Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello. I slyly upped my mortgage to get enough money to retire my slowly-dying (but oh-so lovely) Sony Bravia to the bedroom wall by replacing it with motherfucking Samsung LED yeah! TV which I'm rather excited about.

Anyway, beside asking if anyone has any horror stories about the TV (a mate has a small version and it's very good, but you never know) I am also upgrading the surround sound.
I've got a Logitech setup at the moment (the one with the wireless rear speakers), but I think I want to go with separates this time, as I'm angered that I can't do things like upgrade the sub or get a rear speaker replaced without posting off the whole damned set.

Any suggestions? "Better" is more important than "cheaper" (within reason), but I want to keep it below £500. Ish.

I've got an Onkyo Surround Amp. Yes, it's been a bit flakey with known HDMI switching problems but it has a two year warranty and Onkyo fixed it without any quibbling. Sounds great, has a ton of features normally associated with much more expensive gear. I'd assume they've fixed this issue in later versions as they don't make my model any more.

As far as speakers go, well that really is a matter of preference and I can't comment as I should upgrade mine as well.

Just make sure the cables are up to scratch. If you're spending less than £100 a foot you will notice the difference.

How does the sound 'know' which speaker to come out of?

The amplifier tells it.

It appears there are many, ranging from £200 to £x,000. Do you know which one you've got?

I've got an Onkyo one that was about £300, and it's excellent.

Aha, was it this one?

Yes, it's that one exactly.

Hang on - if the telly has an audio out soucket, why do you need an amp?

It allows the noise that the speakers make to be used to generate electricity to power the TV.

L-LOL.

That's going to follow me round for a while, isn't it?

Because the amp is what all your speakers plug into. And it does things like introducing delay into the audio signal for speakers that are further away, and shit.

I'd love a surround sound system but currently I couldn't really justify it unless it was a Christmas present or something. That and the fact that I live in an upper flat so I don't know how keen my neighbours would be.

And the Amp lets you have half a dozen different inputs all plugged into it, like Sky, 360, PS3, DVD player.

Audio out on the TV is only useful for anything where the input is direct to the TV - so Freeview/Terrestrial TV.

You dilute it a thousand times with some white noise & the result contains the sound's memory.

If the cables were all the same length, surely no delay would be needed?

Yeah. But they're, like, not the same length. Because the ones at the front are 2' from the TV, and the ones at the back are 12' from the TV.

Cable length isn't important (unless you have hundreds of meters of the stuff) as the signal is pretty zippy (some physics person will tell you exactly, but fast will do for me). The sound that comes out of the speakers is, as is the delay between your TV accepting the input and displaying it on the screen.

Shouldn't you delay the sounds that are closer to the TV, then, so all the sounds happen at the same time?

He means further away from the listener, Mali, not the TV. Sound travels slow.

If you are watching a film with a plane taking off over the camera, don't you want the noise to start at the TV and then move backwards through the room?

Sound goes through air much slower than electricity goes through cable, so you can basically ignore the length of the cable.

Oh my.

[edit]@SDG, obv

I assume gill has pwned you there.

Lol sorry I just glanced at the conversation and then wondered aloud about if the amplifier is responsible for creating those effects.

Oh. Lol

This. Sorry, I should have been clearer. Your sofa is typically at the back of the room next to the rear speakers, so you're sitting next to them.

The Onkyo has an excellent microphone-deely for configuring the delay - the speakers put out awesome high-pitched bongs that freak the fuck out of the cat.

Sometimes I redo the delay config for shits and giggles.

/rages

Does it come with a microphone?

Not a real microphone, no. Just the positioning microphone.

Ah! Cool.
I had to try to sync speaker delays by hand once, on a club's PA. It's a bit tedious.

That's what I mean - as long as I wouldn't have to provide anything special.

An [amplifier/headphone amp] wi' that Dolby Headphone* stuff is a half-decent compromise. However, even with multiple outputs it's not ideal for watching films with other people, but on the other hand it's ideal for playing a bit of shooty shooty bang bang in peace
*Fuck knows how it even works with normal stereo headphones, but it's surprisingly good even if it does lose a little clarity as a result.

Ugh, I've done that. What did you use to do it with?

It fakes the noise that sound in different locations makes as it bounces off your ears. Someone will be along with the name in a minute.

Oh, yeah - it's in the box, then.

A crappy old 2 channel scope and a CD with sinewaves on it. I'm not convinced it was the right tool for the job

I think that ONKYO TXSR308 is the amp, then. Also, £21 for a 5-year guarantee from Richer Sounds? Yoink.

How well does that work on games then. I mean the source isn't "surround" is it?

I guessed it might be something to do with reverberations & different bits of your ear picking up different frequencies, but idfk

Considering you know that I not only live with someone else but 9/10 times watch my films with her as well, that may very well count as the most useless piece of information you've given me and you do give me a lot of useless information.

Haha! We jerry rigged a timer and a remote and a decibel meter, which when you 'pressed the button' (shorted two wires) it fired off a CDR with a stab of white noise at the same time as it started the timer, and stopped the timer when the meter moved.
The various problems with this were:

• We had to be absolutely silent as we touched the wires together
• The CDR took varying times to fire up
• It didn't matter because the timer wasn't accurate enough anyway

We hired a magic box to do it in the end.

Yup, usually.

Yeah, it is. They come with a decoder box you can plug an optical lead into (the ones I've seen, anyway).

Wtf? Even the original Xboxen/PS2 outputs in 5.1.

It works ace in games, you can position folk quite well using your lugs. Which is indispensable in S&D

Huh, I did not know that! Might have to bag a surround setup next time I see one on freecycle then

Well... you can both watch films happily enough. It's just talking, cuddling, etc. that's awkward while you both wear headphones that causes the problems*
*On the other hand, going for a pee during the start of Saving Private Ryan remains one of the most awesome/terrifying things ever.

EDIT: I've just realised we've taken up half the thread talking about this (mostly) irrelevant stuff

L-LOL

I can't not never have no surround now for games. It's too good both in usefulness as Wullie says for aiding location and atmospherics like in Dead Space.

My next want is a bigger LCD/LED TV with a bezel free glass front like my friends L . Having a doggy and a baba means my current Samsung is constantly covered in shite*, so an easy clean option would be super.

*My pooch likes nothing more than standing over the TV with her paws on the bench barking out of the window and slobbering all over it.