Wow, with all that change going on, I think I would concentrate on getting your Oppo and 5 pr of decent interconnects to hook up proper analog sound from the Oppo to your amp. I had a flagship for its day Yamaha rxv1 that still plays my center and rear speakers in my set up. Your Yamaha amp should suffice for home theater. The ps3 is great for movies and Internet connection, and doesn't have to be replaced by the Oppo--depends on you! We use a ps3 for our mid-Fi home theater set up and are fine with it. But the Oppo should kick its butt on music playback--superior drivers all the way around. We reserve our Oppo for the separate audiophile setup/music playback.i
Once your Oppo is in place, your "source" 2.1 playback will be about as good as you can get. If there is still harshness, then a 2.1 amp would be my next purchase. Because speaker wires work in synergy with amps and speakers, I would upgrade them after your amp or speaker purchase. If you find your playback greatly improved with the Oppo and are almost there, then keep your amps and speakers and grab some better quality speaker wires for your front two or three (center) speakers. If harshness remains, save for a decent 2.1 amp.
I am no expert. But that is what I would do. Start with the source and work outward.
Btw, I use an hdmi cable from my Oppo straight to my tv for picture for my music DVDs. I use analog cables from the Oppo to my Yamaha and from the Yamaha thru my kw500 for fronts. Sounds heavenly.
When we bought our Yamaha, we bought some laid-back Vienna Acoustic speakers to tame any harshness. Worked pretty well. But the tube amp made them reallllllly shine. I have seen vienna acoustic mozarts go for crazy cheap prices on the Gon. If you get viennas, I can vouch that MITs are a crazy good synergy. My VA Beethovens do well. Someday I will upgrade from there, but for $500 for used MIT 750s I get $2k in performance. I am not ready to spend the $3k to better them yet.
Btw, for our rear speakers in our midfi TV room, we still use the 16 gauge monsters!! But if you find some better speaker wires super cheap, you can always grab them for your front right and left. Buy a brand name used that you know you can turn around and sell later. It will improve your sound. Don't buy cheap silver interconnects or speaker wire with the Yamaha. Your ears will bleed!!!
My two cents!
Deb |
English210, Don't try to use common sense, it just confuses us. I might add that your Rationalization skills will need to improve if you are going to get those $$ interconnects.
I would go for better wire if you can pull that off, and keep your wife happy. It can always be resold. I will let other experts help you with wire recommendations, but I used Reality Speaker Cable when my system was bright, and Audioquest Type8 was really warm to me. Also Anti- cables worked well on one system and were terrible on another. The cable abyss. |
Ah--your question of choosing appropriate interconnects and cables...
My future son in law who led us back into vinyl after 10 years away, is an avid audiophile. His rule of thumb-- speaker wires should be 15 -20% of the cost of your speakers. If you double the cost of your speakers to minimally account for inflation, you might be looking at $600-800 for speaker wires. Interconnects--his rule of thumb is buy a good name brand used set for $200 or so. That gets you about 80-90% of audiophile wires. You can but cheaper for interconnects that feed your rear speakers.
He likes kimbers, nordost, MIT as his go to interconnects. If you want to tame harsh highs, Silnote interconnects are designed to do that, and have sweet mids. If you stay with solid state, choose copper wires. Do not buy $100 silver wires--your ears will bleed!!
We bought some Tara interconnects for our vinyl setup--superb!!! They are VERY neutral and will show you if there are flaws in your setup. So don't buy them if you don't love your amp and speakers.
We own Tara's, MIT, AQ, and silnotes. I have some monsters in my home theater setup. Just move them away from your front speakers. |
@ english210,Do not be suprised if the bigger room improves your sound,I am banking on that it will!,you do need better cables!,take your time!,we all buy a little at a time,I am not rich!,I have been building my main system for a year now,and still building it!cheers! |
Thanks!! I must confess to reticence to dive into the cable abyss. Deb, This all started with a ? about would an upgrade from my old Yamaha outboard amp improve the sound of my speakers. After much talk and advice, I got an Odyssey Stratos used here on the 'gon. The difference has blown my mind! The initial problem has been largely, though not completely eliminated. Hence the follow up about cables and interconnects. Currently the setup is: PS3, Yamaha RXA3010, Odyssey Stratos, Infinity Kappa 7's.
