Hello.
It’s been a while since I posted. Been… A rough year or so. My dad got cancer and unfortunately passed away a month and a half ago. So I have a lot of free time on my hands now.
So I decided to turn his old office into a media/listening room
The room I have is small probably about six to eight feet between me and the wall. And theres not much room for me to pull speakers out from the wall.
I’ve been thinking about building my set up now. One for mixed movies and music.
My dac is most likely gonna be another Ifi Neo idsd. I have one in my PC stack and enjoy it, but have also been thinking about a bifrost 2
I’ve been thinking of getting Buchardt S400 mkIIs but I am unsure of what to pair them with.
So I have a choice.
I can either try and save up for a schiit Tyr monoblock combo
Vidar combo
a bryston 3b3
and a freya+ or Ifi Ican pro signature headamp as my preamp
That or I could say fuck it to the amp entirely and get the A500 signatures lol
Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated
For very small rooms you have to be careful to pick a speaker that sounds good without overpowering the room, yes room treatments can help, but if your say 6 ft away in nearfield, you probably want to find a speaker that doesn’t need to be played at loud volumes to sound good.
I say this every time someone gets into speakers here, but IMO the real value is in integrated amps rather than separates at this sort of price point. Unless there is a good reason to go separates.
Hopefully you and your family are at peace with things.
Start with the speakers and yeah what are the room dimensions and where do you plan on sitting to listen. Small rooms introduce reflections that you’ll need to address one way or another. Benefits are however you can go low power as you won’t need a lot of power to fill the room.
Because you like a speaker doesn’t mean it will work well in your dimensions. You can also use the small sized room to your advantage by looking for speakers that work well near a wall or a corner.
I have a dual purpose listening space where I have my office and my system. It’s 9 1/2 X 12 1/2 so small but the dimensions are good enough to allow me to have the speakers enough away from both the side walls and into the room to sound great but the compromise it that I have to move my office chair out of the way and move my listening chair into position whenever I want to listen.
Come up with a list of what you want from the speakers first, then where you have limitations such as speaker placement and sitting position and then start choosing equipment from there. You’ll be way ahead of the game if you do some homework first.
Regarding the speaker setup, if you are planning for a near field setup, I was going to do one this week lol. The near field setup I am going for is more cater towards a budget friendly, so I thought I would share this now if you are interested in saving a few bucks
A Nitsch Magni Piety as pre amp ($165 right now) and a Schiit Rekkr as power amp ($149 right now) to go with the near fields. This combo was recommended by the Schiit community people with the Decware Tiny Radials. The Nitsch Magni Piety as a pre amp is really nice especially with its nice low gain/high gain feature and I would recommend if you are in a budget. If your speakers are not sensitive and require a little more power, I heard good things on the Schiit Gjallarhorn ($299). I currently own the Schiit Vidar 2 and that power amp is a beast. Plays my Polk Reserve R200 very loud and sound output sounds clean. But I think the Schiit Vidar 2 is overkill for small rooms.
The Schiit Freya+ is a great choice for a preamp if you got more budget, a good 6SN7 tube pre amp and 6SN7 tubes been pretty sweet with my experience so far on the Supratek DHT preamp.
But my recommended budget setup (if you want to keep things cheap) would be the Nitsch Magni Piety > Schiit Rekkr > sensitive near field speakers if you wanna join me in this experience
Subwoofer I was going to try Acoustic Audio PSW-8 300 Watt 8-Inch just to keep things cheap since the rest of the setup was basically under $200. I was informed and recommended to keep the subwoofer under my desk. So you could try that if you are looking for a very cheap subwoofer for movies and casual listening.
But yeah, like everyone said, it’s probably better to know what speakers you are using. If you are thinking of a near field speaker setup that doesn’t require too much power on a budget, I hope the above helps!
I just did my measurements. The space is of similar size to yours. I have my own office separate from the room, with a nearfield set up with a pair of kanto tuks so it would not be dual set up.
Edit: The windows have heavy duty blackout curtains on them so its a soft surface
That’s actually not that bad. Pulling the speakers off the back wall will typically help a lot but it’s all trial and error and some speakers are going to work better against a wall than others. When you talk about pulling them out though, it’s not a lot. 18" is generally a good place, 36" can be even better, but your room is great, and I with I had that extra 2 foot noon. lol
You can push your chair back a well. Having a shelf behind you is a great room treatment without having to have room treatment and it looks like you’ve already got a shelf there. So a decent starting point would be the front of your speakers 24" from the back wall and then move your chair into a position where it’s roughly an equilateral triangle measuring the center to center to your speakers and then to your chair. That will bring you to a good ballpark starting point and then more things to taste from there.
