Sorta OT: Home Theater seperates?

[MAProTulz]

Okay, so now that the sheetrock and carpet are all finished in the living room, I want to set up the home theater. The last time I bought hifi gear, I was in high school and didn't know what I know now about consumer gear futzing with the engineer's intent.

I'd love to have a seperate 5.1 processor that takes the audio off the DVD player, decodes it to 5.1 channels and has outputs for amplification.

I'm not impressed with the all in one receivers that use all sorts of DSP and other complicated BS. I can even live without tone controls, etc. I want a 5.1 decoding preamp and 6 channels of non-futzing amplification. I know Manley makes hifi gear (looks friggin great on their website, BTW), but I don't see much other than preamps and power amps.

Anyone have a semi-audiophile "purist" setup?

[Synth80s]

Adcom, Parasound and Lexicon are three "high-ish end" companies who make pre-amps with digital processing onboard to do the Dolby Digital and other decoding.

I didn't say truly high-end because for every person who buys a $10,000 set of speakers, there's always some snob scoffing because his cost $100,000! Still, even in the snake-oil infested waters of high-end audio, I don't think many people would snicker at a Lexicon pre-amp/decoder.

-Synth80s

[Punchmo]

Originally posted by MAProTulz
Okay, so now that the sheetrock and carpet are all finished in the living room, I want to set up the home theater. The last time I bought hifi gear, I was in high school and didn't know what I know now about consumer gear futzing with the engineer's intent.

I'd love to have a seperate 5.1 processor that takes the audio off the DVD player, decodes it to 5.1 channels and has outputs for amplification.

I'm not impressed with the all in one receivers that use all sorts of DSP and other complicated BS. I can even live without tone controls, etc. I want a 5.1 decoding preamp and 6 channels of non-futzing amplification. I know Manley makes hifi gear (looks friggin great on their website, BTW), but I don't see much other than preamps and power amps.

Anyone have a semi-audiophile "purist" setup?

Dan, I just went through this process myself, remodeled living room to A/V 'sweet' of 5.1 and plazma on the wall. I listened to separates...Lexicon, Macintosh, Krell, Parasound, Adcom and good integrated processors...B&K, Denon, Pioneer Elite etc., you name it. The first thing you have to do is establish a budget and even then, it grows and grows. Don't forget cables, furniture and power conditioners.
I too was not interested in the processing power of the integrated units and ended up with a 1066 Rotel processor and Rotel 5 channel power amp. For 5.1 you will not need a 6 channel amp. If you want to go more than 5.1, Rotel's options are limited to an addtional 2 channel amp in tandem with their 5 channel.
I've mated the Rotel with B&W mid level CDM NT (now replaced with the 700 series) series speakers with B&W 1000 watt sub. This is a good sounding 5.1 HT and/or 2 channel system. It is also a wonderful, revealing playback monitor system for mixes from my studio.
Check out the entry level Rotel 1068 or the 1098 and their 120 or 200 watt 5 channel power. For reasons I can't explain technically, the UK Rotel stuff sounded very good to my ears with the UK B&W speakers.

The processor, amp + speaker combo search is a laborious, tedious process. Good Luck, Steve

[max cooper]

Might want to check out the Linn Classik Movie Di...it's a stand a alone unit that'll do just about everything...

http://www.linn.co.uk/spec_sound/pro...r=Independents

this is a higher-end AV solution made by Linn as well:

http://www.linn.co.uk/spec_sound/pro...NavBar=Control

The Arcam Diva: is a nice solution that's a bit less expensive than Linn stuff:


http://www.arcam.co.uk/prod_diva_AVR250_intro.cfm


I still use a two channel system myself, even for movies, and I mostly play records when i listen to music. Mainly because I have so dang many of em.