Deb's recommending MIT, Tara, Silnotes as starting points to look at. I guess the next question is how do I sort through the options each brand has. Each step up will have advertised benefits that may or may not provide an audible improvement. Each will claim the last word in accuracy, whereas through forums like this I'm detecting, much like with any other component, that each has a 'house sound' to some degree - the consensus so far is Monster tends to be bright, MIT less so, for example. Acman3 likes the Reality..
No work for me today, have to use that time better by surfing the net for the Holy Grail!! :)
Thanks All.
Acman3 - good point about common sense and rationalization..I'll work on that... ;) |
English 210, in your shoes, I would go read reviews on your amp and speakers. When there is a great review, note what interconnects and speaker wires they used.
There is a diminishing return on cost/fidelity. Set your budget and stick to it. For our system, I put our finest Tara interconnects in the vinyl setup.
Our second tier still sound mighty fine for DVDs and CDs.
A shoot out in my kids' system gave the MITs interconnects an edge over Silnotes for linearity, and extension. He has a cary tube amp and a sony bluray player. Silnotes will close down the top a bit, which might be just what you want. I bought mid-tier Silnotes when he offers them on super sale on the Gon($100-200 each). His highest stuff is crazy good but prices are wayyyy up there. A matter of system matching.
I searched eBay and Gon for MIT interconnects used. Bought m1s for about $600 a pair. A steal for $1800 interconnects. I was going fir synergy with the speaker wire which i already had. Someday, i will step up to Tara speaker wires.
In your research, find what works with your amp and speakers, then buy them on the cheap. Or buy a generation or two back, if you dont mind not having the latest/greatest. Patience served me well. If you get the Oppo, you will need several prs of analog interconnects, if you are a purist, for sacds.
If you are using the 16 gauge monsters on your front speakers,start changing there!! You might get rid of the glare with a decent set of speaker wires.
Happy shopping. |
good idea on the reviews, but not useful in my case with 25 year old speakers...unless I go with the 'house sound' theory. Whatever wires they used then are long since discontinued. For the AVR to amp interconnects that should be doable.
I do get the diminishing returns bit. $600 for a pair of ic's makes me swallow hard, but I get your point. Guess I better keep working to pay for all this, huh?
Thanks |
English, set your budget and stick with it. If $200 is your IC limit, there are great used ICs out there worth several times that that will make your system sing.
I get your point with the older speakers. But read up on the amp. You may find some synergy info from the pros out there. Ask the guy you bought your amp from what ICs and speaker wires he used. Find out what speakers/wires other Gon-ers use w their identical amps.
Read up on ribbon tweeters and what ICs pros or Gon-ers used with them.
By the time you do all that research, you will have saved for some great wires. Haha!
Call your speaker manufacturer and ask what brand of wires they recommend.
Ask your Hifi guy to demo some wires in your price range. Do not stretch above your price limit because you won't want to let them go! Haha!
I did that with AQ and found I definitely did not like silver with my Yamaha amp. Great extension, but too hot.
I REALLY like MITs interconnects with my OPpo 95.
When I jumped into MITs, I bought a spool of their 4-conductor wire used in high end home theater installations. My future son in law terminated them. I still use them for my rears in my audiophile setup, and they sound great. Even that wire beat $200 monster speaker cables for linearity, extension and neutrality. Monster bloats the mids and sounds "warmer", but I had to turn my knobs down because so much more info was coming from the bass and the highs!!
Once my ear adjusted to a more neutral sound, I knew I was on the right track. Like I said, I found some decent older MITs and picked them up for my fronts and center when I found crazy good deals, and replaced the installation wires. My $200 monsters went into my home theater and I retired the monster 16 gauge wire from the fronts and center speakers there.
