Looking into the world of separates

[Behemoth]

Having moved out of the family abode and now have a decent sized room in my flat, I'm currently looking into the world of separates (again !)

I'm at an absolute loss as to what to look for, etc. To start off with as all I would need is an amplifier and set of speakers as I intend to run it all off my PC. I can then build up as I go along (should I want to)

I've had a look in some of the second hnd stores such as Cash Generator and fell out with their sales staff when then tried to argue you could run a set of 16 ohm speakewrs on an 8ohm rated amp only, saying it would make no difference, till I pointed out you'd be over driving the amp if running speakers with a a higher rating on them than the amp was designed for, then a firther argument when I told them their "Sold as seen" sign was no longer a valid term and that it was seen as an attempt to restrict peoples rights.

Will be used for gaming, listening to varying kinds of music, movies etc.

Looking at Technics/Sony/Pioneer for the amplifier, speaker wise would not mind some floor standing ones given as as I have the room for them etc. I guess I'd be looking for something like Mission speakers ?

[Smudger]

Have a look at Richer Sounds, if you've got one near you. Yamaha, Denon and Onkyo all do decent 5.1 A/V amps from around £140 upwards...

http://www.richersounds.com/products...s/av-receivers

[Bluecube]

I've got an Onkyo 509 amp and it's a very good general purpose amp. Great for surround sound duties whilst still be excellent (to my ears) at handling music.

Speaker wise I'm a huge fan of Wharfedale stuff specifically the Diamond 9.1 speakers which are 90 notes from Superfi. Absolute bargain IMHO.

[SHare]

Richer sounds is a decent source of good priced kit. Alot of their cambridge audio stuff is really rather good for the money. Personally I trawled gumtree for a few months and picked up bits and pieces. Got some good condition B&W 601s for about £80 a few of years ago and a yamaha AV reciever for much the same which started me off nicely for getting sound and video from the PC to the amp and TV.

[Smudger]

If you're anywhere near Plymouth, the RS there has an Onkyo TXSR-608 for £150. It's a two-year old model, but it was top of the 'mid-ground' range at the time. Was £500 when first out...

[Behemoth]

Not overy worried about 5.1 but I guess that would come in handy later on Didn't think to look at Onkyo

[Smudger]

Not overy worried about 5.1 but I guess that would come in handy later on Didn't think to look at Onkyo

It's best to go for that if you're looking to the future. You can add speakers as and when you've got some spare cash. I packed away the old stereo amp when we got an A/V Receiver, now all music goes through the AV.

[Biscuit]

What kind of budget are you looking at?

Im a big fan of the Tannoy Mercury range, got a full set myself and for the price, the sound is really good.

Im pretty sure they will stock them in RS if you want to go and have a listen but this is the floor standing version

http://www.superfi.co.uk/p-2437-tann...source=froogle

[krazy_olie]

Highly recommend this amp
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-T-T-A...item27c92c0d39

Surprisingly good, though not for ear piercing volumes. I use mine with a logitech squeezebox touch (highly recommended!!)
and some kef q100 speakers which i got off ebay for a ncie price.

16 ohm speakers on an 8 ohm amplifier would be fine, the speaker might be a bit more power sucking than you'd want. 8 ohm speakers on a 16 ohm amp would almost certainly blow, as that would effectively short circuit the amp.

never heard of a 16 ohm amp though...
16 ohm speakers sounds like a heavy load, probably not very sensitive

[krazy_olie]

btw don't rule out active/powered speakers, benefit there being you don't need to mix and match amplifiers to speakers as someone has already done it for you.
most of the are pro-audio oriented but some companies like ADAM and dynaudio have some hi-fi oriented stuff. Some of them even have a built in digital to analogue converter (dac) too.

[pipTheGeek]

I got started with seperates by visiting Richer Sounds, got a sub £100 AV Receiver and a set of 5 speakers (£120 if anyone cares) to get started with, so yes, recommend starting there.
I've since upgraded the receiver twice, most recently to a Yamaha becuase I wanted HDMI connections. Although I haven't had any experiance with the other big names (like Onkyo or Denon etc), I have had several reasons to contact Yamaha for tech support, once because of a firmware bug, other times it was just suggestions or minor bugs on their website. Every time they have been helpful, the firmware bug they posted me a CD with a new not-yet-general-release firmware that fixed it.
Maybe this is what all the companies are like, I can really only compare to Virgin Media or Netgear. But it has earned my loyalty.

[Dareos]

Have the Onkyo 608 meself, spent around £300 on it, lovely unit imo, bulky but has everything except networkability, which is a shame, 609 has it tho.

[Behemoth]

Not overly big mate, looking to do it as cheap as poss, thats why I'm looking at ebay etc. Would like t thin I can get started off on £250

Looking at an av receiver Sony on ebay at the moment - this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3007503421...84.m1423.l2649

Its just up the road from me too so can collect it

[g8ina]

Sorry I'm late, I do have a note from my mum

Marantz amps are also worth a look, often seen in ebay.

+1 Tannoy series speakers. Also Mordaunt Short.

Go for 5.1 cuz once you've heard cinema sound you won't want to go back

[Biscuit]

Not overly big mate, looking to do it as cheap as poss, thats why I'm looking at ebay etc. Would like t thin I can get started off on £250

Looking at an av receiver Sony on ebay at the moment - this one http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3007503421...84.m1423.l2649

Its just up the road from me too so can collect it

With a budget of 250 i would get yourself a decent set of bookshelves and a nice fairly feature rich amp to match to make you reasonably future proofed, once you move to 5.1 the bookshelves can become the rears and you can get some beasty floorstanders

[Smudger]

You can get a decent pair of Shelf Speakers for £50 - RS do the legendary Control 1s by JBL for £60 a pair, leaving you with £190 for the amp. You should be able to pick up a 2 or 3 year old mid-range 5.1 amp for that, easily. Might be worth checking AVforums for their Classifieds and Bargains pages...