Poste below is the unedited copy of a story that ran in GQ magazine SA (so it's Condenast's copyright - but pasted here for reference purposes).
It is intended as a primer for someone new to the home theatre thing and getting confused by the jargon and sales spiel. Prices mentioned are correct as of April 2011. If you find some good introductory/educational stuff for newbie AV enthusiasts, post on...!
---
Better Tunes in your Rooms
You walk into a high end audio store with a budget-crunchingly large number in your head that you?ve steeled yourself to spend, swearing to eat just pasta and cornflakes for the next two months, but you gotta get some decent new speakers. As you cross the threshold, you are confronted with boxes bearing price tags that make you gape, then laugh, then gape again. Van Den Hul Inspiration speaker cable at R2,100 per metre. Hmmm five metres, times two cables, is R21,000? and I was looking to get some nice speakers for about R3k?
And you walk out, knowing you can never afford the perfection you just saw, but the ?pretty decent, really, for the price? set of Bowers&Wilkins 685 speakers you parted with R4,900 for under your arm feel like the biggest bargain of the year, somehow.
Luckily, with a bit of common sense, you can get excellent sound, without mortgaging your house. The amount of extra sound quality you get starts to slow down sharply as price goes up. R10,000 will get you to 98%, R100,000 will get you the next 1%, and R500,000 will get you another ?%. Just knowing a bit about what you?re buying, and why.
In every sound system, there are three main components ? source (e.g. mp3, CD or DVD player), amplifier and speakers. Source to amplifier needs interconnects, amplifier to speakers needs speaker cables. Your sound quality is only as good as the weakest link in the chain ? a superb amplifier, decent speakers and an iPod Nano is only going to sound as good as the Nano.
Music or movies?
The best possible system for listening to music is stereo ? two speakers creating a stereophonic image, that lets your two ears mentally create a ?soundstage?, a perception of a space in front of you filled with musicians playing their instruments. A great system will be ?transparent? ? if you close your eyes, you can?t hear two speakers, just the feeling of being there.
If you are not a music fan, but love cinema-like sound, you want a multi-channel surround sound system powered by an AV receiver, which mimics the multiple channels that the sound design of modern movies uses ? left and right for music and ambient sounds, centre channel mostly for dialogue, two satellites for detail sounds and effects, and a woofer for low base.
In an ideal (i.e. Lotto-winning) world, you?d have a stereo system for music (like the Arcam Solo Music at R23,990 or Rotel RA-06SE at R8,200), and an AV system for movies. Most often, if you want both, you?ll end up with a good AV receiver that has a good stereo mode (i.e. only powers left and right speakers), like the Onkyo TXSR 608 at R8990.
If you?re a music fan going with an AV receiver as your amp, concentrate on getting the best stereo speakers you can, and then add cheaper centre and surround speakers.
If you?re a movie fan, go for a matched surround set like the LG ARX 8000 AV system has oodles of connectivity options, and even more speakers (R7000, add another grand for BluRay). More affordable for a small room, Phillips HTS 5550 is R4,000.
How Big is Big?
You want to match your system to the size of your room. A huge amp with pumping speakers may sound loud in a small room, but will seldom sound good. Likewise, a large room needs plenty of juice to get it sounding lively. A 40 or 60W amp in a typical small suburban home or apartment (e.g. Marantz MCR 503 at R6,500) is generally plenty, 80W or 120W would be needed for a big room. A general rule of thumb, match your amp output to your speakers (so an 80W RMS amp to 80W RMS 8Ω speakers). If you generally don?t crank your system, then a smaller setup can sound better at mid volumes with a more powerful amp (e.g. 60W amp with 40W speakers). Just be careful with the volume control during parties.
Ignore any speaker specification talking about ?peak music power? or similar, talking about 2000W or whatever. It?s meaningless.
Big Boxes, Small Boxes
Modern bookshelf speakers (like Mission MX-1 at R2,300) can sound fantastic, but generally to get good low end base extension, you need a bigger speaker. With modern AV receivers, you can make up for this a bit when listening to music as the receiver sends some bass to the powered woofer. Good floor-standers (like Monitor Audio RX6 at R10,990) should have plenty of bass response, so you don?t need to supplement with a woofer when listening to music.
