Home theatre and Musical Experience

Music and HT together is very very hard. I have a Denon AVR 5600 and Def Tech 2000 - great for HT but very lacking in music. I've upgraded to Link III DAC, MIT T2 cables, separated all my cables and moved speakers around but got only barely satisfying results. I can't afford to dump my HT system for a music first/HT second set up. Good luck I know what you're going through and you'll hear from lots of people shortly.

I had the same feelings for many years with my home theater system. I had a Sony ES Processor for home theater which was fine for movies and even DVD and Laserdisc concerts, but when playing CD's it was muddy and lifeless. I always prefered listening to music on my small system in the other room which was Sony ES 5 disc changer, Adcom 555 preamp and 454 amp. I was always disappointed that my bigger room with better equipment sounded so lame when it came to music. When I was auditioning speakers at several shops, I realized how much difference a decent preamp and CD player made to the clarity and detail of the sound so I looked around and bit and bought the Adcom GFP 750 preamp which has the theater pass-through switch so I could hook up my Sony processor to it, and pass it through to the power amp, or when listening to CD's, the signal path was CD player to preamp to power amp. It was an easy way to integrate a preamp with the home theater stuff. It made such a huge difference that it set me on the path to more upgrades. Before with the muddy sound of the Sony it was hard to tell any difference between different DAC's or cables or speakers - it was making everything sound bad. Once I got a better source for music, everything was so much more revealing that I could enjoy my big system again.

I don't know if many other preamps have a good way to pass through the R/L channels of a theater processor which bypass the volume control on the preamp like the Adcom does - maybe someone else knows of some. It is a very nice and convenient feature - you don't want to have to reconnect cables certainly, or have your R/L as an input to the preamp in which case you would have two volume controls for while using the home theater equipment.

In any case, a decent analog preamp/power amp combo makes a huge difference over a receiver or processor stuffed with ton of DSP and other digital enhancement features. If you can find a good way to share the power amp for music and home theater it works out to be a good compromise in my opinion. When integrating home theater and music you always have the acoustic compromises of having the TV in the center which can hurt the imaging of the speakers a bit, but it can still be a great sounding room for both applications.

Wish you luck on your project.

I went through this process last year. I had an antiquated 2-channel system an wanted a new 2-channel and HT system combines. I bought 3 different HT receivers (Sony DB930, Denon AVR-3300, B&K AVR-202). They were priced $500-$2800. None of them came close to the old 2-channel system I was trying to replace. I did try adding-on an old(but very good) Adcom GFA-555 amplifier, and it helped, but it still didn't meet my needs.

I ended up with a great integrated amp.(Arcam Alpha 10) that has an HT bypass. I have the Denon AVR-3300 for HT duties. All music sources connect directly into the Arcam's pre-amo section and the HT sources connect to the Pre-amp/processor portion of the Denon. The Arcam always powers the from speakers, and the Denon powers the surrounds and center, and controls the bass to the LFE port.

This system works great. It easily outperforms my old 2-channel system for music, and works seamlessly for HT. I'm ecstatic!!

Tom

Steve: If your objective is to have a good system for music, then that's where to start, even if means that you may have to compromise a bit on the HT sound. I have been an audiophile for a long time, but wanted to build a good HT system around my audio system. If you have the money, there are some pretty good pre/pros that do justice to both music and HT. The ones I am familiar with and can recommend are (cheapest to most expensive): Adcom GTP-760 (can be bought for around $1350 discounted); Parasound AVC-2500 (chosen by "The Perfect Vision" mag as one of the 2 best pre/pros under $6K); and the Bryston SP-1 (this unit has dedicated analog circuits as well as digital circuits, so you get the best of both worlds). I currently have a Bryston SP-1 feeding Bryston 4B-ST and 5B-ST power amps, which in turn drive Vandersteen 3A Signature front speakers, etc. This system does an excellent job with both music and HT. As I have mentioned in several recent posts, I have been helping my ex-wife install a HT system, and she is using the Adcom GTP-760 as the pre/pro. I am quite impressed with the quality of the sound on both music and HT, and for $1350 (discounted) I think the unit is very hard to beat. (The Perfect Vision mag has a very positive review of the Adcom GTP-760 in the current issue - #35.)

Away from the computer for a while (had to work) and come back to the most realistic answers I have gotten so far. Thanks a lot! May end up just building a seperate system using the same mains for music but the pass through feature sounds like it might work great. Enjoy HT but first priority is music.
Will get back on this.
Thanks
Steve