I have a high speed cat cable for streaming/movies and games to a network switch but I will be putting in 65inch g3 oled and a 4k bluray player (which is part of the budget)
nice. years ago your money was better used with the C series but I have no idea how it is these days.
How much from the 12K is left after tv player and the ifi?
I’m assuming the ifi can handle the tv/player input right? Do you plan on a subwoofer? that could be very helpful and enjoyable with movies (and with music too lol) and can affect what you choose as well.
if you’re going to end up the high sensitivity speakers route, I highly recommend looking at LTA (will check the tube box for you too) for preamps/integrated/amps. I agree with polygon separates make less sense.
The buchardts get very good reviews but I’d stay away from active setups like the A series mostly because of future changes you might want. Separating the electronics from the speakers makes a lot of sense to me personally.
about 6-7 thousand, probably excluding speakers
I was looking at the cambridge audio Evo 150 as well as that was well regarded. also hdmi arc in for tv. but that’s not really necessary tbh. as its lower latency to go through toslink
if I had 7K to spend on a multipurpose system I’d probably look at a Hegel DAC/AMP (probably H120 or H190) and Q Acoustics 50 or Polk R700 or the S400 MK2 with a subwoofer if I were to buy new. If used then I’d look at the Hegel H390 and start looking for interesting deals for speakers.
This is absolutely not prioritizing the music listening experience though.
If it were first and foremost music it would depend on if it’s only speakers or headphones as well.
I’d probably go LTA or Enleum and find the right high sensitivity speakers and subs to match with them.
@NickMimi this seems like a good thread for you to pitch in
@PABastien , deepest condolences on the passing of your father. My father passed a year ago, I empathize with your pain and loss.
My own opinion on TV/listening combos is that you can get a really nice set-up for less than a dedicated 2 channel just because we tend to be more lenient on TV combo’s because we want the speakers to play well for movies too and IMO that lends itself well to speakers that better exaggerate the sound a bit.
I can’t remember if you are in the USA or not but Philharmonic just came out with a speaker tuned for HT use
Personally that would be MY Go-to, I REALLY like the BMR Philharmonic speakers, I find they are a great value, excellent quality, and simply dollar for dollar they punch and have SQ better than or equal to many beyond their price point. There are other great speakers out there, mine is just a suggestion to take a look at them too.
My only real recommendation is that if the system will be dual use, put some emphasis on power, plenty of it, for any sort of HT use I like to have a bit of extra juice available.
Happy to give any feedback on particular questions, your budget and personal tastes will dictate your choices, more so than what most of us say, just pointing out some preferences you may not have thought of yourself
I have 4 systems for use with TV’s all are different and all are good enough. I also have 3 x 2 channel systems, again, each focusing on a different priority. That’s how I get around ever having to make a single decision, I spread the love and just buy it all
If you wanted a kick ass HT and 2.1 for music, grab an Anthem AVR with some satellite speakers and an REL T series subwoofer for 5.1.
Then use the remainder on kick ass 2.1 integrated amp with versatile speakers.
It does not take much for a good sounding HT system with the technology found in HT receivers, especially with auto set up calibration. Yeah some will pull it off with 2.1 made for music, keep in mind the majority of surround sound is focused on center channel, so you could splurge a bit on that.
I think for a 2.1 music only system you will have to do some research on which integrated amps synergies well with the speakers you choose. In this situation, the room will really dictate your options, so start with speaker first focus as some have suggested. Then amp/source, etc. Basically invest in transducer before source which for sure goes against what the majority of users here follow.
Your budget is a good amount to get a good return.
I agree with @dbCooper, that’s plenty of space to play with.
I’d consider something you can easily move out from the back wall when not watching movies for 2ch listening. Fiddle with positioning once and mark the position with tape.
If the shelves are at ear height while sitting they’ll give you something to break up the worst of the primary reflections which is good.
Find a pair of speakers you like in your space, don’t get enamored by internet favorites (not that they are bad) but if your looking new and you can visit local retailers, and talk about the space, and pairings. By their nature brick and mortar vendors will sell components that work well together, and they may well let you demo in your own space which is by far the best way to do it.
