what to upgrade? (1 Viewer)

[Jeremy Swenson]

i am building a dedicated home theater in my new house, i currently have an onkyo 6.1 reciever, with mixed speakers:polk 12 inch sub, bose rear satelites, infinity rear and front center channels and pioneer tower mains, all pretty new except the bose, i dont mind the sound at all seems to match ok, i have a denon 2200 dvd player and panasonic 50 inch lcd tv,

would you reccomend getting all around better, and matching speakers or get a new receiver that is 7.1 now before i install the wiring inside the walls?
i dont want to spend too much money right now but i want to get it right, i could set up the speakers as 6.1 and ready for 7.1 but then i want the speaker wire connections on the wall as close as i can get to them

is everything generally moving to 7.1 or is my 6.1 good enough for a while that i should just get speakers and be done?

 

[Ted Lee]

some random thoughts here.

since you have an opportunity, go crazy with the wiring. put wire wherever you *think* you may eventually place speakers. zig-zag about two feet worth of wire in the general area - that way you'll have some flexibility down the line. heck, i'd even put wires (and junction box) in the ceiling for a future projector, etc. be sure you use in-wall rated wiring (cl-3).

i guess if you can do 7.1, you may as well go for it. although, i've read that in smaller rooms, 7.1 doesn't work very well since the sides and rears don't have enough space apart (or something like that).

as far as dvd's go, i don't think there are any mainstream dvd's encoded in 7.1. heck, there's only a handful of stuff in 6.1. but it's questionable if it'll ever get there.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Outside of some proprietary systems, 7.1 (i.e. DD-EX and DTS-ES) is just 6.1 with the same signal going to two rear speakers instead of one. I don't know how this will effect your decision, but knowing that the speakers carry the same signal may help.

 

[Jeremy Swenson]

actually that does help, i think i will spend the money on a decent set of speakers then and stick with 6.1,
my room isnt huge, maybe 11x16, so that should be fine

 

[Torgny Nilsson]

Do all the wiring you can think of before the drywall goes up. It is a lot less painful to end up not using some of it than having to try to run additional wiring later. Check out the thread on what people would do differently if they had the chance; it could save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

As to your question about upgrading, it depends on your budget. If you have a limited budget, and want to start with replacing your speakers, start by buying the best front speakers you can afford. Later--as your finances allow--you can add a matched center, a better sub, and rear/side speakers to complement your front set up, in that order (in my opinion). If you upgrade in this manner, I think you will be more likely to be happy with your system for a long time and not need to upgrade every couple of years. Speakers should last you the longest of all your audio and video equipment.

Your next upgrade should probably be to add amplifiers for your speakers. Then, when your TV dies, you can upgrade to a FP system.

 

[John Garcia]

I would replace all the speakers first.

Wire for 7.1 even if you don't do it initially. You won't regret it and it costs a lot less than trying to re-run wire later.

I completely agree with Torgny's assesment of how to go about upgrading the speakers. If you can, start with all 3 up front, but if you can get a better pair of mains without the center and get the center later, do it.