Home Theatre - Blu ray
Posted by: David O'Higgins on 11 December 2008
Can somebody explain how to add home theatre sound to an existing HDTV/Blu ray combo? What gets connected to what and with what cabling, any brand recommendations etc.
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Bananahead
Hi David
Please can you tell us more.
Which TV?
Which BluRay player?
Are you wanting to add home cinema to an existing stereo setup?
How much money do you want to spend?
Nigel
Please can you tell us more.
Which TV?
Which BluRay player?
Are you wanting to add home cinema to an existing stereo setup?
How much money do you want to spend?
Nigel
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Willy
David,
What you (probably) need is an AV Receiver and some speakers. The signal goes from the Bluray player to the AV receiver (most likely via HDMI cable). The AV receiver decodes the audio signal and amplifies it into 5.1/6.1/7.1 depending on the model. The speakers connect to the Receiver with speaker cable and the sub-woofer with a phono lead.
The AV Receiver will output the video portion of the signal to the TV (again usually with a HDMI cable).
I'm currently assembling the bits for a system:
PS3 (Bluray and games and internet)
Sony STR-DG820 Receiver
Infocus X10 projector
Sapphire 2.3m diagonal screen
Cheap set of Onkyo speakers (complete 5.1 package to iteratively replaced)
So far the kids are (I believe) unaware of my plans!
Willy.
PS With some of the older kit then a separate audio cable may be required between the Bluray player and the receiver.
What you (probably) need is an AV Receiver and some speakers. The signal goes from the Bluray player to the AV receiver (most likely via HDMI cable). The AV receiver decodes the audio signal and amplifies it into 5.1/6.1/7.1 depending on the model. The speakers connect to the Receiver with speaker cable and the sub-woofer with a phono lead.
The AV Receiver will output the video portion of the signal to the TV (again usually with a HDMI cable).
I'm currently assembling the bits for a system:
PS3 (Bluray and games and internet)
Sony STR-DG820 Receiver
Infocus X10 projector
Sapphire 2.3m diagonal screen
Cheap set of Onkyo speakers (complete 5.1 package to iteratively replaced)
So far the kids are (I believe) unaware of my plans!
Willy.
PS With some of the older kit then a separate audio cable may be required between the Bluray player and the receiver.
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Mark Gilbert
I'll share a couple thoughts that I hope will help you give us a better idea of things you'll want to define so that we can provide more supportive information.
You'll need to determine what will do the job for speakers, amps, preamp and processing. I'll start from the end where the sound comes out.
It is possible to just play movies through the two track stereo. Typically setting up a home theater means that someone wants to turn the stereo playback into surround sound. That suggests adding at least a pair of surround speakers and, many would say, a center channel is also required. At that point you have 5 speakers. Adding a subwoofer can be considered optional, as some would say is also true of the center channel speaker. With the subwoofer you would have the common reference to "5.1". By adding two more speakers as rear channels you would have "7.1" available. Speaker choices should consider your preference in sound and ones that sound similar to each other so that they form an integrated sound field rather than sounding like point sources of different character. I like the idea that my front stereo channels are most important followed by the center channel sounding as similar as possible and the surround/rear channels having greater room for affordability/compromise.
You need to choose amps that will drive the speakers well and support the type of sound you like. Choose the speaker wires in the same way you do for stereo but keep in mind that wires to the surround & rear channels (sometimes the front also) may be running through walls (depending upon how you configure your setup). I note that you can use long runs of speaker wires from the electronics to each speaker or you can run interconnect wires out to the positions where you can have the amps and speakers close together (followed by short runs of speaker wire). Most of us tend to do long runs of speaker wire but it depends on what people want and the situation.
I'm going to skip coverage of power supplies but only for convenience. These need to be chosen based upon the other options you select. E.g. If I run Naim speakers with "active" rather than "passive" crossovers then I'll need power supply and wiring to support it. Likewise I may need to include power supply and wiring for the preamp.
Some electronics need to do the jobs of the audio/video processor and preamplifier.
The preamp will do the normal job of the stereo preamp - supporting selection of which player you listen to, how loud, etc. The a/v processor will decode the sound channels and send them to the preamp. Some preamps include the a/v processor and some also include switching for the visual signal.
