Movies-home cinema & Naim

The sensible money route is to get a modest DVD Player from one of the Japanese or Far Eastern stables and team it with a Yamaha 3 channel processor amplifier. I had an E492 for a while which I later changed for an E800

This is a very cost effective way to go -less than £600 should be possible. You will obviously need some additional speakers. I only ever bothered with a centre to add to my main stereo pair although the Yamaha has amps for two rears and a centre.

If you want to spend silly money get a Tag AV32 or a Naim AV2 I bought a Tag AV32 way back before the Naim was released and am delighted with it.

I feed the front channels into the VCR input on my 82/250 and I feed the centre channel into both channels on a 140 and effectively biamp a Kef 100 centre.

Still thinking about whether to bother with rear speakers. You need a big room and my music room is only 13 by 13 and has o accommodate piano guitars etc as well as the 28" Sony Wega

Sounds very good indeed

quote:

---

Still thinking about whether to bother with rear speakers

---

Hi Eddie - you don't know what you're missing without rears. If you've a smaller room you can always mount the rears high and adjust your Yamaha rear volumes to match.

Having said that, the rears can pump some serious volume and bass info with DD and DTS. I had to bluetac my B&W601's to their stands after watching Terminator 2 at "realistic" volumes

If you're still cynical about the musical merits of Home Theatre I challenge you to watch Eric's Unplugged or David Gray live on DVD.

redeye

Come on you know the AV2's the way to go

Jay

quote:

---

You are a bad influence

---

Point taken....I just thought that while you're at home, lying around, ......

Steve at Real Music that has been dying to give the AV2 a workout and I just might decide to help him!

And oh yes you read correctly, the world famous "Real Music". One of the top top five hi-fi stores in the WORLD as voted by the Audiophile wet-dream - Arena Magazine.

Jay

I know of people who are very happy with their TAG AV32R based Naim surround system with 180 powering centre and 140 powering rears (main system is 82/hicap/135s).

The E800 solution works very well if all you want is basic (but proficient) surround sound. I strongly recommend, however, that you try to match speakers carefully to get the voicing close. Therefore, a set of Royd speakers for redeye, and a set of Kefs for Eddie. If the Royds are too big you'll have to look into some sub/sat systems such as Elac's remarkably good Cinema 3 speakers. If you wish to keep it as inexpensive as possible, you could try their Cinema 2 system, although I believe that comes in a set of 5.1.

Incidentally, Eddie, I hope your main speakers are also Kef. If not, I hope they sound a bit like the Kef centre since integration can be a problem otherwise. At the rear you want the closest match to your speakers at the front. If they're Kefs, stick with Kef, but any model will do. Kef make inexpensive speakers only 10cm deep you can hang on the wall. Without the rears you lose a great deal of the sound field which is what surround sound is all about.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

I was watching a 007 movie recently and a friend came round with his 9 yr old daughter - the daughter was scared by the very loud rumbling coming from somewhere in the room - as she put it! On leaving she asked Daddy when he was going to get a dcecent sound system so she could invite her friends over to watch movies properly!

Jon.

Thanks for your advice. I use a pair of Yamaha NS1000M's as my main pair, had them for about 20 years and love them to bits. They integrate reasonably well with the Kef Centre now that I biamp it with a little 140. The Yamahas are driven from a 250. The integration was nowhere near as good when I had the E800 I'm not sure whether it was the processor section of the Tag AV32 or the 140 that made the difference but it was very noticeable.

As for rear speakers they are in the grand plan but may well have to wait until the next room redecoration. All those cables to run etc.

I'm considering some in-ceiling Kef Uni-Q's. Do you think these would work in a fairly tall Vicyorian sitting room. Ceiling height approx 11'-6".

The other possibility is a pair of wall mounted B&W SNT's which my wife has seen in a nice light cherry veneer which matches the piano. Yes I know I should be worrying more about voicing and so on but she does allow me the occasional indulgence in boxes from Salisbury.

Can anyone comment on the B&W SNT's. Are they likely to gel with the Yamahas also what sort of power do I need to drive them. Would a 140 each do the job.

Also are there any comments on the relative merits of the Naim AV2 v the Tag AV32 with or without the latest 192kHz dacs