Bookshelf and Receiver questions from a noob

[njedpx3]

So from this chart, would moderate guage just be somewhere in the middle, like 16 AWG? Also, how do I interpret the Ohm load, in order ot get the right one?

I plan to have my speakers within 2-3 feet on either side of my entertainment center, but will probably get two 10-12 foot sections of wire so I will have a little flexibility. Using tis chart and the blue jeans cables site, it looks like I would pay about $34 per section assuming I get terminating (bananas to bananas). Is this a good price?

Should I be getting terminating or non-terminating? bananas or spades? WIll this depend on the speakers and the receiver?

Look at Monoprice.com they have very good quality at great prices. Guage of wire is the size; the smaller thenumber the bigger the wire. 14 guage is good for most speaker runs 25 foot or less, however I tend to get one size bigger 12 gauge.

If you are comfortable making your own cables and putting connectors on the ends, get locking banana plugsfrom monoprice.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239&cs_id=1023901&p_id=2789&seq=1&format=2

Forest Man


P.S. - BlueJeanCables is very good but costs more

 

[JerryLove]

Ends are unneccessairy. Bare wire works just find. Ends are a convenience in the even one regularly disconnects and reconnects their speakers.

And for bananna plugs, "putting them on" involved putting bare wire into a hole and tightening a screw.

 

[njedpx3]

Ends are unneccessairy. Bare wire works just find. Ends are a convenience in the even one regularly disconnects and reconnects their speakers.

And for bananna plugs, "putting them on" involved putting bare wire into a hole and tightening a screw.

JerryLove,

I guess you are correct, because I never see any spake connectors or banana plugs being sold. And whisker shorts rarely occur I guess I was wrong to suggest banana plugs.

OP -- Banana plugs make a cleaner connection, no stray wire whiskers that can cause shorts. And wire whisker shorts are a very common syndrome with bare wire connections it the strands are not carefully twisted or tinned. This is especially true if you ever move, upgrade or add equipment.

And yes banana plugs are fairly easy to connect. Strip the wire to the correct length and get a good banana plug that has a set screw or screw down to tighten the connection. Some people don't like the hassle of stripping wire to the correct length with a knife and don't have an automatic wire stripper. Because if you cut off too many strands you in effect make the wire a smaller wire size.

Good Luck!

Forest Man

 

[DJ in TX]

I just got back from the speaker store, and the Paradigm Atoms do sound as good as I expected. They remind me so much of my floor standing Klipsch CF-1s as far as how much good sound they pump out,...but out of a tiny enclosure. Very impressive. I took in a burned CD with music that we like, and had him play it, and my wife was very impressed as well. She said it was kindof exciting to hear music over a good set of speakers. It's always good to have the spouse on your side in something like this . Assuming nothing happens to spoil my plans, then I will likley be getting these.

So after deciding I liked them, I talked to the salesman about price. The speakers were listed at $299, and offered him $225 for the pair hoping he might meet me in the middle. He said $299 is their discounted price, and their Paradigm rep won't let them go below this. Personally, I really doubt that this is true. If they bought the speakers in bulk already from the manufacturer at a set price, then I think they could sell them as low as their store manager allows. In any case, they won't go below $299 for the pair. I asked if they would throw in the stands for free. He said he couldn't do that but he would knock some off the price of the stands and give me the pair for $99 instead of $129. So does this sound like a pretty typical outcome, or should I expect them to haggle a bit more? Keep in mind this is the only Paradigm dealer in the area. There is another dealer in Houston (3 hours away), but I have a feeling it wouldn't make much difference, and then there is gasoline expense to drive there. Any thoughts?

Also, is $99 a good price for stands? I know that these are the ones on the Paradigm site and would work well, but they also might be overpriced. I know I don't want something that is unstable just to save a few bucks, but if there are some good stands out there that would allow me to save $25-50 over these, then it would be worth looking into.

 

[JerryLove]

I guess you are correct, because I never see any spake connectors or banana plugs being sold. And whisker shorts rarely occur I guess I was wrong to suggest banana plugs.