One key aspect to know about the a/v processor is what decoding processes it will support. There are many processors of different capabilities and technology vintages so this can be very cumbersome to work through but - telling us the blu ray player you have is likely an easy way to get feedback from people who will already have an idea of what electronics will decode what the player provides.
I think I need to stop here. By all means let us know how elaborate your aspirations and any guidance on cost plus an idea of what you have so that we can make more discrete recommendations that are suitable for you.
Good luck and Enjoy!
Mark
You'll need to determine what will do the job for speakers, amps, preamp and processing. I'll start from the end where the sound comes out.
It is possible to just play movies through the two track stereo. Typically setting up a home theater means that someone wants to turn the stereo playback into surround sound. That suggests adding at least a pair of surround speakers and, many would say, a center channel is also required. At that point you have 5 speakers. Adding a subwoofer can be considered optional, as some would say is also true of the center channel speaker. With the subwoofer you would have the common reference to "5.1". By adding two more speakers as rear channels you would have "7.1" available. Speaker choices should consider your preference in sound and ones that sound similar to each other so that they form an integrated sound field rather than sounding like point sources of different character. I like the idea that my front stereo channels are most important followed by the center channel sounding as similar as possible and the surround/rear channels having greater room for affordability/compromise.
You need to choose amps that will drive the speakers well and support the type of sound you like. Choose the speaker wires in the same way you do for stereo but keep in mind that wires to the surround & rear channels (sometimes the front also) may be running through walls (depending upon how you configure your setup). I note that you can use long runs of speaker wires from the electronics to each speaker or you can run interconnect wires out to the positions where you can have the amps and speakers close together (followed by short runs of speaker wire). Most of us tend to do long runs of speaker wire but it depends on what people want and the situation.
I'm going to skip coverage of power supplies but only for convenience. These need to be chosen based upon the other options you select. E.g. If I run Naim speakers with "active" rather than "passive" crossovers then I'll need power supply and wiring to support it. Likewise I may need to include power supply and wiring for the preamp.
Some electronics need to do the jobs of the audio/video processor and preamplifier.
The preamp will do the normal job of the stereo preamp - supporting selection of which player you listen to, how loud, etc. The a/v processor will decode the sound channels and send them to the preamp. Some preamps include the a/v processor and some also include switching for the visual signal.
One key aspect to know about the a/v processor is what decoding processes it will support. There are many processors of different capabilities and technology vintages so this can be very cumbersome to work through but - telling us the blu ray player you have is likely an easy way to get feedback from people who will already have an idea of what electronics will decode what the player provides.
I think I need to stop here. By all means let us know how elaborate your aspirations and any guidance on cost plus an idea of what you have so that we can make more discrete recommendations that are suitable for you.
Good luck and Enjoy!
Mark
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by David O'Higgins
Thanks to all. Your replies have been very helpful. I am looking to set up a modest system in a small room based on a Sony KDL-40V400 TV and a Sony BDP-S350 blu ray player. It seems I need to add a 5.1 receiver and 5 speakers plus Subwoofer. I presume that the TV sound should be set to 'mute'?
I guess I am looking for the Naim Nait of the 5.1 receiver world with some reasonable quality small speakers. Let's say a budget of €500 to €2000 excluding the TV and the Blu Ray.
I notice that the TV has digital audio out connection to be used with an optical audio cable. What is the purpose of this?
I guess I am looking for the Naim Nait of the 5.1 receiver world with some reasonable quality small speakers. Let's say a budget of €500 to €2000 excluding the TV and the Blu Ray.
I notice that the TV has digital audio out connection to be used with an optical audio cable. What is the purpose of this?
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:the TV has digital audio out connection to be used with an optical audio cable. What is the purpose of this?
I would imagine that it (allegedly) provides a far more accurate method of tranfering audio data from the blu-ray player to the audio processor so as to enhance the "listening" element of the blu-ray experience. but I am moe than happy to learn otherwise.
Cheers
Don
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by winkyincanada
quote:Originally posted by Don Atkinson:quote:the TV has digital audio out connection to be used with an optical audio cable. What is the purpose of this?
