,

Any advice on how to allocate my budget on a home audio system is greatly appreciated?

Here's the list of components listed in the order of importance. Is my ordered list anywhere close to being correct?

1. A/V Receiver
2. Front Left/Right Speakers
3. Sub Woofer (is it important to pair the sub with the front, rear or front and rear)
4. Center Channel
5. Rear Left/Right Speakers

You make no mention of the source. The source, and especially high quality recordings are very important too.

 

[Speedskater]

1] The room.
2] the main speakers.
3] The sub-woofers. plural.
4] The positioning of all the speakers.
5] Everything else.

 

[DanOh62]

Actran,

Thanks for the feedback. It starts to make sense when someone explains the "why" as you did "A mediocre receiver can do great things with great speakers, but a great receiver can't make bad speakers good.". I'm thinking I'll take the movie approach by spending a little more money on the center channel. Nothing worse than watching a movie and trying to understand what the actors are saying. Great tips. Thanks!

 

[LiveJazz]

Interesting thread. I went through the same debate, and had the same initial thinking...that the receiver/separates setup was key. But the more I read, the more the conclusion seems to be to start with good speakers and go from there, as long as you aren't ridiculously underpowering something.

So, question - is it really not that important for the rear speakers to match the mains in a surround setup? What if you're using surround for music (or is that not a good idea in the first place compared to stereo or stereo/sub)?

 

[fmw]

This would be my list: 1. main speakers 2. main speakers 3. main speakers 4. center channel speaker 5. surround speakers 6. everything else.

 

[fmw]

Interesting thread. I went through the same debate, and had the same initial thinking...that the receiver/separates setup was key. But the more I read, the more the conclusion seems to be to start with good speakers and go from there, as long as you aren't ridiculously underpowering something.

So, question - is it really not that important for the rear speakers to match the mains in a surround setup? What if you're using surround for music (or is that not a good idea in the first place compared to stereo or stereo/sub)?

You can't ridiculously underpower things in most circustances. Unless the speakers are very inefficient or dip to very low impedance or your listening room is an auditorium, any old receiver will do. Just pick the features you want and don't give it another thought. There is sense in matching the timbre of the center speaker to the mains. It isn't critical in my view but it is a good idea. The surrounds just deliver sound effects. You wouldn't be able to tell they didn't match the mains. Issues of different efficiencies and so on are handled by the receiver's audio calibration routine. I never listen to music with surround processing. In fact it unsettles me. If you want to do that then it might make some sense to match the surrounds to the mains. So choose the speakers and then you will be able to fill in the less important stuff.

 

[Grador]

There is sense in matching the timbre of the center speaker to the mains. It isn't critical in my view but it is a good idea.

I agree with this comment that it isn't critical that they be matched (mine are not and they work out quite well) but it is absolutely critical that they work well together. You cannot pick a random set of mains and a random center and expect them to work well together even if all 3 are very high quality.

I'm going to disagree with another point above though: sources aren't that important. If you're going to hook everything up digitally to your receiver then the source is basically irrelevant. A better bluray player may do a better job upscaling a DVD to HD but we're talking marginal. An oppo player's internal DAC may do a better job than the one in a receiver, but again marginal. Source upgrades are something you look at after you've already reached a very high level on speakers/room treatment where the real quality improvements are found.

 

[Pyrrho]

Like most others, I agree that the speakers are the most important components for the sound. The main speakers matter the most, then the subwoofer, as it deals with much less of the audio spectrum, and whether it will be used at any particular moment will depend on the content recorded. For example, a solo guitar is not going to be working your subwoofer.

As for the speakers matching, I have gone to identical speakers in all positions (other than subwoofer obviously), and I will never go back to anything else. Some people don't care if a sound changes tonal character when moving from one channel to another, but I do.

With sources, if we are talking about digital ones, then the differences will tend to be minor between different brands and models of the same type (i.e., different BD players from different brands will be very similar in sound, different CD players from different brands will be very similar in sound, etc.). That will be especially true when using digital outputs (e.g., optical, coaxial, or HDMI). With analog sources (like turntables and various analog tape decks), though, they can differ dramatically from each other. And good ones tend to cost quite a lot.

As for the budget allocated for each (as per the opening post), there is no set amount to say, as different budgets will set different constraints. For example, if one is really on a tight budget, one ought not spend anything on surround speakers, a center speaker, or a subwoofer, and just get a decent pair of speakers and something to drive them. One pair of decent speakers would be better than a bunch of crappy ones. So one would need to know the total budget (and whether there will ever be more money in the future) to say how one should spend money. And also how good one requires. For me personally, if I had a total budget of $1000-1500, I would go with just a pair of speakers rather than trying to get a complete surround system at that price. Other people who care less about quality may well prefer to get a complete surround system, even though it would mean getting lesser speakers.

So it is a question of both finance and personal priorities.

 

[LiveJazz]

With sources, if we are talking about digital ones, then the differences will tend to be minor between different brands and models of the same type (i.e., different BD players from different brands will be very similar in sound, different CD players from different brands will be very similar in sound, etc.). That will be especially true when using digital outputs (e.g., optical, coaxial, or HDMI). With analog sources (like turntables and various analog tape decks), though, they can differ dramatically from each other. And good ones tend to cost quite a lot.

Does it make much of a difference if you play a CD on a BluRay player that plays CDs, or as a general rule is better to have a dedicated CD player if you listen to music a lot? What is the difference, if they are both forms of digital media/players with similar methods of reading the materials and similar outputs?

 

[Swerd]

Does it make much of a difference if you play a CD on a BluRay player that plays CDs, or as a general rule is better to have a dedicated CD player if you listen to music a lot?

I can directly answer your question. It makes no difference that I can hear. I've never heard any difference of audio CDs among an old CD player, two different DVD players, and now a BluRay player.

I probably play more music CDs than movies, and in the past year I replaced an old DVD player with a new BlueRay player. I have the BR player hooked up 2 different ways. One is by digital cable to my receiver where the receiver does the digital to audio conversion, and the other way allows the BR player to do the conversion. I can switch easily between the two, and with audio CDs I hear no difference whatsoever.

 

[Pyrrho]

Does it make much of a difference if you play a CD on a BluRay player that plays CDs, or as a general rule is better to have a dedicated CD player if you listen to music a lot? What is the difference, if they are both forms of digital media/players with similar methods of reading the materials and similar outputs?

It does not make much or any difference from a sound standpoint. From a convenience standpoint, it makes a difference. Features on CD players are made for listening to CDs, and BD and DVD players often skip many features that are on virtually all CD players. And it is easy to get a CD changer, but I don't think I have ever seen a BD changer.

Since I have a separate main stereo from my home theater, I don't bother with a separate CD player for my home theater (because I rarely ever listen to CDs with it). But I use one for my main stereo (and another secondary stereo), and if I only had one system, I would want a CD player for the features and convenience of it.

But, again, from a sound standpoint, it is totally unnecessary.

The reason I separated out the things in my exąmples in my earlier post is because the sound formats are different on each, and consequently they can easily sound different (e.g., discrete multichannel sounds different from 2 channel stereo). MP3s can also sound different from CDs, when the compression is too much or the algorithm isn't good. So not all digital formats sound the same, but the different players of the formats pretty much all sound the same.

 

[Omar Leon]

1. Front stage LCR
2. Subwoofer
3. AVR with Pre outs (Future proof for more power)
4 Blu ray player....Oppo if you can afford it.
5. Rear surrounds

 

[DanOh62]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

 

[Actran]

What did you end up with?