upgrading Home Theatre... advice / opinions / help please?

[mung]

Hi all.

 

 

looking at upgrading my Home Theatre to all new gear.

 

currently I have a fairly basic, but good setup,

Yamaha RX-V450 AVR

Yamaha DVD

Athena F2 Front

Athena F1 Rear

Athena Sub

 

good gear, but after 7 years, and new new house, would love to upgrade to newer stuff, and will keep it (old setup) for my other lounge,

 

 

 

anyways, looking at upgrading to some higher end gear, so far all I know what I want from the new system is B & W Speakers.

 

been looking at the following gear;

 

Onkyo TX-NR1008 AVR

SONY 5600ES AVR

 

and B & W speaker package consisting of - 600series 683 package - 683 main, HTM61 Centre, DS3 surround and ASW610xp 10in sub.

 

 

 

now, i want a system for both music and movies, i want something that can kick me in the a** when I turn it up, but at the same time I want something that is just crisp.

 

 

 

roughly for all that gear (speakers) with either one of the AVR's will set me back $10k, this of course is a fair wack of change for anyone, so leads me to my questions..

 

what Im wanting to know is, which one of those two AVR's would be the better bang for buck? or is there another one I should have a look at? both will set me back around $3.5K

 

what about the speaker package? should I run 700 series front speakers and match with 600 series for the rest of the speakers.? or should I have a look at another brand of speakers?

 

lastly, my new house, is 3 years old, you would have thought they would of at least have the bare basic's pre-wired, how hard would getting the lounge re-wired be? has anyone had any experience in this? looking at wiring up speaker jack points in each corner, networking, and while I am at it, pre-wiring for multi zone,

 

 

anyways, would love to hear from everyones thoughts on the gear I have my eyes on.

 

cheers in advance,

 

ants

[Ernie1553552694]

You would be better off getting a custom installer to help you. They have access to better gear for the same money too. You've obviously been down to HN. Obviously there is the lure of finance, but long term, I think your interests would be better served by a specialist.

 

This advice is a little one-eyed since what I do is prefaced in the first sentence. All I can say is, you can do better for the money. I happy to advise, but not here. PM me if you like.

[Electra]

What makes you specially want the B&W's? In my opinion, B&W only start to become reasonable sounding at the 700 series, and thats a far cry from the 68x series. There is a massive range of options that would fit into that $6-$7K range for speakers.

Image 414's with center, sub and surrounds ( May even come in slightly under budget? ) which would outperform for movies, and outperform comprehensively for music. Mission, Paradigm, Wharfedale, PSB, Energy, Focal, KEF,Tannoy... The list goes on. Most will offer better value for money than the 68x B&W's unless someone is offering a killer deal on the B&W's.

 

 

 

I am also with Ernie - go to someone who knows what their talking about.

In Hamilton, there are 3 I know of, and in order of my experience with them I would suggest the Audio Consultant first, SBS second, and Listening Post third. ( LP do stock B&W ) And just because I listed LP third does not mean their not a good place to deal with, I just have had limited experience with them.

 

And as for the AVR, Rotel do a stunner which sonically will outperform comprehensively the Sony or the Onkyo, see the review The author of that review is forum member Michael W, and he is a fussy bugger :)D so if he says its good ( and bought one ) then you can rest assured that it is. As for its lower power rating than the Onkyo or Sony, you might be surprised just how more powerful it would sound, being that its got a genuinely decent amplifier and power supply, and is an honest rating.

[mung]

friend has some B & W speakers, and I was impressed, thats why went along to check out some.!

 

I didnt say anything about H.P, I have a budget of 10K, will not be 'ticking' anything up.

 

 

like I said, I'm very open minded, just want the best bang for buck, and at the same time, after good gear!

 

why else would I post here? haha.

 

Day off tomorrow, so will contact and try pop into see the guys in hamilton you listed off.

[little blue penguin]

 

mung;137350 wrote:

Day off tomorrow, so will contact and try pop into see the guys in hamilton you listed off.

 

Take the house floor plans with you if you still have them.

[Ernie1553552694]

My apologies Mung, the brands you mentioned have best representation amongst the chain stores. Marantz also sounds good too.

 

If you are planning multi-room audio, that is really another project and another allocation of budget, but it's good to be planning and building infrastructure for the rest of your system.

 

I'd consider locally powered multi-room zones fed source by your network. It cuts down on the amount of speaker cable that needs to be run and ensures you have no introduction of hum from high and low voltage cable crossover. Such as it is with retrofits...

[Nigel Beale]

I was looking at a nice new NAD modular AVR the other day, arguably better in the wiggly waveforms that impact on ones ears. Modular in that you can upgrade the internal boards for newer bits when they change.

 

With the group on this aswell, when you start talking about complete upgrades with serious money you really need to talk to those at the coal face.

Also these guys can crawl around in small places to rewire things, they have special thin people

 

Don't forget about other wires aswell, like eithernet.

[mung]

 

Masterpiece;137363 wrote:

they have special thin people

 

 

 

.

 

haha

 

love that.

 

 

well, been far too busy to even look at any shops, will try next monday on my day off, !

 

will update thread when I find more toys to look at.

[Boris1553552671]

If you like your Yamaha you could have a look at their new Aventage range. RX-A3000 is around your budget. I haven't checked for reviews but feature list looks impressive.

 

 

B