Hi, This is my first post, however I have been a lurker on ecoustics for the past few months. What a great source of knowledge! This post is just to thank every one who helped me in choosing my home theater system.
Here is what I had: Onkyo T-575 Receiver Onkyo DVD 5 disc changer NHT Super zeros (5) + NHT subwoofer.
Then the bug to upgrade bit me. So after careful review of forum topics and listening to what little I could find. Here is what I have ended up with: 0. Acoustic Research Speakers for LCR. Very sensitive, good low end. Will get upgraded next year. 1. NAD S250 (Yet to hook it up) 2. Marantz S4400 (Want to use this as a preamp for the NAD). Standalone it is far superior to my previous receiver. This is an incredible deal. I bought this from Cambridge Soundworks and when I replaced my receiver I could not believe how "CLEAN" it sounded. There is no hiss or hum or anything else. (This was a total shock to me). Because of the lack of noise , I never felt tired of listening or was afraid of raising the volume. We saw "last samurai" and again it shocked me by the total absence of any noise in the quiet passages. Boy, what a receiver!!! I have put in a few opera CDs, Jazz CDs and the sound is very FULL. One of my favorite tests is to listen to a piano on a receiver/speaker combo specially in the high notes. It should sound solid like a piano and not like the pluck of a guitar string. This one aces the test. It sounds like there is a real piano in the room. Just incredible! It runs cool! My Onkyo used to real warm up the little TV stand. So much so that I used to always keep it off!
What I would have loved to have in this receiver is the NetTune feature that Onkyo801 has but the sound quality more than makes up for it. It does one thing and does it well!!
4. Then I got my DVD/CD player. Cambridge Audio 540D. This blew the socks off! Mind you it is not broken in yet, but the opera CD brings the whole house down. When people clap at the end of the performance I can hear every one of them. It no longer sounds like a big blob of sound. (I have added that to my list of tests). The one thing missing from this DVD player is the SACD support!!! Being a die hard Pink Floyd fan I would have loved to be able to listen to DSOTM SACD, but I just could not find a good player in this price range, which would do justice to my CD collection. The other thing that I still can't get to work is to use the remote that came with my receiver and control the DVD player with it. I don't even know where to look for the code. If anybody knows the code for Cambridge Audio DVD player, can you please share it with me.
Anyways, the next thing I am going to do is to connect the AMP. The challenge there is the 12V trigger. It took me a while to figure out that I can connect a DC supply to the switched out from my receiver and plug that into the Amp. I am waiting for the DC supply and a cooling fan (just in case!!!).
If you notice that I have done things in stages. So that I could see the improvement. If there wasn't any, I would have backed the change out.
The cables: - I have 14 gauge speaker wire. - Interconnects so far are the cheapest I could find anywhere. I haven't connected the AMP yet. What I plan to do is to use the 3RCA interonnect. Since the 3rd is meant for video and that is easy to test with a TV. Usually all 3 are equally thick. So I will use that. If the quality drops, from my current setup, then I will consider spending extra on interconnects. Otherwise, the next stop is speakers next year. - I use a surge protector from costco.
I have had a lot of fun so far and I have used a lot of advise from this forum. Thanks a lot! If you have any questions about my "current state of upgrade" do let me know.