it appears that you're looking in the right direction--you seem well informed and are certainly considering high-quality components. among your candidates, i personally prefer rotel to nad, principally because of reliability issues; the step up from there would be the pricier b&k or arcam. as for speakers, you positively can't go wrong with psb synchrony/imagine, paradigm studio/signature or totem; perhaps you can do a different brand in the second zone for variety's sake. happy hunting.
A little help with my first system
I am in the process of putting together a home theater setup in my basement as well as an audio system for the rest of my house (2-3 other rooms). So far I have mainly been looking at the NAD 775 and Rotel 1560 as the best bang for my buck while still achieving the highest sound quality possible. I wish I could afford separates but not going to happen by the time I budget in speakers and the components that I will need. I would love to get some feedback on my future system as I have been operating in a vacuum so far with the exception of some help from local dealers (that aren't so local when you live in providence, RI). Below is what I am thinking along with some questions that I have....
First a little background, I am trying to run home theater in my basement which is now wired and ready to go for a 5.1 system. The basement is carpeted with 8' ceilings and is roughly 12x12. This room will be meant for mostly TV watching (90% of use, 10% stereo). The next room is my living room where I am aiming for the best sound quality and plan to use the best speaker/amp set up. The living room is where I will spend my time listening to stereo only! The room is 13x15 feet with wood floors, area rug, and couple of chairs/couch. The last room is the kitchen/dining room that is 12x23. I am setting up this room for background music while we cook or throw parties. And eventually I may add speakers to our bedroom upstairs.
In terms of music, I listen to a pretty wide variety with my favorite being acoustic/folk- anyone from Colorado should know what I mean when I say Studio C! There will also be some pop and classic rock as well. My main source for the music rooms will be an apple TV with a separate HD filled with lots of lossless files as well as pandora played through the Apple TV. I may also play music from my CD collection or radio on occasion.
First- the receiver. I think both of these units will allow me to run up to 4 rooms with the help of separate amplifiers. Anyone have experience with which (rotel vs. NAD) will give me the best sound for my dollar as I have not been able to hear them side by side with the same speakers? My hope is that the sound quality will actually be a little bit better for the living room by bypassing all of the processing and using a separate amps. Both seem to give me the same flexibility in terms of running amplifiers for the additional zones and control features. My recent concern with the rotel unit is that it only plays from the analog inputs in the additional zones. I am wondering if this is good thing or a bad thing? If I have good components with quality DACs or separate DAC, will I get better sound than relying on the NAD's built in DAC's that will allow me to play from all of the digital inputs in all of the zones? I know that the NAD has an additional room set up feature, but I don't get the impression that going without it is a big deal. Are there any other options that I should be considering or reasons for picking one unit versus the other? I considered getting a separate stereo set up for the kitchen and living room zones, but I don't have the bankroll to buy that much gear. I need to start somewhere so these two seemed like a good start.
Living room- I am planning on trying out a bunch of speakers this weekend. So far I have been listening to several from B&W, paradigm, PSB, and totem. I am anxious to try them out in my place but so far I have been most impressed by the totem columns (staff and hawk) and the B&W (listened to the 600 series and CM series in the store). I figured that I would pair the speakers up with a rotel or parasound amp. My goal was to keep the budget below $2k for the speakers and find a good deal on a used amp through audiogon. So far the B&W CM series as well as the totem's are leading candidates after my initial store auditions.
kitchen/Dining room- my wife isn't going to let me put floorstanders in this room so I will be using bookshelfs. I have been looking at the same brands as above (B&W, Totem, PSB and paradigm) wanted to spend just a couple hundred bucks on a new or used pair and may use the extra 2 channels of amplification from the 7.1 receiver until I can afford to add a second amplifier down the road.
There will be lots of other costs as I am pretty much starting from scratch here. I will need a universal remote, lots of cables and wire, as well as a little help with the programming/fine tuning setup.
I apologize for the long message, but I wanted to try to answer a lot of the questions up front so that I could get some good feedback on mine! I am new to the whole audiophile arena so whatever I end up with will be a huge upgrade in sound quality. I would certainly appreciate your feedback and suggestions on gear and how to best set up a home system with a home theater room.
First a little background, I am trying to run home theater in my basement which is now wired and ready to go for a 5.1 system. The basement is carpeted with 8' ceilings and is roughly 12x12. This room will be meant for mostly TV watching (90% of use, 10% stereo). The next room is my living room where I am aiming for the best sound quality and plan to use the best speaker/amp set up. The living room is where I will spend my time listening to stereo only! The room is 13x15 feet with wood floors, area rug, and couple of chairs/couch. The last room is the kitchen/dining room that is 12x23. I am setting up this room for background music while we cook or throw parties. And eventually I may add speakers to our bedroom upstairs.
In terms of music, I listen to a pretty wide variety with my favorite being acoustic/folk- anyone from Colorado should know what I mean when I say Studio C! There will also be some pop and classic rock as well. My main source for the music rooms will be an apple TV with a separate HD filled with lots of lossless files as well as pandora played through the Apple TV. I may also play music from my CD collection or radio on occasion.
First- the receiver. I think both of these units will allow me to run up to 4 rooms with the help of separate amplifiers. Anyone have experience with which (rotel vs. NAD) will give me the best sound for my dollar as I have not been able to hear them side by side with the same speakers? My hope is that the sound quality will actually be a little bit better for the living room by bypassing all of the processing and using a separate amps. Both seem to give me the same flexibility in terms of running amplifiers for the additional zones and control features. My recent concern with the rotel unit is that it only plays from the analog inputs in the additional zones. I am wondering if this is good thing or a bad thing? If I have good components with quality DACs or separate DAC, will I get better sound than relying on the NAD's built in DAC's that will allow me to play from all of the digital inputs in all of the zones? I know that the NAD has an additional room set up feature, but I don't get the impression that going without it is a big deal. Are there any other options that I should be considering or reasons for picking one unit versus the other? I considered getting a separate stereo set up for the kitchen and living room zones, but I don't have the bankroll to buy that much gear. I need to start somewhere so these two seemed like a good start.
Living room- I am planning on trying out a bunch of speakers this weekend. So far I have been listening to several from B&W, paradigm, PSB, and totem. I am anxious to try them out in my place but so far I have been most impressed by the totem columns (staff and hawk) and the B&W (listened to the 600 series and CM series in the store). I figured that I would pair the speakers up with a rotel or parasound amp. My goal was to keep the budget below $2k for the speakers and find a good deal on a used amp through audiogon. So far the B&W CM series as well as the totem's are leading candidates after my initial store auditions.
kitchen/Dining room- my wife isn't going to let me put floorstanders in this room so I will be using bookshelfs. I have been looking at the same brands as above (B&W, Totem, PSB and paradigm) wanted to spend just a couple hundred bucks on a new or used pair and may use the extra 2 channels of amplification from the 7.1 receiver until I can afford to add a second amplifier down the road.
There will be lots of other costs as I am pretty much starting from scratch here. I will need a universal remote, lots of cables and wire, as well as a little help with the programming/fine tuning setup.
I apologize for the long message, but I wanted to try to answer a lot of the questions up front so that I could get some good feedback on mine! I am new to the whole audiophile arena so whatever I end up with will be a huge upgrade in sound quality. I would certainly appreciate your feedback and suggestions on gear and how to best set up a home system with a home theater room.
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- 8 posts total
- 8 posts total