The most important aspect is control ? cheaper speakers sound very ?bassy? by crooking the design (e.g. porting the speaker to emphasise bass), but have poor damping. Good bass has a crisp, clean thump in your gut, not in your lungs and ears.
Some audio manufacturers also crook it a bit by allowing some non-linear distortion, which can make the highs sound brighter and ?more detailed?, but the sound is harsh and fragile, and will fatigue your ears quickly.
Putting it together
Interconnects make a huge difference ? up to a point. Get good quality ones, but don?t get suckered, generally the quantum-physics high-fallutin? schpiel in interconnects is nonsense (or true, but only if you were hooking up radar arrays at Jo?burg international).
For audio interconnects (line level) you want good robust construction and high-quality plugs. Video and coaxial digital interconnects you want the same, plus they must by 75Ω impedance (it?ll say so on the package). TEAC make decent entry level ones (R160 for 1m), Acoustic Research better (R250), or the whole hog with Van Den Hul (R1,250). Optical interconnects are no better than coaxial (except breaking more easily if bent, and being limited to shorter runs), but can solve ground loops. Ixos are R365, Van Den Hul R1285. Many now connect audio sources via HDMI, which comes in two types only (no matter what the packaging might say) ? Standard supports up to 1080i and High Speed allows 1080p (with and without Ethernet channel). Digitech are decent at R250, or Audioquest for R525.
Speaker cables should be good thick copper wire ? you an even use the thickest two-strand ripcord from the hardware store and not be able to tell the difference if the cable is not too long. Hamrad Electronics has fantastic ?Dowa? cable, 2.5mm diameter (AWG10) fine braid conductor for R15/m. Or you can cough R180/m for Van Den Hul Snowline.
The bottom line with speaker cables is keep them short, and the longer the fatter. With interconnects, just keep them short, and keep both away from your power cables.
More convenient, although electronically complex and lower fidelity, is to go with wireless speakers, like Samsung?s CD-HT9950W at R19,950.
Finally, place your speakers properly ? Google a bit for info, but speaker placement radically changes how your system sounds. This also applies to what they sit on ? wooden floors are terrible, get a big thick ceramic tile to place under the speakers. If surround sound speakers have mounting brackets, use them, don?t just leave them lying on a shelf.
It is intended as a primer for someone new to the home theatre thing and getting confused by the jargon and sales spiel. Prices mentioned are correct as of April 2011. If you find some good introductory/educational stuff for newbie AV enthusiasts, post on...!
---
Better Tunes in your Rooms
You walk into a high end audio store with a budget-crunchingly large number in your head that you?ve steeled yourself to spend, swearing to eat just pasta and cornflakes for the next two months, but you gotta get some decent new speakers. As you cross the threshold, you are confronted with boxes bearing price tags that make you gape, then laugh, then gape again. Van Den Hul Inspiration speaker cable at R2,100 per metre. Hmmm five metres, times two cables, is R21,000? and I was looking to get some nice speakers for about R3k?
And you walk out, knowing you can never afford the perfection you just saw, but the ?pretty decent, really, for the price? set of Bowers&Wilkins 685 speakers you parted with R4,900 for under your arm feel like the biggest bargain of the year, somehow.
Luckily, with a bit of common sense, you can get excellent sound, without mortgaging your house. The amount of extra sound quality you get starts to slow down sharply as price goes up. R10,000 will get you to 98%, R100,000 will get you the next 1%, and R500,000 will get you another ?%. Just knowing a bit about what you?re buying, and why.
In every sound system, there are three main components ? source (e.g. mp3, CD or DVD player), amplifier and speakers. Source to amplifier needs interconnects, amplifier to speakers needs speaker cables. Your sound quality is only as good as the weakest link in the chain ? a superb amplifier, decent speakers and an iPod Nano is only going to sound as good as the Nano.
Music or movies?
The best possible system for listening to music is stereo ? two speakers creating a stereophonic image, that lets your two ears mentally create a ?soundstage?, a perception of a space in front of you filled with musicians playing their instruments. A great system will be ?transparent? ? if you close your eyes, you can?t hear two speakers, just the feeling of being there.
If you are not a music fan, but love cinema-like sound, you want a multi-channel surround sound system powered by an AV receiver, which mimics the multiple channels that the sound design of modern movies uses ? left and right for music and ambient sounds, centre channel mostly for dialogue, two satellites for detail sounds and effects, and a woofer for low base.
