[trains are bad]

I'm about tired of spending money on car audio which is not going well for me, and I have a very nice headphone setup, but headphones fundamentally suck for most material imo. So I was thinking of whipping up some basic home system, when I realized I know absolutely nothing of home audio. I am in a vacuum of audio knowledge. Nobody I know has any sort of audio system beyond the basic walmart surround system. I know lots about car audio.

So, starting from the very bottom, how are the systems set up? I assumed you'd run RCAs from your source to an amp, to the xover if applicable, to the speakers. What kind of processors do people use?

Does everything just plug into the wall, and have internal power supplies?

Can you integrate surround with a Hifi stereo setup, or do they have to be kept separate? I'm really clueless how you integrate it into a Home theatre setup. How do you switch between stereo and surround?

My source for music would be my computer and FLAC library, and an external DAC.

I'm well up on car audio, I just have no idea how you do audio in your house. If you could recommend some reading or just explain home audio in terms someone that a car audio nut could understand, that would be great.

 

[bjackson]

Ok, well it's much like car audio (that's how I started too), but in home audio there is almost no such thing as external crossovers. Almost every speaker you'd buy has an integrated crossover. Since this is the DIY board, are you interested in making your own speakers?

Most speakers are designed either for HT use or 2 channel use. I would keep the two seperate, however if you don't neccisarily have to. All surround recievers have an option to go to stereo, or even direct.

Well not "everything" plugs into the wall.. Speakers plug into their amps, not into the wall (generally, there are powered speakers though, that do directly).
Every electronic piece you will buy will have 120v input and have its own PSU in it.

You can run RCAs from your source to the amp, or XLR, or in many cases, run digital straight to the reciever (if you go with a reciever, and not a 2 channel setup), and they have onboard DACs.

 

[trains are bad]

Quote:

Since this is the DIY board, are you interested in making your own speakers?

Yeah, so I guess passive xovers are popular in home audio, I suppose they just put them in the speaker cabinet?

Quote:

All surround recievers...if you go with a reciever, and not a 2 channel setup

there's that word, 'reciever'. Is that like a hub you plug everything into (3 game consoles, Cable TV, DVD player, Audio source etc)? I would never want to compromise my music setup for theater use.

I suppose I could get a power supply or battery and charger, bring all my car audio gear inside and ghetto rig it all up in my living room

 

[The Monkey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad I suppose I could get a power supply or battery and charger, bring all my car audio gear inside and ghetto rig it all up in my living room

heck, just park the car in the living room!

 

[Wodgy]

This is a really broad question, some of which you might find useful just to Google for.

Anyway, a couple points:

- Yes, the crossovers are inside the speakers. Car audio people get away with external (often first-order) crossovers because car audio is fundamentally imprecise. With home gear the quality bar is much higher and crossovers need to be customized to the actual drivers and cabinets used, so the crossovers are fixed and inside the cabinets. (There is an external digital crossover and measurement system that has become popular lately called the DEQX, but it is the exception, and it is expensive.)

- Usually power supplies are inside the gear. Sometimes they're external, in the form of a wall wart. They're always supplied. You don't have to add your own.

- Yes, you can use a two channel preamp and a receiver at the same time. This is called a "home theatre bypass" feature. Look for gear that has it.

- I would work on getting a musical two channel system first before building an HT system. Movies can sound very good out of a 2.1 channel system. If you have tweeters with proper dispersion, the center channel adds little or nothing, and the rears are more for effect.

 

[Garbz]

I'd prefer music with my stereo system then a cheaper surround sound system anyday.

When you are building your system I may mention a personal option that Home theater receivers are god aweful. THe majority of them i find inject a LOT of noise into a good setup and are not very capable of driving speaker well.

I would seriously consider gettting a stereo integrated amplifier, as surround sound done high end gets reasonably expensive. But if a home theater is a must look towards receivers like NAD which my experiences seem to give the best sound, or at least the least compromise.

 

[trains are bad]

Home theater would be strictly optional. I'm not sure I'd even want surround, but it would be nice to watch movies on my decent speakers instead of the crappy ones on it.

 

[bhjazz]

Woody is correct: build a nice 2-channel system and make it hte base of whatever else you need. Don't worry about the surround integration unless you regularly dream of surround sound. For me, I have a preamp that can do all of the processing, and a 6-channel amp as well, but only purchased the two main speakers (L and R...of course). And while I will eventually want the rest of the speakers, I can't say it keeps me up and night. Movies sound just fine on 2 channels.

So, for your questions, a good basic place to start is an integrated amp. This means it will do the preamp features (gain and switching) along with the amplification and do it all in one box. All you need then is a source (cd player) and some speakers and you're good to go.

If you want to go to the next level, you would separate the pieces that the integrated amp has, sooooo this means you would have a separate preamp and amplifier. Your source would connect to the preamp and the preamp would connect to the amp. This buys you some nice upgrades, one of which is that the preamp now has it's own power source, etc. It also give you the opportunity to tune your system a bit by swapping different brands of interconnects (and that's as far as I want to go on the i/c debate...lol). It also allows you to change the preamp or amp as you see fit or as your budget can decide. For me, I can use my Theta preamp or my Bottlehead Foreplay, both of which are completely different than the other. The Theta, by the way, sounds cool and refined while the Foreplay is open and quite unrestrained. Sort of like a Ferrari vs. Mustang. Anyway, there are advantages to any way to do it, so don't believe it if someone tells you it should be one way or the other.

Nope. no external crossovers until you get to the over $20K speaker range or so which is fine. Most speaker mfr's know far more about their speaker and it's modeling to let some user tweak it that far.

If you do get a preamp that does not have theater processing, fear not. Many add in an "effects loop" to allow an external processor even though the market for them is wayyyyy too small. Very odd.

You might shop at Audiogon and get an idea of the costs of things as cost is usually a deciding factor for 90% of us. Buyer beware out there. It's gettin to be just like eBay any more.

Did that help....or make you more confused? PM me if you'd like!

 

[bjackson]

DIY speakers is a very broad topic, and you can do anything from a kit (prebuilt cabinents and crossovers), to designing them yourself.

A good rule of thumb is if you can build it for 500 you can buy it for 1000

If I was making a bookshelf to start my system, this is where I would start:
http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=11321

BTW, I do not believe integrated amplifiers have to be bad. www.av123.com has really nice speakers and electronics for a good price if you want to buy, and they are coming out with the x-series of amplifiers and preamps and I haven't heard them, but they appear to be a GREAT deal (100 bucks for a 100x2 amplifier and 250 for a DAC and preamp).

 

[bhjazz]

bjackson brings up an excellent point: you can build a great home audio system yourself. I touched on that point, but did not mention my interest in tube audio. D'oh! Bottlehead has a community as amazing as the Head Fi community, everyone helpful and interesting. You could build a tube amp and preamp yourself, then a pair of DIY speakers and surprise the hell out of yourself. I didn't believe it until I tried it myself. And after all, you already have soldering skills....