Sound vs. picture: What's a better investment?
For long-term satisfaction, speakers trump video every time.
(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)A good friend of mine is still fuming over picking HD-DVD over Blu-ray. He's held the grudge so long he just recently dumped the player and even some of the discs and bought a Blu-ray player.
I know another guy who's steamed that his $2,000 6-year-old receiver doesn't have HDMI switching, so to get Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio he plays his Blu-ray over the receiver's 5.1 channel analog inputs. Fine, but the receiver doesn't do any sort of bass management over its analog inputs. The sound isn't so hot.
Do you know anybody who bought a plasma TV in 1999 for around $10,000 who still uses it as their primary display? I don't, but I'd bet most of those buyers are on their second or third display by now.
But a large percentage of folks who invested in great speaker systems for stereo or home theater five or even 10 years ago are still enjoying great sound. I know tons of folks still using stereo speakers they bought 20 or more years ago. Video formats come and go, and today's high-resolution displays will inevitably become yesterday's news. Displays and video-related audio formats keep changing.
CDs and LPs have been around for decades and will be for decades more. Blu-ray? Who knows? High-end speakers and power amplifiers may appear to be expensive to buy, but they're cheap to own over the long haul.
My point, don't short-change your next speaker purchase to buy a new display or player.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
By running HDMI through your reciever you just giving the signal that extra length to have to run though. Cut out the middle man and run your Blu-ray, satellite receiver, cable box etc. straight into your monitor. That way you don't have to worry about a degraded video signal.
I run my video components straight into my monitor via HDMI and I run my sound through my receiver via optical or coax. It works out great. Great sound, great picture.
And anytime you make an extra cable run and the signal has to run through another piece of equipment you're going to get some signal degradation. It may not be alot, but it's there. Depending on video scaling and upconversion is just muddying up the signal. Keep the signal pure and run it directly from the source to the destination. Depending on software to solve your problems is just lazy. I equate it with people who take crappy pictures or video and say they can just correct it with post production software. Do the job right in the first place and you don't have to worry about that.
If length doesn't matter on cable runs, then are the makers of distribution amps just ripping me off when I have to make a long cable run. I can tell you from experience that on certain longer cable runs I've had, the signal strength is weak but when I put in a DA it solves the problem. I'm not suggesting you use a DA on a home theater, 6' cable run, but the point is that signal does degrade over length. Different signals degrade at different lengths.
I recently got a Sonos system and hooked it up to my Paradigm's that I have throughout my house. I want to graduate up though, and am looking for some helpful suggestions.
Overall though I like your articles and look forward to reading them. Thanks.
if you spend a bit of time viewing home theater, that's something else, but you can view home theater without good audio and still enjoy the content of the movie. it's a different experience, but it isn't intolerable to most viewers, where bad video would be intolerable.
just like he said, speakers have lasting power ... but so do amps! as far back as 1999 I noticed dolby and dts duking it out with new formats and my customers were always wishing they could get new receivers. so I found a magic price point: $500. at times sony ES, pioneer ELITE, and denon have them at this price point with a necessary feature: analog pre-outs.
and there you go. run from the pre-outs to a dedicated amp. so instead of overspending on the receiver EVER you can keep upgrading to new formats when they come out. and right from day one you have a REAL amp driving your speakers. have you ever looked at the little sticker on the back of ANY receiver that shows "max power usage?" they all have them and I hate to break it to you, but you DIDN'T buy the power that you thought you did.
BUT HERE'S THE REAL TREAT! instead of playing the receiver upgrade game, use a little bit of credit and get a surround preamp as your next receiver. but make sure it's upgradeable! even better would be hardware upgradeable. anthem is the only company that comes to mind there. and sometimes B&K Components.
Now that I have a 46" Sony flat panel and a Blu-ray player I'm finally considering multichannel audio. But the constantly evolving codec race has me questioning the wisdom of buying a really high end amp that will just be out of date next year. Good speakers still seem to be a wise investment but it seems that once you get into multichannel audio you are stuck in an eternal upgrade cycle.
My beloved speakers (JM focals) were given to a friend when I moved countries, and he is using them with a Creek 2 channel amp. Previously he had a midrange sony HTIB - but was blown away by how much more enjoyable movies (let alone music) were with a high quality 2.0 system.
My Dad is onto his 2nd "home theatre" set up in 10 years, but still using a pair of Advent speakers from the 80s for the main speakers.
I've been eying Energy and Paradigm systems for something in the 1200-1400 range. Probably not going to happen till the end of the year but I'm saving for a little splurge for myself around that time.
I would think the converse of Steve's statement is also true, "don't short-change your next display purchase to buy new speakers or amps". The issue here is balance. In 2001 I purchased a Pioneer Elite RPCRT. 8 years later it is still providing crystal clear HD. In 2004 I grabbed some B&W 604 series 3's which are also still purring along. I expect both to continue to be in use for a long time.
- by robarpoch July 7, 2009 4:02 AM PDT
- Invest in both - one of my best purchases to date has been Anthem's AVM-50 - a pre/pro with heavy-weight specs in both audio and video. More importantly, Anthem does an amazing job of keeping the thing current. This is the only high-end piece of equipment (apart from their similar D2) which a company has both a) made modular and upgradable, and b) actually delivered upgrades for! Software upgrades come regularly and are free. Hardware upgrades come at a nominal cost, but so far have included room correction and soon will include a full upgrade to a better video chip, hdmi 1.3, and more connection options than even now!
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(24 Comments)BTW, +1 on the Pioneer Elite RPCRT. Fantastic picture.