Zak, g8ina, Lowe...you lot are a bad influence....

[dave87]

Paint


Doesn't have to be exact, just a rough idea of where things are. Either that or if you want to be really fancy then use Google Sketchup to create a 3D model of the room - but I think that's a little too detailed perhaps.

[Biscuit]

You could just use Paint or an office program to be really crude.

The free version of google sketchup should do the job aswell. Bit more indepth but its pretty easy to get the hang of and there is a bucket load of guides on the web.

[format]

Proposed placement of the speakers are to the left of the leftmost monitor, and in the middle of the bookshelf to the right of the desk.

[Hicks12]

Right i assume the top middle of the picture is your desk and monitor?

Can you move them bookshelves? Then you can centre the desk on that wall and have speakers either side, the bookshelves could be moved to the left wall(in the diagram)?.

Ideally youd want them both to be 35 or 45 degrees towards the listening position and a bit away from walls and other isolating objects. You can grab stands for fairly cheap on ebay or from shops like richersounds and superfi (they both do ones for £50 a pair).

However if you cant move the bookshelves and move your desk then yes your proposed locations would be the best.

[format]

Right i assume the top middle of the picture is your desk and monitor?

Can you move them bookshelves? Then you can centre the desk on that wall and have speakers either side, the bookshelves could be moved to the left wall(in the diagram)?.

Ideally youd want them both to be 35 or 45 degrees towards the listening position and a bit away from walls and other isolating objects. You can grab stands for fairly cheap on ebay or from shops like richersounds and superfi (they both do ones for £50 a pair).

However if you cant move the bookshelves and move your desk then yes your proposed locations would be the best.

I think the current arrangement is ideal for my gf, and as she's been living here 5 years I don't really want to come in a mess it around too much. I'll see about moving the desk but it's unlikely. Thanks for the tips anyway.

[Terbinator]

Amp and wiring purchased and all set-up.

Made the mistake of having my source set to full volume and the amp (Same as Dave's) knob to about half-way before getting it on the right input - doh! Que very loud noises and my new speakers probably a second from being broke on the first bit of signal.

First thought is that there seems to be a definite 'soundstage' to the new set-up, whether the cost was justified I'm not sure on initial listens. I'm just wiring it up to the D2X/lossless collection now though to see if their is any discernible difference.

[Terbinator]

Would i be fine feeding a 192kHz signal to the amp as well? The only thing i can find closest to sort of answering this in the Denon's manual is to do with SACD's.

[dave87]

Amp and wiring purchased and all set-up.

Made the mistake of having my source set to full volume and the amp (Same as Dave's) knob to about half-way before getting it on the right input - doh! Que very loud noises and my new speakers probably a second from being broke on the first bit of signal.

Rookie mistake


It is surprising how loud the B&Ws go without putting any strain on the amp though

[Hicks12]

What denon is it terb? It should be in the Manual really, depending on the price range id say 96kHz is the safe option till you find out. Know my pioneer 520k does 96k and its not exactly an expensive avr.

[Terbinator]

What denon is it terb? It should be in the Manual really, depending on the price range id say 96kHz is the safe option till you find out. Know my pioneer 520k does 96k and its not exactly an expensive avr.

http://www.denon.co.uk/uk/Product/Pa...uctId=PMA510AE

I also got dicked on speaker wire form RS - 99p/m I just couldn't get home and order some off Amazon could i !

[dave87]

As far as I understand it that doesn't matter with normal amps (as opposed to AVRs) because the Amp is only doing the amplification, not decoding and then amplification.

As such you can output whatever you like, higher quality presumably being better.

[Hicks12]

Ah sorry thought you had an AVR! I believe dave is right, there is no need for you to fuss over that part... how have you connected the amp to whatever your source is? As it should be decoded at the source side.

Nothing wrong with the speakerwire :d, maybe a bit more expensive but it has better sheathing (more durable than the cheaper amazon one, much!), and obviously actual copper . If you bought the £4 per metre stuff then yeah id say you got ripped haha.

[Terbinator]

As far as I understand it that doesn't matter with normal amps (as opposed to AVRs) because the Amp is only doing the amplification, not decoding and then amplification.

As such you can output whatever you like, higher quality presumably being better.

I did think as much as I switched to 192kHz and it still worked fine, as do my headphones etc. Only thing is i'm not sure i want to up-sample my music given the money i've spent to get affordable reference quality.

Ah sorry thought you had an AVR! I believe dave is right, there is no need for you to fuss over that part... how have you connected the amp to whatever your source is? As it should be decoded at the source side.

Nothing wrong with the speakerwire :d, maybe a bit more expensive but it has better sheathing (more durable than the cheaper amazon one, much!), and obviously actual copper . If you bought the £4 per metre stuff then yeah id say you got ripped haha.

Yeah the actual stuff seems fairly good and i only needed ~5m so wasn't overly expensive in total.

Connection wise i'm using a 3.5mm > phono at the minute for my PC (D2X). The 360/PS3 will connect up the same way with their respective phono cables.

FWIW the sound is definitely better from my D2X than from my Zune (30GB original model)

[Terbinator]

I'm just looking at some speaker wire on Amazon and is there a good one i should be looking for for fairly cheapish? As a rule of thumb, in my haste to get my amp and speakers set-up i got robbed in Richer Sounds for their lowest-grade stuff which came to about £8 for 8m.

Vague search here.

I'll probably look to get around 10m, maybe one of the 20m bundles just in case i have to cut some new lengths if i move the speakers/amp around.

[Hicks12]

Well i have CA (richersounds) cable for my fronts and centre, in the effort of reducing costs as im still due to move home sometime in the year i bought this stuff : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quality-2-5m...9432949&sr=8-5 for my rears (its gone up in price alot now...), cant fault it but the richersounds stuff is better quality and actual copper, the one linked is not copper its simply painted I cant remember what it is but we figured it out ages ago , if you dont plan on moving anytime soon id say get more of the rs stuff its not a bad price.

Couldnt tell you if i notice a difference between the RS and cheap cable basically cause its only been used on my rears and i have no comparison (havent run them on my RS cable and not intending on yet ).

[g8ina]

Terb, go look at B&Q, yeah, seriously

They have some really meaty cable in 20m runs..