If you are going to be sarcastic and address a specific poster, you might want to at least be right.

Whisker shorts are caused by a mistake in attaching a stranded wire. This may shock you, but it's possible to make that same mistake in attaching bare wire to a banana or spade plug and get the exact same whisker short.

As to "I see them sold", I don't know where to being with the errors in that thinking. I see $500 power-cables being sold but don't recommend them.

On the other had, I didn't dismiss banana plugs or spades. If you had paid attention, you would see that I actually use banana plugs on some of my gear. Why? Because they make attaching and detaching easy.

For a poster, like our OP, who is concerned that a $300 pair of speaker is an issue, spending an unneccesairy $30 on speaker cable seems to be something to advise him he doesn't need to do.

OP -- Banana plugs make a cleaner connection,

Because having the wire attach to a connector (of a different material) that then attached to the binding post (again possibly a different material) is clearly better than attaching the wire directly to the binding post?

I have trouble guessing how more connectors can make a purer signal, but if you'd like to setup a blind-test demo I'd be willing to wager signifigant money it doesn't.

no stray wire whiskers that can cause shorts. And wire whisker shorts are a very common syndrome with bare wire connections it the strands are not carefully twisted or tinned.

Right there is your assumption. Something you may not realizing you are doing.

You are comparing a tinned and properly connected banana-plug to an untinned and improperly connected bare-wire. It's apples-to-oranges.

And yes banana plugs are fairly easy to connect. Strip the wire to the correct length and get a good banana plug that has a set screw or screw down to tighten the connection. Some people don't like the hassle of stripping wire to the correct length with a knife and don't have an automatic wire stripper. Because if you cut off too many strands you in effect make the wire a smaller wire size.

So banana plugs are convenient. Isn't that what I was saying before your little "education"?

And if someone does it wrong then it doesn't work right? Duh!

Banana plugs mean that everything will be done right? I don't beleive that for a moment.

 

[njedpx3]

Congrats on the Paradigm Atoms

I just got back from the speaker store, and the Paradigm Atoms do sound as good as I expected. They remind me so much of my floor standing Klipsch CF-1s as far as how much good sound they pump out,...but out of a tiny enclosure. Very impressive. I took in a burned CD with music that we like, and had him play it, and my wife was very impressed as well. She said it was kindof exciting to hear music over a good set of speakers. It's always good to have the spouse on your side in something like this . Assuming nothing happens to spoil my plans, then I will likley be getting these.

So after deciding I liked them, I talked to the salesman about price. The speakers were listed at $299, and offered him $225 for the pair hoping he might meet me in the middle. He said $299 is their discounted price, and their Paradigm rep won't let them go below this. Personally, I really doubt that this is true. If they bought the speakers in bulk already from the manufacturer at a set price, then I think they could sell them as low as their store manager allows. In any case, they won't go below $299 for the pair. I asked if they would throw in the stands for free. He said he couldn't do that but he would knock some off the price of the stands and give me the pair for $99 instead of $129. So does this sound like a pretty typical outcome, or should I expect them to haggle a bit more? Keep in mind this is the only Paradigm dealer in the area. There is another dealer in Houston (3 hours away), but I have a feeling it wouldn't make much difference, and then there is gasoline expense to drive there. Any thoughts?

Also, is $99 a good price for stands? I know that these are the ones on the Paradigm site and would work well, but they also might be overpriced. I know I don't want something that is unstable just to save a few bucks, but if there are some good stands out there that would allow me to save $25-50 over these, then it would be worth looking into.

DJ congrats - sorry they don't seem to want to budge on the speakers and 99$ is about right for the stands. I think you will be pleased with the Atom's

I will restate my opinion on cables, monoprice.com has inexpensive cables and locking banana plugs make cleaner connections. Later, it often happens with bare wire connections, when you move equipment, you can end up with whisker shorts from stray strand cable wires. The bottom line, I would not buy the cables they offer you where you are buying hte Paradigm Atoms -- too expensive for no real additonal benefit.

