decent surround sound system for telly?

[MAT1800]

star wars is always good  

Which also has a THX optimiser on the disc (Ep 1,2 &3) good for setting up your screen.  

Not the best film ever,    but the sound on 'Mr & Mrs Smith' is a goodun too.  

Actually, Finding Nemo, is great for seeing the colours on an LCD really shine!    

[Boomy]

star wars is always good  

[MAT1800]

I like the THX intro... turn it up to max and watch the walls shake!      

[a4drk]

Dave what model is your amp mine's allso a sony.

STRDB 940   (about 6 yrs old now)

It's 5.1

[JeffC]

numptie questions help please  

Bought the bose speaker set up and bought denon 3805 amp.. Have telly (panasonic plasma 42" not hd I dont think anyway     )  on the wall. havent bought a decent dvd player yet (which Ive been adviced is the most important piece of equipment? recomended denon 3910? but saying that I use my original one for the time being..

what else do I need? how does it get from the amp to the speakers / telly  the guy was waffling on about ixus coaxial and componantnvideo leads or something or other to set it up   straight over my head  

help ta!

[a4drk]

Hi Jeff

FOR SOUND ONLY:

You need a digital lead from the DVD player into your amp.

There are 2 types - Coaxial & Optical (Red light)

both sound as good as each other.

You need this so that your amp knows its getting a digital signal. On my Sony amp, i get a bright blue light lighting up, which looks really cool.

If you use the RCA / Phono leads (Red & White) to your amp. These are "analogue" & you will get an analogue signal (or Pro-logic) not Dolby Digital.

FOR PICTURE:

I would recommend just use a really good quality Gold Plated scart lead.

This will do sound as well, when your amp is switched off.

Hope this helps

David

[Johnson]

Personally if you have gone for the 3805 I would allow that to do all the video and sound switching.

I have done this on mine with virtually the same setup as you.

So it would be like this(assuming you have a component input card on your plasma)

Plasma component card cabled to component output on amp.

DVD component out to component in on amp

I assume some sort of SKY/Freeview box for your TV source?You can connect this to either the sapre component sockets on the amp if your TV source supports component or go in through S-Video as the Denon will upscale the picture to component.

Attach sound connections as appropriate ideally either through optical or coax.

That way you only have one cable running to your plasma   .

If you dont have a component card on your plasma then you can use the VGA socket and get a cable from Keene Electronics which goes VGA-Component for about £45.

Hope that makes sense.

[MAT1800]

*** Just seen above post which was made, whilst I was waffleing, seems we have a similar view...    ***

FOR PICTURE:

I would recommend just use a really good quality Gold Plated scart lead.

This will do sound as well, when your amp is switched off.

Hope this helps

David

Jeff,

I would suggest slightly different to a4drk, although thats the beauty of it, it's your system, set up for how you want to use it....

I would suggest you use a component lead to connect your dvd player to your screen. (red,blue,green) This 'should' give a better picture than scart, especially if your DVD player has progressive output.

If you get a new player with upscaling, then you can still use the component connectors, although the improvements gained by the scalling on lower priced DVD players is debatable..  if you do go for a decent upscaling player, (which the 3910 is) only scale upto the resolution of your screen, there is no point upscaling to 1080i/p if your screen has a resolution of less than that (eg. 1366x768) because then your screen has to downscale the image to fit, ie. processing the image more times than is necessary! so unless you have a true 1080 resolution screen, which I doubt, keep your sclaing to 720p.

The sound can be connected from player to amp using digital or coaxial as suggested.... however you have a nice Dernon amp and are thinking about getting a very nice Denon player... both of which support 'Denon Link' which would give you the best sound connection...

See this info from the Denon site..

*******

DENON LINK

Connected via a shielded twisted pair (STP) RJ-45 fitted cable to a Denon Link-compliant A/V amplifier, the balanced signal transfer offers lower voltage than coaxial or unbalanced cables. Since DENON Link is far less susceptible to radiated noise, it ensures the highest level of signal transfer. The DENON Link interface is able to transfer high grade LPCM 24-bit, 192kHz, 2-channel and 96kHz, 24-bit, multi-channel digital output. Since Denon Digital Link uses low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS), transfer capabilities of greater than 1.2 Gbps at a differential voltage of approximately 0.3 Vpp are possible

*******

If you can't be mithered ordering the various cables etc online, nip down to B&Q and get a set of the 'Thor' cables they have, for the money they all (most of which I have tried) seem very good, and it's always easy to find a B&Q.. specialised hi-fi cable shops a little less so..  

