2. home-theater
  3. 160747-143800

Empty canvas: recommendations on blending audio and moving watching

I am in the process of finishing my basement, including a room approximately 20' x 25'x that I plan to use for both TV/movie watching and audio listening.

I enjoy an occasional streaming program on HBO or Netflix and in my current TV room I have the TV connected to a set of stand-mount speakers driven by a small amp - more than use the TV speakers, but not a big 5.1 surround sound set up (something I've never been that interested in).

For the new room I am excited to finally move forward with a tube-based system (my prior years have all been SS) with speakers such as Devore O/96 (or Gibbon Super 9).  My question is, if this is the audio configuration, what to do with the TV audio?  Running TV audio through sensitive speakers like Devore doesn't seem like a good idea.  Would a speaker bar for the TV suffice?  Or is there another configuration for the TV sound that would be better.

Recommendations welcome!
kba_8040

Showing 2 responses by soix

soix
10,098 posts
 
Agree with both you guys, but in the instance where amp tubes are expensive to replace (not uncommon), do you really feel good about burning them and shortening their life for a movie?  That’d bug the crap outta me.  Horses for courses. 
soix
10,098 posts
 
The toughest part is trying to incorporate a tube amp into this setup.  Messing with splitters, A/B switchers, etc. is not optimal as they can compromise critical 2-channel performance.  And using a tube amp for TV watching isn’t a great situation either unless you like burning $ on replacing tubes. 

The best compromise might be to use a tube stereo preamp with solid state amplification or a hybrid stereo integrated with a tube preamp section.  This way you still get some tube influence in your sound but don’t have the disadvantages of using a tube amp.  There are some tube preamps that can have their HT bypass functioning without tubes receiving power (maybe Rogue, VAC, Backert?) that would work well for your situation.  And companies like Unison Research, Pathos, and some others make nice hybrid integrateds.  Combine one of these options with a decent AVR to handle HT processing and powering center/surround speakers and you’d be in business.  Anyway, hope this helps and best of luck with your new room. 
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