When I asked at the Hunter Valley information center what cellars I should visit if I was only to visit a couple of them (Hunter Valley is a wine country north to Sydney where are homes of dozens of wineries), the lady behind the counter told me that they all are unique and worth to visit. That was absolutely true but certainly it wasn't the answer I expected. Later I learnt to tell good wines and bad wines but I don't know what is the best. However, I have no problem to tell what are my favourites.
Enjoying HiFi is just like enjoying wines.
My favourite systems for music and home theater are seperate.
Practical reasons: I don't go to lounge and sit at the sweet spot and start listening to music, except maybe doing tests. I listen to music when I am doing something in my study, for instance, typing this post in front of my computer, while I don't watch TV when I am doing something in my study, normally. I watch TV when I am in my lounge watching TV
Technical reasons: The system configurations and performance criterias are not the same.
The roles of the subwoofer in music and HT systems are different. The subwoofer in a music system is to help reproduce the mid and deep bass (16-100Hz) of the two stereo channels so that it takes the input from two main stereo channels. In an HT system, the subwoofer is supposed to take the input from the .1 in 5.1 format, which is the band-limited low frequency effects (LFE) channel or redirected bass by the decoder, and all other 5 channels are still running at full range. Using smaller amps and speakers for rear channels is the idea of the analog ProLogic format, where the rear channels, bandwith limited from 100 Hz to 7 Khz, are derived from two main channels and so the center channel is. In contrast, for digital formats such as AC3 (DolbyDigital) and DTS, in particular multichannel SACD and DVD-Audio formats, all 5 channels are discrete and independently coded full range main channels, which require equal systems for proper reproduction to correctly produce a summed sound vector at the listening position. The ways to tweak a system for 5 channels music would be very different from 2 channel recordings. By the way, most movie soundtracks in AC3 or DTS formats are compressed with lossy compression so that some subtle details are eliminated so that the means to reproduce detailed information in stereo music is not meaningful for DVD movies.
In music systems, it is a great challenge for two channels to create a realistic sound field and soundstage. HT or multichannel music systems, taking advantages of extra channels, extra bit depth and higher sampling frequency, can create sound field, soundstage and sound of better clarity with ease, which demond a bit less from amps in accuracy. In the same time, for recent movies and TV series, the challenge to the amps and speakers is to produce impressive sound effects, quickly and powerfully. A powerful amp here is not really for loudness but more for quick transient and adequate dynamic to make the impact on you together with what you see on the screen. In this case, the sound to be produced is not tuneful at all in most of time, but odd sounding. If they were not from our speakers but from outside of our windows, we would call them all noises. So, a musical speaker is not necessarily a good, "noise" making, HT speaker.
To play DVD or multichannel music tracks, there are a few other things to be aware of. The center channel is very critical as it mainly delivers the voice. Human voice plays a major role along with sound effects in movies and it is very, very difficult to get voice right. (Try a well recorded speaking voice track in your system and you can easily tell the coloration, more easily than music and a singing voice.) Sound effects are mostly computer generated these days, not from natural mechanism, however to use a natural mechanic device, our dear speaker, to produce them as sound. Not quite fair. Furthermore, multichannel recordings are mostly digitally mixed, or in other words, they are all fake. Two channel format has existed for so many years and there are still few recording engineers who can get it right. People got to wait decades for recording engineers to learn to get the multichannel recording right. Before that, we all have to listen to fake soundfield and soundstage created at mixing decks. I believe people would agree that there are less good recording engineers in the world than pandas on the earth. So the requirements on HT system performance are different from music systems.
In conclusion, roles and connections of subwoofers are different; source materials are different; quality criterias are different; usage habits are different; speakers perform differently for different tasks; rules for system tuning are also different.
On my music system, I will probably tweak it constantly forever. It's always Under Construction.
For my HT system, a good audio and video swithing mechanism is a must. So either a HT receiver or a A/V preamp/processor is necessary. I can tolerate fiddling with switches, connectors and cables around my music system but I can not tolerate any manual touch on any connnections on my HT system. When I lounge in a couch and watch TV, I just want to hop from STB to DVD to VCR to Satellite, constantly and instantly, by only allowing one arm and few fingers to perform that.
