Hi there,
I recently took a listen to Stu's (a fellow forumite) HT and loved it. It once again got me contemplating all my options for a HT upgrade as I realised how terrible mine actually is!
We had an interesting discussion on what would be better to upgrade first, I initially argues that the speakers would be the first thing to do where-as he was firm on believing the amp should be top of the list.
The system is a Sony DWT1600 standard boxed 6.2 speaker setup. I know it's not the best but whilst in Nigeria for 2 years and on a tight budget it was the best quality vs price I could get. The crux I believe is that all the sound is processed very well thru a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro on my PC before being sent via co-ax cable to the amp digitally.
1. Because of the X-fi processing the signal into something (hopefully) good, would I need better amplification to reproduce the sound better then good speakers would be able to?
2. I would think that because it's a standard boxed setup the speakers are normally the worst part of the setup, they most likely don't even have a passive crossover inside but let the full range go to the mids and tweet on the front floorstanders. Can anyone confirm/correct this?
3. Because a boxed setup needs to be as cheap as possible. I would guess that the speakers are only 4ohm so that the amp does not need to be as powerful (thus costing more). So, if I bought good speakers they would be 8ohms. Now it's not a problem for the amp to play at a higher resistance but of course it would probably lack power.
4. However, if I then bought a good amp it would in all likelyhood not be happy playing on a 4ohm load?
I guess what I am actually asking is:
1. What would give me a better sound repoduction, better amp or speakers in this setup (bearing in mind the sound processor)
2. Given the resistance factor of the cheapie speakers and amp, is it possible to upgrade any components seperately without causing undue strain on and of the components.
I recently took a listen to Stu's (a fellow forumite) HT and loved it. It once again got me contemplating all my options for a HT upgrade as I realised how terrible mine actually is!
We had an interesting discussion on what would be better to upgrade first, I initially argues that the speakers would be the first thing to do where-as he was firm on believing the amp should be top of the list.
The system is a Sony DWT1600 standard boxed 6.2 speaker setup. I know it's not the best but whilst in Nigeria for 2 years and on a tight budget it was the best quality vs price I could get. The crux I believe is that all the sound is processed very well thru a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro on my PC before being sent via co-ax cable to the amp digitally.
1. Because of the X-fi processing the signal into something (hopefully) good, would I need better amplification to reproduce the sound better then good speakers would be able to?
2. I would think that because it's a standard boxed setup the speakers are normally the worst part of the setup, they most likely don't even have a passive crossover inside but let the full range go to the mids and tweet on the front floorstanders. Can anyone confirm/correct this?
3. Because a boxed setup needs to be as cheap as possible. I would guess that the speakers are only 4ohm so that the amp does not need to be as powerful (thus costing more). So, if I bought good speakers they would be 8ohms. Now it's not a problem for the amp to play at a higher resistance but of course it would probably lack power.
4. However, if I then bought a good amp it would in all likelyhood not be happy playing on a 4ohm load?
I guess what I am actually asking is:
1. What would give me a better sound repoduction, better amp or speakers in this setup (bearing in mind the sound processor)
2. Given the resistance factor of the cheapie speakers and amp, is it possible to upgrade any components seperately without causing undue strain on and of the components.
