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are there any home theatre wizards here??
    #15383047 -

so i'm looking at buying a new home theatre system to connect to my HDTV (possibly to my computer as well). before i go into a big technical rant about speakers and things i need to buy, just trying to see if theres anyone out here who knows a bit about home theatre systems who can help me out here????


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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Dosile Kouki]
    #15383256 -

Depending on your budget, try to avoid "home theatre in a box" purchases.  Unless you have a large, dedicated home theatre room with good speaker separation, IMO 5.1 is good enough.  It kind of pains me to see 7.1 setups on small 10x10 bedrooms.


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...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: badchad]
    #15383283 -

ok, you seem knowledgeable.


basically i was thinking of buying a logitech z5500/z906, to connect to my HDTV. my concern is how these two devices will be able to handle HD Audio streams (i.e. dolby true digital and dts master hd audio). i was of the understanding that true hd audio can only be transmitted through HDMI cables. the z5500/z906 only have optical cable connects and coaxil connections.


will they completely not be able to play any audio at all from HD audio files, or will they be able to play the sound, just at standard quality??


i'm also looking for cheapish but still decent home theatre systems, mostly just a good set of speakers.


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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: badchad]
    #15383338 -

badchad said:
Depending on your budget, try to avoid "home theatre in a box" purchases.  Unless you have a large, dedicated home theatre room with good speaker separation, IMO 5.1 is good enough.  It kind of pains me to see 7.1 setups on small 10x10 bedrooms.



:thumbup:

If you look into manufacturer refurbished equipment, you can get some fantastic deals, get twice the level of equipment for the same price.


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Tact is for those who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic

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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Dosile Kouki]
    #15383520 -

DosileFlynn said:
will they completely not be able to play any audio at all from HD audio files, or will they be able to play the sound, just at standard quality??



HD audio can only transport using HDMI or 7.1 analog outputs...  Optical and coaxial cables just don't have the bandwidth.  That being said, my receiver and my sources do not support TrueHD or DTS HD, and it really isn't something that bothers me.  I'm happy enough with Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES that I really don't care enough to upgrade, but I don't (and won't) have a Blu-Ray player.


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Tact is for those who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic

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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Galaxie500]
    #15383529 -

same here, i dont use a bluray player either. my only conern is that, when i play bluray quality files, or files encoding with ' hd audio ' and play them off my USB, the stereo wont be able to play them !


i guess there are a few ways around this, by either running the z5500/906 through some kind of amplifier that downmixes, or hopefully maybe my tv may downmix the sound automatically. or in the worst case scenario just extracting out the audio tracks and converting them to non-hd streams and repackaging.


was just kind of hoping to get an all in one purchase that i can still use for my TV as well. difficult decision though.


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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Dosile Kouki]
    #15383662 -

What is the source?  I've never messed around with USB and video, so I really can't say for sure. I do have a home theater PC that I play Blu-Ray rips on, the video card can output 1080p over a DVI connector (same tech as a HDMI, tho it can't transmit audio and is obviously a different connector, but it can converted to HDMI with a basic adapter) and a sound card with an optical output...  You can downconvert any HD audio using software, no problem, I pretty much only movies using .mkv containers and have it setup to downconvert the audio if need be.  Most of the time it they don't have HD audio, just DD or DTS.


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Tact is for those who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic

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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Dosile Kouki]
    #15383702 -

DosileFlynn said:
ok, you seem knowledgeable.


basically i was thinking of buying a logitech z5500/z906, to connect to my HDTV. my concern is how these two devices will be able to handle HD Audio streams (i.e. dolby true digital and dts master hd audio). i was of the understanding that true hd audio can only be transmitted through HDMI cables. the z5500/z906 only have optical cable connects and coaxil connections.


will they completely not be able to play any audio at all from HD audio files, or will they be able to play the sound, just at standard quality??


i'm also looking for cheapish but still decent home theatre systems, mostly just a good set of speakers.


First of all, there is no such thing as "true HD audio".  The signal going to the speaker drivers is always analog.  Dolby/DTS sound is just the format in which the soundtrack is encoded.  You need a receiver to decode the soundtrack, covert the digital signals to analog, and send the analog signals to the speakers.

  Fancy speaker wires are a big waste of $$ IMO.  As far as HDMI/optical/coax, it's all the same quality.  HDMI is only needed for 1080P resolution video (aka "true HD video").

I don't know much about logitech speakers, but after looking at the z5500/z906, it looks like the "home theater in a box" that badchad warned you about.