From my experience with my current HT system, a video format conversion capability among component video, S-video and composite video in the HT receiver/processor is highly desirable. (My wife always complained she got the picture lost when switching from DVD to VCR, where DVD was connected with S-video and VCR was connected with composite video and my Denon HT receiver does not do video format conversion so that when changing from DVD to VCR, the TV video input has to be switched from AV1, which is S-video connected, to AV2, which is composite video connected. Even for myself when I got the picture lost while switching sources, I got to pause and recall which AV input on TV the picture was on now. "Where is the TV remote?" I shouted in a big hurry.
Not to mention my wife and kid screaming for help to get back the pictures from a couple of rooms away.
-- This is a scenario that psychology and ergonomics factors into the funcitonality design. That was ok in the first few months when I first got my fresh new HT receiver but later it did become a bit of hassles, for all of us. -- When the excitement and curiosity is gone, the real factors will step in. By the way, soon I found my kid was clever to stick to the RF for TV, DVD, VCR and Satellite whatever, to get rid of the hassles and never turned the HT system on anymore. -- The product is given up if some areas can not be satisfied. It was lucky that I routed all RF properly at the beginning in case it would be used. At the end, my current HT configuration is to not use the S-video of DVD of better video quality but retreats to composite video of DVD so that the picture would not be lost when switching from DVD to VCR or whatever. -- The convenience has been traded with quality in different mode of usage. In addition, do you think your next TV set may have a component video so that you can make use of? If you find what I am talking about is confusing, you surely need the video conversion capability in your HT system.
) So, for HT systems, the priority of features are different from music systems due to different mode of usage and purposes.
AKSA is a major upgrade over consumer HT receivers' amp sections. I tried to connect the AKSA to my Denon HT receiver's preouts. The improvement is very obvious. This gives me motivation to go seperate in my HT system as well. So an A/V preamp/processor is on my wishlist for my HT system upgrade. Rotel 1066 is on my radar. There are other A/V preamps around but their prices are beyond my tolerance. Rotel 1066 is just above AU$2000. (And it is expected to drop after Rotel releases its new model with a TFT video display soon. I don't know why there should be a video display at the front pannel. I don't know why I should need that. Is it another waste like picture-in-picture kind of thing you pay it and you never use it? But I don't mind seeing they produce new models with features I don't need and drop the price of old models with features I die for.
) Considering 5 channel AKSAs and 5 speakers to match, plus a good subwoofer, Rotel takes a reasonable proportion of the budget for what it does.
With such a good sound in HT, what about the picture? A 16:9 for a better view? Digital TV to get rid of ghosting and ringing at the edges? Component video? Progressive decoder? HDTV screen? ... Oh, well, I will stick to my 4:3 Panasonic for a while until the plasma drops to a level I could afford, I wish, as fast as .com shares did. Once I replaced the stock power cord on my digital satellite decoder with a screened power cable, the effect is very obvious. In this case, I had to adjust the contrast or color again on the TV set to optimize the picture and the results are sharper pictures with more details and less noises over the scanning lines. (Digital decoders are notorious for emitting noises through power cables.) I never thought my ancient Panasonic can have such good pictures. For the last bit of background noises I could see from a distance of a couple of feet, I don't know whether I should open the TV case and upgrade the coupling capacitor with a videophile grade one.
So, my advice is to get an A/V preamp/processor and build your AKSAs then connect your STB, DVD, VCR and whatever sources you have then you will be happy. An A/V preamp/processor with some useful features is the heart of a home theater -- don't skip it; ease of use is a big factor in HTs. It could be a solution to make use of the preouts of an A/V receiver, but if you are concerned of the quality of your HT by upgrading the amp to AKSA, you won't be satisfied with the A/V preamp section of any consumer A/V receivers, not to mention the built-in processors/decoders in DVD players. Also, don't omit any channels. The information in the omitted channel is not carried in any other channels and will be lost for ever. (Unless you have a high quality A/V precessor that can redirect the signal in the omitted channel to other channels, which is compromising the surround sound quality, and if you can get that kind of A/V processor, why bother to omit a channel in the first place.)
