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[nila]

Hey all,

I'm after some good 6.1 surround sound speakers at around the £150-£200 price mark so pretty good ones.

Anyone got any suggestions of some that are good?
Anyone know of any with Dolby Pro Logic 2 ?

All info welcomed

[Bartabedian]

I mix a whole lot of 5.1 for digital broadcast and I've even done a few special theatre releases in 7.1 and 9.1 encoded to dolby-E, but what configuration is 6.1 exactly?

[nila]

Nice Cat

Ok - here's the full spec:

MSI Mega PC with
512Mb DDR333 RAM
200Gb Matrox 8Mb Buffer Hard Drive
TV Card that does Digital Freeview (cant remember which!)
GeForce FX5200 128Mb DVI, TV-Out Graphics Crd
Liteon 48x24x48 x 16 CDRW/DVD Drive
Intel P4 2.66 (512 cache)

The sound is onboard 6.1 :  Integrated Realtek ALC650 AC'97 Codec (6 Channel)


It's going to be setup as a Multimedia PC in the Living room attached to the monitor controlled by remote with MC running on it.
For mp3/divx/cd/etc playback etc.

I saw these ones and they sounded good: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/teac2000/

What'd u think? It's for living room sound - Ideally I'd like Pro-Logic 2 so it'd artificially create the surround sound for us.

[Bartabedian]

Gotcha, you mean 6 channel as in 5.1, the .1 isn't really a channel, it's a sub woofer mix (usually 250hz and below).

What kind of space are we tallking about, what kind of typical medium, what volume level sustained, do you tend to EQ a lot, how close are the neighbors?

 

[nila]

Reasonably big living room joining onto the Kitchen with an open arch so the sound will escape into that a bit.

Medium? I presume you mean to play what - It'll be mainly mp3's/ogg and some radio audio wise - then also it's going to play the TV sound over it and also any films - the films we'll obviously want to be able to play quite loudly and clearly.
Same with the music - often played deliberately to drift into the other rooms.

Neighbours are MILES away

[Tiberius]

Actually there is a 6.1 and a 7.1 spec. 6.1 adds a rear center and 7.1 adds two rear center surrounds.

[Bartabedian]

Actually there is a 6.1 and a 7.1 spec. 6.1 adds a rear center and 7.1 adds two rear center surrounds.

In the situations I've mixed 7.1, it was generally side mixes to help create the flow or "connect the dots" from front sides to rear sides, these being nearly perfectly set straight to the ear. As such, these mixes are a bit difficult to manage correctly, where the 9.1 mixes manage this much better (but also adds another hour-per-minute in the mixing stage). The so-called rear center is a mirror of the front center, and not recommended in my experience. I've also done top\bottom center mixes which is a configuration found in a lot of IMAX theatres as the screen is so large, the best way to fill a "center" is mirrored top\bottom center images.

Now, Nila, this is a challenge. A music setup is far different than a theatre setup, those mixes being done for completely different presentations. Theatre mixes will tend to be much heavier in the low end, as "boom" is created for dynamic effect. That same "boom" would become tiresome very quickly over the course of say an album listen. Also, theatre mixes will generally be brighter, factoring in presentation of large halls full of people and 75-80% of theatres having sub-par throw ability. Music will be more "accurate" in it's sustained mastered eq and compression.

That said, I would look for a setup that can handle both ideals with reckless abandon, and offer personal EQ ability to easily manage the switch. My favorite in sound reinforcement is JBL, a straight/flat/colorless signal with headroom to grow into (the way I prefer it), but I don't think they make a consumer setup in 5.1 (not sure, you may want to research). The Teac you mentioned looked decent, but I wonder if it can handle all you want to throw at it. Keep in mind, most 5.1 setups today are STILL generally geared toward theatre sound and DVD's. I have a couple pre-packaged 5.1 setups, and they all really suck at music, to put it bluntly, but are wonderful with movies. The one exception is my studio setup, which I've pieced together myself using various components and amps, and it wasn't cheap.

Hope some of this helps.


WP

[nila]

What about things like Dolby Pro Logic 2?

Alot of the audio sources are not going to have 6 channel information - they are going to be just stereo (CD's as a prime example) - for things like this wouldn't Pro Logic two artificially create the seperation for the other channels?

Are there any PC speakers that ou are aware of that do have this and it works well?

[Bartabedian]

Well, truth be told, I'm not a big fan of Pro-Logic, especially on straight stereo audio. The splits do very weird things to the sound, a process referred to as psycho-acoustics. And to me, if anybody actually enjoys what it does, then their truly psycho! lol

Other sources that actually include an intended Pro-Logic mix are rare these days, so I wouldn't put much emphasis on that at all, if it were me. I'd focus on a good 5.1 setup, and plan to utilize it on exclusive 5.1 material. I even have a few discs that have 5.1 created mixes from stereo sources, and it still just doesn't work well.

If you really want to go that route though, most basic HT systems will offer the Pro-Logic ability and most will create similar results. I have a Sony setup that has some very creative Pro-Logic algorithms, as do Kenwood and Harmon Kardon to name a few. But again, musically, they could be better. EQ is the key here, and admittedly, I haven't spent a whole bunch of time trying to make these systems more musical. Given some proper attention though, I'm sure it can be done with acceptable results.

WP

[nila]

Hmm, you seem to be WAY more technically audio minded than me

I just want a basic (easy) setup that is going to sound pretty good and clear with all those functions mentioned.

Do you reckon those speakers I mentioned would be able to do that? They looked not bad and seem like a nice easy/good solution?

[Bartabedian]

Hmm, you seem to be WAY more technically audio minded than me

It's what I've done for nearly 25 years now. From A to D and back again, that's how the "...bread gets its' butter..." 'round here.

I just want a basic (easy) setup that is going to sound pretty good and clear with all those functions mentioned.

Do you reckon those speakers I mentioned would be able to do that? They looked not bad and seem like a nice easy/good solution?

The Teac could be a nice PC setup, definitely, but if you're miles from the neighbors, I would want to have more power, at least 75-100W per channel. Look at some mid-range HT setups maybe. Just a suggestion. You don't want to be disappointed later that you didn't give that little exrta bit to ensure a quality listen every time.