Guidance sought on Audio-centric system

[Judi*T]

Hello Forum
I am new to this forum and am seeking advice about an audio-centric system that is in the $5000 (Australian) price range.

In August 2010 Audioholics listed the following as suitable: buying-guides/system-buying-guides/the-5000-audio-centric-system/equipment-product-recommendations (I can't submit the actual url as I haven't had 5 posts in this forum)

As it happens, I have the Samsung LED UA46C6900VF (the 6500 is the one listed in the above recommendation) which came with an appalling set of speakers and a blu ray player in a special deal. I want to replace the speakers at least and have the ability to add speakers in another room. I also want to be able to play multiple CD's (6 stack or similar), iPod/MP3.

My question is: Is the above recommended configuration of a year ago still valid? Will it meet my wishes listed above? Is there something better now? Is it available in Australia?

Second question is for $5000 budget +/- can I get some recommendations for a totally separate, audio only (CD, MP3, iPod, digital radio) set up that can support two extra speakers in another adjoining room?

I'd appreciate any suggestions

Thank you
Judi

 

[m_vanmeter]

since you seem "new" to the a/v hobby, dropping $5K USD on a system may be a little extreme for your first setup. The system you mentioned is certainly a very good system, but does not meet your requirement for a multiple CD player. How important is this if you can do a lossless RIP of the CD's and play the music as electronic files ?

Is "internet radio" something you might be interested in ? Networking into your home network for source sharing ? The newer generation of network aware a/v receivers allow these additional sources.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

There's an another issue - you are in down under land and from what I heard a lot of brands are ether simply unavailable or too expensive...
Here's relevant and still ongoing topic on similar subject which could give some initial guidance :
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75495

 

[bikemig]

Welcome to the forum. I set up a HT audio-centric system fairly recently based on a lot of good advice I received in this forum. If you're lucky, there might even be some agreement on how to set up your system, . If you want to set up a 2d room for audio only, you might want to think of a good pair of powered (or active) monitors and a streaming device (I really like the Squeezebox Touch). This is a dead easy set up and will sound very good assuming you rip your CDs into high quality files (flac or apple lossless). Vanmeter is right, if you do this, then you won't need a CD player capable of playing multiple CDs. In your main system, you could use a computer as a HTPC (the TV becomes the computer screen) which will allow you to stream music you've ripped, anything of the internet (Pandora etc) and well as video. That will probably simplify things as you won't need a networking AV receiver and you can focus on the audio quality of the components.

 

[3db]

Take a look at the audio forum based in New Zealand to get an idea what's availabe to you and in the price range you are looking at.

http://www.audioenz.co.nz/

 

[pelennor]

The other posters are right, as another Australian with a keen interest in AV, some products are a lot less viable to buy over here than in the US. Some general advice, there are some good value Australian speakers around, and they are usually better value than imports due to lower shipping costs (google Aaron, Adelaide, Richter, Subsonic, Legend Acoustics, and Whatmough for some ideas).

As for the rest, you'll probably end up either buying it locally, or importing suitably. The Emotiva gear is great value if you're likely to want separates, even with shipping considered. For AV receivers etc, due to voltage differences you're better off importing from Hong Kong based stores than the US based ones, since the US runs on 110V not ~240V like us.

Finally, there's a a few quite good local (.au) forums for discussing this kind of thing, stereo.net.au, the home theatre section of whirlpool.net.au, and dtvforum.info