I would imagine that it (allegedly) provides a far more accurate method of tranfering audio data from the blu-ray player to the audio processor so as to enhance the "listening" element of the blu-ray experience. but I am moe than happy to learn otherwise.
Cheers
Don
I use mine to feed digital audio signal to my SuperNait. It allows me to use multiple sources into the TV (via HDMI), and the internal TV tuner - all with sound then going to the amplifier DAC via a single digital link. Otherwise, I would have to use several audio cables.
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Mark Gilbert
I wouldn't expect you will use the digital output of the TV.
The digital output on your player allows you to choose to send the signal to a processor to decode the sound channels outside of the blu-ray player. When you want the blu-ray player to do the decoding you would use the analog outputs. If you can run the digital cable from your blu-ray player to the a/v processor then you don't need to use the TV's digital output. Having a digital sound output on the TV would allow you to run the digital sound to the tv first and then from the tv to the a/v processor if that were appropriate for your system setup.
For the TV speakers I'd describe three options. The least expensive approach is trying to use the TV speakers as the center channel (or even the Left/Right channels) of the home theater sound. This would mean you don't need to spend as much on other speakers and amps but it doesn't allow you to match the sound of the speakers around the room so easily or to get the best performing speakers for your money.
As you mentioned - one of the options is to mute the tv speakers. This may well be most appropriate for you in describing a "modest" system. In a high end setup I would get the tv speakers out of the room. I would do this because those speakers will be "undriven" so they will respond to the other sounds in the room and they will degrade the performance of the rest of the sound. This amount of degredation may not be that important to you and it could come down to a question of how easy it would be to get the tv speakers out of the room.
Mark
The digital output on your player allows you to choose to send the signal to a processor to decode the sound channels outside of the blu-ray player. When you want the blu-ray player to do the decoding you would use the analog outputs. If you can run the digital cable from your blu-ray player to the a/v processor then you don't need to use the TV's digital output. Having a digital sound output on the TV would allow you to run the digital sound to the tv first and then from the tv to the a/v processor if that were appropriate for your system setup.
For the TV speakers I'd describe three options. The least expensive approach is trying to use the TV speakers as the center channel (or even the Left/Right channels) of the home theater sound. This would mean you don't need to spend as much on other speakers and amps but it doesn't allow you to match the sound of the speakers around the room so easily or to get the best performing speakers for your money.
As you mentioned - one of the options is to mute the tv speakers. This may well be most appropriate for you in describing a "modest" system. In a high end setup I would get the tv speakers out of the room. I would do this because those speakers will be "undriven" so they will respond to the other sounds in the room and they will degrade the performance of the rest of the sound. This amount of degredation may not be that important to you and it could come down to a question of how easy it would be to get the tv speakers out of the room.
Mark
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Mark Gilbert
I thought I should clarify - -
The third option I'm mentioning for the tv speakers is the idea of removing them from the room - for the reason I've stated.
The fact that this is the third option may not have been clear in my earlier post. Sorry folks.
Mark
The third option I'm mentioning for the tv speakers is the idea of removing them from the room - for the reason I've stated.
The fact that this is the third option may not have been clear in my earlier post. Sorry folks.
Mark
Posted on: 11 December 2008 by Bananahead
To give you some idea about how your money could be spent.
Yamaha DSP-AX763
B&W 685 Theatre
Of course you need 5 speakers of roughly the same quality which distorts the speaker/amp price balance that you may be used to.
Personally I wouldn't try using the TV speakers. For me you always get an unbalanced sound that is very strange with any sort of panning sound.
Have you allowed for cables? Assuming HDMI for BluRay to TV and Optical for TV to Amp you need to spend about 100€ but this is really worth it. And then you need speaker cable which for home cinema soon adds up. You probably need at least 20m which again takes you to 100€.
Yamaha DSP-AX763
B&W 685 Theatre
Of course you need 5 speakers of roughly the same quality which distorts the speaker/amp price balance that you may be used to.
Personally I wouldn't try using the TV speakers. For me you always get an unbalanced sound that is very strange with any sort of panning sound.
Have you allowed for cables? Assuming HDMI for BluRay to TV and Optical for TV to Amp you need to spend about 100€ but this is really worth it. And then you need speaker cable which for home cinema soon adds up. You probably need at least 20m which again takes you to 100€.
