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New member Username: FergyPost Number: 1 Registered: 01-2004 | Just moved into a new house, and the previous owner had converted part of the garage to a soundproof home theater (20'x15'). Previously I had a Sony ES receiver (no flames please, I know it's junk) hooked up to a Klipsch satellite surround system. Of course, now that system which was great for an apt. isn't enough to fill the new room. Now I've got a ton of .shn and .flac recordings of live material that I've gotten from sharingthegroove.com, and I've got a ton of DVD's. So say 50/50 music to movies ratio. So here's what I've been considering... Onkyo TX-NR801 (cuz it's got ethernet to play those, mp3/wma/wav - which I'd be re-encoding all those flac/shn's to wav so that I wouldn't lose quality) Pioneer Elite VSX-55TXi (cuz I think I can do similar audio streams thru a USB or iLink) Monitor Auido Silvers S8 front, s1 surround and rear. I'm kinda hooked on these, heard at a local dealer and was blown away. What I'm wondering is there something in the way of a receiver that I could be missing? Anyone know of a receiver that plays .flac streams (being that .flac is opensource). I could always run line outa my pc, but I'd rather be able to run it from the receiver. Computers have alot of EM noise running thru them, and I've noticed it can be translated out thru the soundcards. Are the new connection features worth the extra money? My budget should be around 4-5k. I've also heard a Energy C, Polk RTi150 (can get a pair of these this weekend for $600, but seemed to be geared for home theater rather than music, bright), Klipsch RF25 and 35 (feels the same as the Polks, brightened for HT). Any suggestions? I'd like to do this the right way. |
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New member Username: GdawgPost Number: 21 Registered: 12-2003 | Matt Ferguson?!?! Were you by any chance at my dentists office about a week ago? Anyhow I'll try to answer your question. I would definately have to recomend the Elite. As Elitefan once said, "Elite with Monitor is pure heaven". And I definately agree. The Onkyo with the monitors would be way too bright and harsh. The Klipsch/Monitor both need a way warmer receiver to sound right. Unless it will sound way too thin. I have an Elite with Klipsch and to say it sounds awsome is an understatement. To be honest, I dont know what a .flac is. So I cant help you there. What I can tell you is that you can use a Harman DAL-150 with any receiver that has a coaxial input. The Elite also has a USB on the back. All the equipment you mentioned above is all awsome stuff, but watch how you match it up. I highly recomend the Elite/Monitor combo, but that's just my opinion. Let me hear what you choose and how it all works out! G.DawG |
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New member Username: FergyPost Number: 4 Registered: 01-2004 | I ended up not liking the newer Monitor S8's. I tried out some 9i's (last years model I guess). Those sounded much better. A decent shop called Speakerlab gave me a listen to some higher end stuff than I had heard before. NAD, Integra, Dali, Wharfedale, Sunfire (!), Velodyne, PSB. The NAD sounded warmer, Integra brighter (but still nice), Sunfire (out of my league, but fantastic). Onkyo (NR801) didn't compare well with the Integra 7.4 for sound. Overall the NAD had the best sound. So I bought NAD T753. Off subject, but if you get a chance take a listen to a Sunfire. It sure opened my ears to what a good receiver should sound like. On the speaker side I listened to (on the NAD 753) Dali Suite series fronts (dunno what model specifically) Warfedale Evo 40s PSB Image 7PT PSB was sharp and hit lows hard, but seemed to be missing it's midrange. Dali's had too much midrange, but were very nice (disappeared in the room and they kept the bass at low volumne). In the end the Warfedale evo's were best - they went lower than PSB or Dali, but weren't to sharp on the top end (although the PSB hit harder). Very nice speakers and excellent cabinets to boot. Although I may be going back to the Integra amp due to the dreaded hum on the NAD, NAD sounds great though. Basically, I decided I'll push the music from my soundcard to the amp instead of pulling it from the amp control. .flac is like mp3, but without the losses - also it's open source, like .ogg files so it's not going to be product specific like AAC. http://flac.sourceforge.net/ Most all of my stuff is downloaded from http://sharingthegroove.org - legit live shows (alot of this stuff is really well recorded). It's the new generation of tape traders. offsubject:Is your Ds. Redmond/Bellevue |
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New member Username: GdawgPost Number: 34 Registered: 12-2003 | Matt, Sounds great, so you have chosen the receiver(NAD T753) but not the speakers yet? Did you end up with the Wharfedales? No, my Office is called The Discovery Tide. There was a Matt Ferguson my office about a week ago, and I was just wondering, but thats not important. Well its good to know what a .flac is, I dont know too much about computer stuff. Well tell me how it all works out when you get it all hooked up and running! G.DawG |