If you buy a name brand like kimbers, MITs, nordost, AQ, and stick around the $200 range for used interconnects, you can easily resell anything that doesn't work for you! |
@ english210,, If you ever want to know about Taralabs, let me know,I have bought there cables since they have been in bussiness!, I now have cost no object top of the line cables by them!,they are among the few as best available! cheers! |
Audiolabyrinth,
I agree that Tara's are the best!
They opened up the vinyl playback, and the more I layered them, the better the sound got.
We have Tara lab the 2 and 0.8 in set up for IC and phono wires.
Someday--Tara lab speaker wires.
We spent our big money on vinyl playback.
It is music therapy for my husband who is in pain every day. It relaxes him like crazy to listen to vinyl.
I was cautioned that Tara's are so revealing that you don't want them if you haven't already optimized your hardware because they will reveal weaknesses in the system and set up that you may not like hearing! Haha!
In reality,for us with the mufi kw 500 and the arc ph3se, the vinyl sounds so great, it is hard to quit once we start for the evening. We have had way too many 3ams! Our TT is a clearaudio Revolution with strad cart.
But our Hifi gurus tell me there are more neutral amps than mufi out there.
And our speakers get us maybe 90% of the $25k speakers we have heard at shows. There is always another level! Haha!
I hope our friend finds his audio nirvana with some good wires and settles in for music fun soon!
Deb |
@ deebarnes,, I just recommended a tara 0.8EX i/c for a member here on the gon,he put it between his analog pre-amp and the pre-amp,, needless to say he loved it so much he took my advice again and bought a 5 meter 0.8EX to go from his pre-amp to his amps!,, we have alot of tara fans on the thread here on the gon called taralabs the one versus the 0.8,,, on the cable threads, I have got 3 people to buy the taralabs cables and they love them,, all recently, just on that thread!,you are welcome to come there and chat,Its seems that they made me their Taralabs go to guy,I really know alot about all there products very well!,we also talk alot about eanything analog there too,if you have questions about that and tubes,we have a couple of go to guys for that there as well! Happy listening! |
@ deebarnes,, come on over to the thread,the taralabs the one versus the 0.8EX,, you will enjoy that thread! |
2 english210, you still around?,, how is the amp sounding? |
Awesome! I don't use the sub for music at all. Bass extension defies logic, so the sub is now movies only. I have now heard the Kappa's reach their limits, which I've never experienced before, even back when I sold them new. A test track with organ notes caused them to cry uncle. The air and openness is there, notes 'hang' in the air with what seems to me to be untruncated delay if the recording has the information. I could pick nits, and I do wonder what 'more' there is available, which is why I asked about cables/wires. I do feel the ribbon Emit tweeter is a little hot for me at high volumes still. I'm not quite sure if I'm getting all the expanse of sound stage that might be available, but this weekend I'm a bachelor, so hopefully there'll be time for lots of experiments...:) |
Deb, I'm definitely enjoying myself! I was in the biz 25 years ago, but had to give up my 'crack habit' as I call it. Now I'm able to start again, building on what I had. The Odyssey amp I just got is my first 'real' piece of good gear, and I'm blown away by the leap up from my old Yammy amp. My Infinity Kappa's have NEVER sounded so good. So I'm happy, except for that overly-bright top end that still rears it's head when I get heavy handed on the volume. Don't get me wrong, it's HUGELY reduced compared to the old amp, and the bass extension and output is an added benefit I didn't expect. So I'm enjoying myself, just researching ways to squeeze that little out of what I have.. ;) |
@ English210,, Thats great news!,keep us informed. cheers! |
Have you thought about rebuilding the crossovers on your speakers? That can make a huge change in to sound. |
You may want to try a pair of Spatial Computers Velocity Bridge 1 (VB1). They are a new product with a new approach for reducing RF/EMI noise and speaker driver/cable impedance leveling. My experience with them has been so positive. I'll go as far to say they have been transformative in my system. They are only $200 for the pair! |