Posted on: 12 December 2008 by Frank Abela
quote:Originally posted by Don Atkinson:quote:the TV has digital audio out connection to be used with an optical audio cable. What is the purpose of this?
I would imagine that it (allegedly) provides a far more accurate method of tranfering audio data from the blu-ray player to the audio processor so as to enhance the "listening" element of the blu-ray experience. but I am moe than happy to learn otherwise.
Cheers
Don
No that's not the way to do it, although it is possible.
The standard optical connection can transfer 2-channel PCM, DTS and Dolby Digital - the latter two being the same compressed codecs used on DVD and Sky. It can't transfer the hi-res audio codecs available through blu-ray. Blu-ray has both hi-res audio and the compressed codecs so if you do this it should work, but all you'll get is the compressed variants.
The intended use of the optical output is to be able to feed through any of the digital audio it receives via Freeview or Freesat (if equipped) or via another source such as Sky.
The best way to get the highest performance is to use an HDMI lead between your blu-ray player and the new AV receiver (e.g. Onkyo TX-SR606, Denon AVR1909, and there's Sony and Yamaha models at this £400 price range), then take the HDMI output of the receiver to the TV. The receiver needs to be capable of decoding the hi-res audio (DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD) codecs so if it doesn't say the codec names on the front, don't go there!
The receiver will pass through the 1080p video of blu-ray, and most (all?) will also upscale DVD pictures for you too. The question will then be which is best at upscaling, the blu-ray player, the AV receiver or the TV? That's something only you can find out through testing.
As you're in a small room, you probably need a sub/sat speaker system. Always choose a powered sub over the cheaper passive subs. Systems to consider would be Kef's 2005.2 (£600ish), Focal's Sib & Cub (£800ish), B&W MT10, MT20 or MT30 (£1000 - £1500, depending on Sub), as well as systems from other brands such as Mission and Monitor Audio.
Finally try not to skimp on the HDMI leads. They seem to affect the picture quality more than one would expect, especially as the signals they carry are digital.
Posted on: 12 December 2008 by winkyincanada
Interesting, Frank. I note your observation that the two-channel fed via TV is of lower quality. I guess that the two-channel analogue from the Blu-ray player will be no better though, and probably worse (uses what is likely a lower quality DAC than the Supernait).
As I don't have an receiver, or anything else, capable of de-coding the multi-channel, higher-res signals, I think I am stuck with what I have. At least it seems mixed OK for centre-channel dialogue and has decent bass extension (I only use stereo speakers)
It seems fine for movies. I don't watch music videos much, anyway.
Cheers,
Winky
As I don't have an receiver, or anything else, capable of de-coding the multi-channel, higher-res signals, I think I am stuck with what I have. At least it seems mixed OK for centre-channel dialogue and has decent bass extension (I only use stereo speakers)
It seems fine for movies. I don't watch music videos much, anyway.
Cheers,
Winky
Posted on: 12 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:No that's not the way to do it,
No probs Frank, its good to keep you on your toes and giving us good clear advice as always.
So we buy a Pioneer LX71 or LX08 blu-ray player(say) and a Pioneer KRP500A screen (say)[gulp! £3.5K gone already]
and we want to "integrate" this with our Naim amp 52/135s (say) [it does unity gain] and old Isobariks (say) [using that redundant old 250 amp and JR149 speakers if possible]....
what else do we need?
or are we better off ignoring the Naim gear and just buying a matching Pioneer LX71 receiver and selecting 5.1 speakers from your recommendations above? [gulp, thats now £5k on a Pioneer DVD/TV set]
Pondering................
Cheers
Don
Posted on: 12 December 2008 by Rod A
Frank,
Can you recommend some good surround cables for a mid range HT system and HDMI cables as well ?Also what lead to connect the AV receiver to a Naim pre-amp about 5 metre length or will it be Naim's slugged lead only ? And how about a subwoofer lead as well , if I'm not pushing my luck!!! Really value your opinions.