Later,

Forrest Man

 

[DJ in TX]

Well, I am finding conflicting info on this receiver (Pioneer VSX-519V-K) regarding the audio over HDMI issue discussed earlier in this thread. Maybe I am reading things wrong, but I need to make sure I am getting what I expect.

I have read on Pioneer's website the following about this receiver
"VSX-519V-K
- 5-Channel A/V Receiver featuring HDMI® and Advanced Sound Retriever
- HDMI A/V Repeater (2 Inputs/1 Output)
- Front Mini Jack for Portable Audio Connection
- Advanced Sound Retriever"

and from a user rating on bestuy.com I read this...
"I have a limited budget, and every receiver I was researching had HDMI connections that "passed through" the audio signal. Which meant that I would have had to connect my audio with my audio digital optical cable and audio digital coaxial cable defeating the purpose.
This receiver had full HDMI connectivity. I found this one (the only one in town!) and hooked it up. Works flawlesly. Its great having just one HDMI connection!"


So this would make it seem like the receiver does what I need. But then I read things like this from product wiki...

"When compared to the other models in the lineup, the VSX-519V notably does not include high definition audio decoding support, video transcoding or upconversion, or enhanced the iPod OSD found in the other models."

and things like this from a user review on Amazon...

"it has only 2 hdmi passthrough not upscaling hdmi, requiring digital audio input from coax or optical for movies and tv/sat. but the sound is just as powerful and has little or no distortion at high volumes."

So am I misunderstanding what some of this is saying, or is this inconsistent reporting on this feature?

 

[njedpx3]

Pioneer VSX-519V-K specs say it is HMDI repeater so it will play audio and video which is what you want.

You don't need video upconverting all of your sources are already HD and will not need upconverting.

The 519 will do what you expect it to do.

====

Some of the reviews you cited had erroneous information concerning "passthrough"


Peace

Forest Man

 

[DJ in TX]

Pioneer VSX-519V-K specs say it is HMDI repeater so it will play audio and video which is what you want.

You don't need video upconverting all of your sources are already HD and will not need upconverting.

The 519 will do what you expect it to do.

====

Some of the reviews you cited had erroneous information concerning "passthrough"


Peace

Forest Man

Thank god, I was about to throw a major hissy fit (but in a very manly way of course) . Conflicting reports like these make the process way more confusing and difficult that it needs to be for novices like myself.

Also, knowing that $99 is pretty standard for speaker stands, then I think I will grab them and take the discount. So it looks like everything has been figured out here. I haven't decided yet as to whether I will use banana clips or spades, or just go with bare wire. We'll see what happens.

I appreciate everyone who took the time to give me advice and explain things to me. I may have some questions for you all once I get the receiver home, but maybe not. Hopefully the setup manual will be pretty easy to figure out.

Thanks again!

--DJ

 

[Seth=L]

The VSX-519 doesn't decode DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD natively. However, it can decode uncompressed multichannel PCM (which is what DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD are converted to before being converted to analog). It's crucial that you understand that you need a Blu-ray player that is capable of decoding the formats internally to utilze these surround formats (a lot of them do). I'm using a PS3 as a Blu-ray player, which incidentally decodes the formats internally and converts them to useable LPCM for the a receiver to utilze. There is a notable difference between regular old Dolby Digital/DTS and these HD audio codecs ( DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD), and yes, even when the receiver doesn't recognize the codecs and is forced to use LPCM.

 

[DJ in TX]

Hey Seth,

I appreciate the warning. Although I do admit that I don't understand much about all the different codecs and conversions, etc. Right now I don't have a bluray player, and no plans to get one anytime soon. Maybe in a year, or sooner if my 11 yr old sony DVD player suddenly were to die on me. It has worked like a champ. If and when I do go Blu Ray, hopefully the capability you describe will be standard in the majority if not all blu ray players. Otherwise I hope I remember to re-read this thread.