In an ideal (i.e. Lotto-winning) world, you?d have a stereo system for music (like the Arcam Solo Music at R23,990 or Rotel RA-06SE at R8,200), and an AV system for movies. Most often, if you want both, you?ll end up with a good AV receiver that has a good stereo mode (i.e. only powers left and right speakers), like the Onkyo TXSR 608 at R8990.
If you?re a music fan going with an AV receiver as your amp, concentrate on getting the best stereo speakers you can, and then add cheaper centre and surround speakers.
If you?re a movie fan, go for a matched surround set like the LG ARX 8000 AV system has oodles of connectivity options, and even more speakers (R7000, add another grand for BluRay). More affordable for a small room, Phillips HTS 5550 is R4,000.
How Big is Big?
You want to match your system to the size of your room. A huge amp with pumping speakers may sound loud in a small room, but will seldom sound good. Likewise, a large room needs plenty of juice to get it sounding lively. A 40 or 60W amp in a typical small suburban home or apartment (e.g. Marantz MCR 503 at R6,500) is generally plenty, 80W or 120W would be needed for a big room. A general rule of thumb, match your amp output to your speakers (so an 80W RMS amp to 80W RMS 8Ω speakers). If you generally don?t crank your system, then a smaller setup can sound better at mid volumes with a more powerful amp (e.g. 60W amp with 40W speakers). Just be careful with the volume control during parties.
Ignore any speaker specification talking about ?peak music power? or similar, talking about 2000W or whatever. It?s meaningless.
Big Boxes, Small Boxes
Modern bookshelf speakers (like Mission MX-1 at R2,300) can sound fantastic, but generally to get good low end base extension, you need a bigger speaker. With modern AV receivers, you can make up for this a bit when listening to music as the receiver sends some bass to the powered woofer. Good floor-standers (like Monitor Audio RX6 at R10,990) should have plenty of bass response, so you don?t need to supplement with a woofer when listening to music.
The most important aspect is control ? cheaper speakers sound very ?bassy? by crooking the design (e.g. porting the speaker to emphasise bass), but have poor damping. Good bass has a crisp, clean thump in your gut, not in your lungs and ears.
Some audio manufacturers also crook it a bit by allowing some non-linear distortion, which can make the highs sound brighter and ?more detailed?, but the sound is harsh and fragile, and will fatigue your ears quickly.
Putting it together
Interconnects make a huge difference ? up to a point. Get good quality ones, but don?t get suckered, generally the quantum-physics high-fallutin? schpiel in interconnects is nonsense (or true, but only if you were hooking up radar arrays at Jo?burg international).
For audio interconnects (line level) you want good robust construction and high-quality plugs. Video and coaxial digital interconnects you want the same, plus they must by 75Ω impedance (it?ll say so on the package). TEAC make decent entry level ones (R160 for 1m), Acoustic Research better (R250), or the whole hog with Van Den Hul (R1,250). Optical interconnects are no better than coaxial (except breaking more easily if bent, and being limited to shorter runs), but can solve ground loops. Ixos are R365, Van Den Hul R1285. Many now connect audio sources via HDMI, which comes in two types only (no matter what the packaging might say) ? Standard supports up to 1080i and High Speed allows 1080p (with and without Ethernet channel). Digitech are decent at R250, or Audioquest for R525.
Speaker cables should be good thick copper wire ? you an even use the thickest two-strand ripcord from the hardware store and not be able to tell the difference if the cable is not too long. Hamrad Electronics has fantastic ?Dowa? cable, 2.5mm diameter (AWG10) fine braid conductor for R15/m. Or you can cough R180/m for Van Den Hul Snowline.
The bottom line with speaker cables is keep them short, and the longer the fatter. With interconnects, just keep them short, and keep both away from your power cables.
More convenient, although electronically complex and lower fidelity, is to go with wireless speakers, like Samsung?s CD-HT9950W at R19,950.
Finally, place your speakers properly ? Google a bit for info, but speaker placement radically changes how your system sounds. This also applies to what they sit on ? wooden floors are terrible, get a big thick ceramic tile to place under the speakers. If surround sound speakers have mounting brackets, use them, don?t just leave them lying on a shelf.