Many Thanks,
Rod
Can you recommend some good surround cables for a mid range HT system and HDMI cables as well ?Also what lead to connect the AV receiver to a Naim pre-amp about 5 metre length or will it be Naim's slugged lead only ? And how about a subwoofer lead as well , if I'm not pushing my luck!!! Really value your opinions.
Many Thanks,
Rod
Posted on: 13 December 2008 by Don Atkinson
quote:or are we better off ignoring the Naim gear and just buying a matching Pioneer LX71 receiver and selecting 5.1 speakers from your recommendations above? [gulp, thats now £5k on a Pioneer DVD/TV set]
Just checked RRP and see that LX71 AV receiver is £1.25k and LX81 AV receiver is £1.5k
So allowing £1.5k for some sort of speaker kit, that's more like £6.5k for a Pioneer TV/DVD system - in HD of course.
Yikes
Cheers
Don
PS presumably a Pioneer LX81 AV Receiver could output into a pair of 135s and a couple of 250s (and in turn Isobariks/JR149s etc) plus a decent sub? and presumably the audio so produced would be Dolby True HD (*) having been decoded by the LX81 AV Receiver?
(*) assuming the blu-ray disc has a Dolby TrueHD sound-track of oourse!!
Posted on: 13 December 2008 by Bananahead
quote:Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
PS presumably a Pioneer LX81 AV Receiver could output into a pair of 135s and a couple of 250s (and in turn Isobariks/JR149s etc) plus a decent sub? and presumably the audio so produced would be Dolby True HD (*) having been decoded by the LX81 AV Receiver?
(*) assuming the blu-ray disc has a Dolby TrueHD sound-track of oourse!!
And of course being a Pioneer box it will upscale the Dolby Digital to True HD if it doesn't
Posted on: 13 December 2008 by Willy
Frank,
Any particular brand of HDMI you'd recommend? I'm about to take the plunge on a 1m PS3 to AVReceiver and 10m from there to projector. Can't imagine there's much opportunity locally to do a comparison.
Willy.
Any particular brand of HDMI you'd recommend? I'm about to take the plunge on a 1m PS3 to AVReceiver and 10m from there to projector. Can't imagine there's much opportunity locally to do a comparison.
Willy.
Posted on: 01 January 2009 by Obsessed1
Is there an alternative to the AV receiver?
What would be nice would be a smaller (higher quality?) unit dedicated to home theatre use (i.e., no need for tuner etc. etc. - only sound and video switching for blu-ray, dvd, and cable box).
I was sort of hoping the AV2 would be updated to handle the new formats, but since my post appears to have been deleted, it doesn't look promising in that respect.
What would be nice would be a smaller (higher quality?) unit dedicated to home theatre use (i.e., no need for tuner etc. etc. - only sound and video switching for blu-ray, dvd, and cable box).
I was sort of hoping the AV2 would be updated to handle the new formats, but since my post appears to have been deleted, it doesn't look promising in that respect.
Posted on: 01 January 2009 by SC
quote:Originally posted by Obsessed1:
Is there an alternative to the AV receiver?
What would be nice would be a smaller (higher quality?) unit dedicated to home theatre use (i.e., no need for tuner etc. etc. - only sound and video switching for blu-ray, dvd, and cable box).
I was sort of hoping the AV2 would be updated to handle the new formats, but since my post appears to have been deleted, it doesn't look promising in that respect.
Yeah, I had wondered about that thread.....
It's all frustrating hey. I've just realised my proposed workaround isn't going to work as it's dawned on me there is only ONE multi channel analogue input on the AV2 - I was planning to purchase the AV2 and perhaps a pre-loved DVD5 for DVD-A audio duties, and then with whatever Bluray player I go for, to have that decode HD onboard and send to the AV2 as analogue....But, cannot do both. So short of unplugging cables every time I switch sources, I'm pickled on that idea....I believe I'm right in understanding multi-channel cannot be sent over Coax ? Anyone have any ideas/solutions to this that I haven't thought of ?!
It's all a bit of a mess really...and doesn't make me feel good about spending money.
Obsessed1 - there are few(only a few) processors and standalone HD pre-amps out there, one of which from Japan I have my eye on as solution, but it all just seems a long way around the houses approach, and more importantly, breaks the very raison d'être of the Naim chain....