The #1, most important component to a good sound system is the speakers.  For surround sound the ideal setup would use identical speakers all around.  You can get away with just matching the surround speakers if you like.

The second most important component is the receiver/amplifier.  The receiver takes in the audio signal from the source, decodes the signal and converts it to analog, then amplifies and sends the analog signal to the speakers. 

The logitech system you mentioned appears to have the surround sound decoder, as well as the amplifier all inside the subwoofer.  This does not sound like a very good design to me...


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The fire has many things to teach.
But so does the human experience.. which is like fire, sometimes you just need to stoke the coals and sometimes you just need to add a log or reposition the log matrix. But a well built fire will be much more self-sustaining than a poorly built one, and they all need love to grow. And don't fuck around or your might burn yourself. Must always respect the fire. - Shroomism

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Re: are there any home theatre wizards here?? [Re: Happy2fly]
    #15385467 -

Galaxie500 said:
What is the source?  I've never messed around with USB and video, so I really can't say for sure. I do have a home theater PC that I play Blu-Ray rips on, the video card can output 1080p over a DVI connector (same tech as a HDMI, tho it can't transmit audio and is obviously a different connector, but it can converted to HDMI with a basic adapter) and a sound card with an optical output...  You can downconvert any HD audio using software, no problem, I pretty much only movies using .mkv containers and have it setup to downconvert the audio if need be.  Most of the time it they don't have HD audio, just DD or DTS.


i'm not sure what you mean by source, but i would be intending to play files off a USB HDD connected to a HDTV. theres no computer streaming or hdmi cables involved with the z5500/906, which is why i'm concerned about its capability to play HD audio files. playing directly into my TV set, unless the TV has an auto-down mixing system of some sort, i may not be able to play the sound!



i'm actually not concerned at all with playing HD audio at " had audio quality ". i would be totally happy if it can still downmix and play the HD audio files, at standard quality. i.e. as long as it HAS sound. what i'm worried about is that it wont be able to play any sound AT ALL from the HD audio files! this is really the crucial concern.






Happy2fly said:
First of all, there is no such thing as "true HD audio".  The signal going to the speaker drivers is always analog.  Dolby/DTS sound is just the format in which the soundtrack is encoded.  You need a receiver to decode the soundtrack, covert the digital signals to analog, and send the analog signals to the speakers.

  Fancy speaker wires are a big waste of $$ IMO.  As far as HDMI/optical/coax, it's all the same quality.  HDMI is only needed for 1080P resolution video (aka "true HD video").

I don't know much about logitech speakers, but after looking at the z5500/z906, it looks like the "home theater in a box" that badchad warned you about.

The #1, most important component to a good sound system is the speakers.  For surround sound the ideal setup would use identical speakers all around.  You can get away with just matching the surround speakers if you like.

The second most important component is the receiver/amplifier.  The receiver takes in the audio signal from the source, decodes the signal and converts it to analog, then amplifies and sends the analog signal to the speakers. 

The logitech system you mentioned appears to have the surround sound decoder, as well as the amplifier all inside the subwoofer.  This does not sound like a very good design to me...


yes. my concern is that, according to my research on the z5500/z906, they can decode normal dolby/dts tracks (i.e. DVD standard audio) but they cannot decode HD Audio (blu ray audio, dolby true hd, dts hd).

i see what your saying. so ontop of the speakers i need a receiver or amplifier type thing as well right?

i'm not opposed to picking out pieces for a system really. i just don't know what is good and what is cheap to be honest. and i don't know what connects with what. hence why i was leading towards one of those ' all in one ' systems. i was wondering if you have any recomendations??

i am basically looking for a pair of cheapish speakers that will do the job. this is why i looked to the z5500 - as it has amazing sound quality and value. i'm just concerned that it wont be able to play any audio at all from hd files! as i said before, this is my main concern. i need to find out whether it can flat out not play ANY sound at all from hd audio codecs, or whether it will just downmix them to a lower quality.


if the system is uncapable of decoding the audio streams, i'm assuming that means it wont be able to play them at all right? i have heard somewhere mentioning that it is incompatible with bluray (i.e. hd audio) systems. . .


a possible saving grace may be that maybe the HDTV itself has some kind of downmixing function in it that lowers the audio quality and makes it playable on the speakers. i hope so! however it is a relatively new HDTV, so i'm fairly sure it would have all the capabilities to cater for HD audio.


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