Finally I agree, use your amp for all your video/sound feeds etc, although for the best picture on DVD you might still want to put that image straight from player to screen, you'll have to play around with it all for a few weeks, see what suits you before you even consider hiding away cables etc..

Mat.  

[Johnson]

Hehe great minds and all that  

J

[JeffC]

yer might as well hav spoke that in japanese  bear with me        

Right may have also bought the denon 3910 dvd player I mentioned earlier. guy Im buying it off is including a new denon i link which he reckons provides pure digital connections and an ixus lead   will this be everything I need        

cant believe last week I was 100% happy with the set up I had and now Im chucking money at a telly I never even watch                   

[MAT1800]

   That's the problem, once you start you'll be chasing that 'perfect' setup for ever..    

The denon link should be ideal.. I think you mean Ioxs, which is a make of cables, and probably a component cable at that, which should be fine..

You'll have to check the lengths etc, and decide if your going to route video through you amp, in which case you'll need another component cable to go from the amp to the screen. But you'll be fine taking it straight from player to screen using the one cable..

You think cables are complicated, wit until you read through the instruction manual...       Most of them will be a few thousand pages long, with every possible set-up included... It takes time but you'll have to go through all the set-ups to get the best from the system, or in some cases to get it working at all.  The advantage of your amp (although most decent newer models also have this feature) is that it will have an auto calibration mode. You stick a supplied mic into the amp, position it in your listening position, best blue tacking it to a camera tripod if you can, to get it at ear height and stable, (or on some amps up to 6 or so different positions, for all the family   ) then the amp goes through a series of tests, and set's up up speaker delay etc, to get the best sound for your room. Often these can be tweeked further using a sound meter if you wanted..    I have gone to the extent of using a spirit level and tape measure etc to position my speakers etc, before I even started the set-up, although how much you'd notice is debatable...  

Think about getting a multiplug, with built in surge protector too, mains conditioners and fancy mains leads etc, are meant to imporve the sound and picture, however they are very expensive I think you can pay up to £500 for one mains lead!!       But a simple surge protected 4-way will at least offer you some protection..

My first system, I bought back in 1997 ish, it was a dolby 'surround' system. ie. with left,right and centre speakers, and a rear channel, output through 2 smaller satelite speakers, using a nicam VHS player and a JVC tower system with surround sound decoding.. at the time Star wars had just come out on VHS, and that christmas was enough to get hooked, me and my mum watched all 3 films in my bedroom, through the surround sound on a 14" portable, rather than the big screen downstairs, which had no surround sound.. I've been slowly upgrading and replacing bits ever since, I'm still finding way to improve it, and nothing of the original kit remains, but with carefull buying, you can eventually get a great set-up without spending a fortune, besides you should spend your money on the DVD's thats what's it all about after all!    Although eventually I want a fully THX certified setup in a dedicated room...    

 

[MAT1800]

Jeff,

the 3910 should have hdmi and DVI outputs,   so you could link your screen using either of these,

What screen have you got? if you're using a plasma it'll probaby have DVI input, this will be a better picture than component cables... probably, athough it's never a definate.

Then a digital cable for the sound to your amp, if not the Denon link then optical or coaxial, (the optical connectors can be a little fiddly)

Plug all your other feeds into your amp and send the image to your screen using a component cable.

Job done..

Should be a nice system.    

[JeffC]

bahjeeeezuz  think better find someone local to set this up.. back of that 3805 looks a nightmare            

will update when I get some deliverys and prob recall for more technical support        

Ta so far Ive understood none of it        

feel like Homer in the episode of the Simpsons where he is getting instructions  and there is a line of dancing girls in his head        

[stu999]

Mmmm, dancing girls...

[neilwillis]

I think the opening scene of Lord of the Rings 1 is excellent - when the Dark lord snuffs it, there's a low sound that goes on and on, I watch it just for that bit!