2. home-theater
  3. 1130426046

How do I easily add surround to my 2 channel setup

Well first things first. My current system is:
iMac Lossless iTunes Music Collection >> Lossless to Airport Express >> toslink >> X-DACv3 >> Old Junky Integra reciever >> Totem Acoustic Sttaf's

I have been waiting to aquire a Jolida 302b to put in place of the old Integra to give tubes a try ...I am not dead set on this though ...i picked it based on review and price point (can't audition it here in Indianapolis).

My dilema is that we have decided to buy a condo and it allready has 2 in-wall and 2 in-ceiling wired speaker cavities in the main room, and 2 additional installed in-walls in the bedroom (all wiried to one jack behind drywall). I don't care a great deal about having a super surround system, but since there are there ...why not use the speakers. I watch a few movies and a lot of sports, but mainly listen to music. (maybe 25%/75% movies+sports to music). I would probably just do a 5.0 surround setup and use the totems for my L/R and ceilings as surrounds and maybe the 2 in-walls as center? (they are about 4 feet apart ...so

I am thinking of getting something like a Marantz SR5600. It is 90 Watts (my totems have a sensitivity of 88) and it has Pre-outs for each channel ...this way mayby I could just get a dedicated AMP? for the Left/Right. I dont want to spend a ton of money here (less than 1G) and I could sacrafice the x-Dac if the reciever had toslink and a decent Dac (maybe use that money for a dedicated amp for the front channels?). Also if there is an integrated surround that performs well in stereo I am open to suggestions.

Budget ~$1000 if I keep my Xdac ...~$2000 if I sell the x-dac and use the receivers.

I listend to Jazz, Americana and watch sports and movies.
shawnparslow

Showing 2 responses by c123666

c123666
871 posts
 
technics sch500

sony spd9ES (close enough0

above two are inexpensive ways to add quality dolby digital sound to an existing system...the sony sounds wonderful; have no experience with the technics but it adds DTS....

a basic quality RCA switchbox is the way to go; ie, run the main outs from the processor and your two channel preamp into the box...select the one you want to use and run the outputs into your two channel amp

used multichannel amps are cheap....best value is from parasound, adcom, and harmon kardom. If you can find a HK PA5800 they usually go for 400, or so, and are excellent five channel amps with 80wpc. The insides look more like a Proceed or levinson product than cheap japanese crap; really. For a lot more power the parasound hca 1206 is a six channel amp rated at 135/channel from all six channels. Four of the six can be bridged for 350 watts. About 800 used; original box is worth the extra money as it is a good one.
c123666
871 posts
 
The method I propose assume you have a quality stereo preamp you wish to have remain in service for stereo listening. If a receiver with a high quality preamp section, in analogue mode (NO digital conversion for analogue sources!), is available than that is a simpler solution.

I had good luck with an Arcam AVR200. It has a pretty good preamp analogue stereo section. Now, this preamp is not as good as a quality tubed stereo preamp and I have yet to hear a solid state receiver that does. Some come close and the convenience may be an acceptable trade off for many.

The other method to eliminate the RCA switchbox is to acquire a high quality preamp that has a home theatre pass through. Or, if you are only interested in two channel performance (even with Dolby Digital sources) then you can simply run the stereo preamp outs from the TAPE OUT to an Auxiliary line level input of your preamp and simply treat the receiver/dolby digital sources as another component.

I have the extra speakers for multi channel reproduction but prefer to simply use the Lowthers (so far).
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