5.1 or 7,1 surround system

[bigrod]

Well I’ve got to decide soon what I’m going for as I need to start putting cables around the cinema/mancave prior to boarding out .. There will also be a vintage HiFi set up in there ,and so I can change equipment readily there will be 10 wall terminals on the wall where all the gear will be so I can just have short lengths from several amps with switching to change from system to system as they used to have when I worked in comet on Saturday mornings many years ago.
So will be looking for a quality surround amplifier second hand about £500.

recommendations please 

kindest regards Julian

 

[Signs]

i would go 5.1 + Atmos  . my Denon WX2300 works a treat for me ( no phono stage from memory tho and i don't have Atmos lol)

 

[Gizza]

Well I’ve got to decide soon what I’m going for as I need to start putting cables around the cinema/mancave prior to boarding out .. There will also be a vintage HiFi set up in there ,and so I can change equipment readily there will be 10 wall terminals on the wall where all the gear will be so I can just have short lengths from several amps with switching to change from system to system as they used to have when I worked in comet on Saturday mornings many years ago.
So will be looking for a quality surround amplifier second hand about £500.

recommendations please 

kindest regards Julian

I'd recommend putting sound quality first, number of channels second, although I'd have thought you'd get a good 7.1 unit for that price. I'd aim for a minimum of 100/125w per channel (spec into 8 ohm) to get decent dynamics and control. If budget dictates that you have 5.1 channels to get that power, I would give up the other 2 channels. Better to have fewer channels of better quality sound than more channels of lesser quality, IMO.

I bought a Denon AVR-X4500 A/V receiver a few months ago, on offer for £825 and I'm over the moon with it. I already had my speakers for a  5.2 setup so just bought 4 x Kef 3001se 'egg' speakers to mount on the ceiling so I was able to have a 5.2.4 system ( 2 subs and 4 overheads). The receiver outputs to all speakers for Atmos and can also do simulation to do so for 5.1 signals. I think it's worth having for the extra spaciousness of the sound and it allows you to hear more of the detail.

 

[manicatel]

I’d stick to 5.1 myself, or maybe even look at adding a 2nd sub on the centre channel rather than 7.1.

Most amps will offer 7 or 9 channels, but be careful with 2nd hand stuff. Don’t go more than a couple of years old, otherwise some of the formats & hdmi inputs may not be up to  modern spec. If you’re not using it for 2 channel duties, I’d go with Yamaha, marantz or Denon. Something like a Denon avr3600 would be a very decent amp & should be around your budget.

Atmos? I’m not convinced about it, there’s not really that much Atmos content about & even then I’m not wow’d about what it adds, with a few exceptions.

Deleting Atmos installation should save a fair bit which you could add to the amp or 2nd sub budget instead.

However, I guess if you are currently building a home theatre room, there is an argument for speccing a pair of Atmos speakers, purely for future-proofing yourself & avoiding cutting holes in ceilings later on.

 

[Gizza]

I’d stick to 5.1 myself, or maybe even look at adding a 2nd sub on the centre channel rather than 7.1.

Most amps will offer 7 or 9 channels, but be careful with 2nd hand stuff. Don’t go more than a couple of years old, otherwise some of the formats & hdmi inputs may not be up to  modern spec. If you’re not using it for 2 channel duties, I’d go with Yamaha, marantz or Denon. Something like a Denon avr3600 would be a very decent amp & should be around your budget.

Atmos? I’m not convinced about it, there’s not really that much Atmos content about & even then I’m not wow’d about what it adds, with a few exceptions.

Deleting Atmos installation should save a fair bit which you could add to the amp or 2nd sub budget instead.

However, I guess if you are currently building a home theatre room, there is an argument for speccing a pair of Atmos speakers, purely for future-proofing yourself & avoiding cutting holes in ceilings later on.

Quite a bit of stuff on Netflix is in Dolby Atmos. The Netflix app on my Panasonic OLED tv passes this via its ARC-enabled HDMI to the Denon receiver. The HD Amazon Fire devices will also decode atmos on its Netflix app. If it wasn't for Netflix, I wouldn't be too bothered about having Atmos as there aren't many standard bluray discs with Atmos soundtracks and more recent 4K bluray discs are expensive.

I disagree about the value of having Atmos and overhead speakers. I find it surrounds you with a bigger, more immersive sound 'bubble'. Even 5.1 soundtracks sound better to me when converted to include the overhead speakers, using either Dolby Surround or DTS Neural X.

 

[bigrod]

I’d stick to 5.1 myself, or maybe even look at adding a 2nd sub on the centre channel rather than 7.1.

Most amps will offer 7 or 9 channels, but be careful with 2nd hand stuff. Don’t go more than a couple of years old, otherwise some of the formats & hdmi inputs may not be up to  modern spec. If you’re not using it for 2 channel duties, I’d go with Yamaha, marantz or Denon. Something like a Denon avr3600 would be a very decent amp & should be around your budget.

Atmos? I’m not convinced about it, there’s not really that much Atmos content about & even then I’m not wow’d about what it adds, with a few exceptions.

Deleting Atmos installation should save a fair bit which you could add to the amp or 2nd sub budget instead.

However, I guess if you are currently building a home theatre room, there is an argument for speccing a pair of Atmos speakers, purely for future-proofing yourself & avoiding cutting holes in ceilings later on.

It won’t be used for 2 channel duties as I have several vintage systems from the mid  seventies that I am going to swap and change as takes my fancy ..quad, pioneer, Sansui,luxman,michell. etc. And just use a variety of front speakers for that purpose..

best to get everything in cable wise as you say...

 

[martinm]

I'd at least wire for Atmos whilst you are doing the work. 

I love Atmos and plenty of stuff with it. Netflix and increasingly Sky.

Worth subscribing to cinemaparadiso.co.uk if you want physical 4k disc content ( most of which is Atmos or DTSX) lots of choice, and good service for about £13 pm depending on subs level