Home Cinema recommendations

quokula

I'm considering getting some kind of home cinema system but the amount of different set ups and information out there can be a bit difficult to get your head around for a complete newcomer.

I've got a 75" Phillips Ambilight 4k HDR TV. It has only 3 HDMI ports - hooked up to it I have a Sky Q Box, a PS4, and then various other games consoles and a Raspberry Pi hooked up to the final HDMI slot through a switch adaptor. The PS4 is the only 4k input right now, but I fully expect to get the new set of games consoles coming out later this year which will all be 4k.

So gaming is the big use case for me. I'm not an audiophile or cinema buff. I won't be turning the volume up massively high as the neighbours would hear through the wall. I likely won't be watching uncompressed Bluray movies, only things on Sky, Disney Plus and Netflix (we do have 1GBps internet though so streaming services are high quality)

What I do want is something that ups the sound quality over what the TV has, and I'd like surround sound as I imagine it has practical improvements when playing games and hearing stuff behind you. Ideally I'd really like to run everything through a box with 6 or more HDMI inputs so I'm not messing around with HDMI switches so much, but nothing that would introduce latency which is a serious issue for games. Ideally I'd want to keep it simple with wireless speakers rather than running cables everywhere too. For budget, amazing quality speakers would probably be wasted on me, but I'm willing to pay for reliability, convenience and low latency.

Would you recommend a good starting point?

Richersounds.ie: DavidS

quokula wrote: »

I'm considering getting some kind of home cinema system but the amount of different set ups and information out there can be a bit difficult to get your head around for a complete newcomer.

I've got a 75" Phillips Ambilight 4k HDR TV. It has only 3 HDMI ports - hooked up to it I have a Sky Q Box, a PS4, and then various other games consoles and a Raspberry Pi hooked up to the final HDMI slot through a switch adaptor. The PS4 is the only 4k input right now, but I fully expect to get the new set of games consoles coming out later this year which will all be 4k.

So gaming is the big use case for me. I'm not an audiophile or cinema buff. I won't be turning the volume up massively high as the neighbours would hear through the wall. I likely won't be watching uncompressed Bluray movies, only things on Sky, Disney Plus and Netflix (we do have 1GBps internet though so streaming services are high quality)

What I do want is something that ups the sound quality over what the TV has, and I'd like surround sound as I imagine it has practical improvements when playing games and hearing stuff behind you. Ideally I'd really like to run everything through a box with 6 or more HDMI inputs so I'm not messing around with HDMI switches so much, but nothing that would introduce latency which is a serious issue for games. Ideally I'd want to keep it simple with wireless speakers rather than running cables everywhere too. For budget, amazing quality speakers would probably be wasted on me, but I'm willing to pay for reliability, convenience and low latency.

Would you recommend a good starting point?

Hey Quokula.

Thanks for the post.

A home cinema setup would be a massive improvement on the TV speakers.

I wouldn't be able to recommend a full wireless 5.1 setup unfortunately as this is not something that we would stock.
You could look at some of the Yamaha A/V receivers that allow for a wireless sub and wireless rears but the front left and right and centre speaker are still wired.
For the wireless parts they still need plugged into the mains sockets.

For a receiver you could check out the RXA680 priced at £499 (4 HDMI Inputs).
https://www.richersounds.ie/p-203497-yamaha-rxa680-black-atmos-av-receiver.aspx


This would allow for the sub100 priced at £259
https://www.richersounds.ie/p-203599-yamaha-musiccast-sub-100-black-nsw100-subwoofer.aspx


And the wireless rears the MusicCast 20 priced at £169 each
https://www.richersounds.ie/p-203532-yamaha-musiccast-20-black-voice-activated-smart-speaker.aspx


For the front left and right and centre you would then just use speakers from our normal speaker range like the Monitor Audio Bronze 1 priced at £99
https://www.richersounds.ie/p-12897-monitor-audio-bronze-1-black-black-speakers-per-pair.aspx


With the Bronze Centre priced at £79
https://www.richersounds.ie/p-12909-monitor-audio-bronze-centre-black-single-centre-speaker.aspx


Let me know your thoughts.

Kenny

quokula

Hi

Thanks for those recommendations, I picked up everything on the list and have been using it for a couple of weeks, the quality has been excellent.

However, I’ve hit a snag with one of the MusicCast 20s. I plugged them both out this morning to mount them to stands, then when I turned them back on one worked fine, but the other just does nothing and blinks between the power and timer lights. It doesn’t respond to button presses and the MusicCast app can’t find it. I tried following the instructions to factory reset but they involve holding down buttons on the device and this simply does nothing, none of the buttons seem to respond at all. Obviously I’ve tried plugging out and in again but beyond that there doesn’t seem to be anything I can try.

Don’t suppose you’ve any idea what might be causing this or if there is a work around?

Richersounds.ie: Kenny

Hi

Sorry to hear you are having problems with you speaker.  First if you could check you have follwed the Yamha reset instructions fully
https://europe.yamaha.com/en/support/faq/audio_visual/How_to_reset_a_MusicCast_streaming_speaker_010_030_MusicCast20_50_etc.html

For a hard reboot Yamaha also recomend leaving the unit unplugged for a minimum of 30 seconds

Let me know how you get on

Regards Stephen

quokula

I'm afraid I can't get the factory reset to work because none of the buttons are responding to presses. I've sent an email to Yamaha support, hopefully they'll be able to help.

Richersounds.ie: DavidS

quokula wrote: »

I'm afraid I can't get the factory reset to work because none of the buttons are responding to presses. I've sent an email to Yamaha support, hopefully they'll be able to help.

Hi quokula,

No problem, let me know how you get on with Yamaha!