Time to Upgrade My Hi-Fi

[JtB]

It's about time I upgraded this 1970s Hi-Fi in my living room. What decent music systems do people have in their living rooms these days? Is it usual to combine music and TV sound? Also, do people even bother with CDs these days or is it all MP3? Main criteria is that it sounds great, so just looking for a few initial ideas to know where to start.
Thanks.

 

[Berties]

if you have music on a computer or are a music on phone fan! sonus is the way forward,i have just put a system in at work and its
great
http://www.simplysonos.co.uk/?kw=sonus&fl=31602&gclid=COKGyfHIkrMCFXDLtAodRxoAaQ

 

[MontyVeda]

I'm slightly old fashioned and still have a separates system. A nice-ish Teak amp with 7 inputs and 2 outputs allows me to put DVD/CD, MiniDisc, Radio, Cassette, Turntable, MP3 player and PC all through the nice big speakers. One of the outputs routes all of the above through the PC for easy ripping of old-fangled formats.

 

[MrJamie]

I use a Sony separates system i got over 10 years ago, CD, Minidisc, Tuner and some speakers I put together myself

I mostly lost my interest in HiFi as more music sales were tending towards low quality lossy mp3s and I expected even CD formats to fade out.

 

[Drago]

Technics amp, Nakamichi tape deck, Cambridge DAB, Mordaunt speakers. All quite old now, except for the Sony Blu Ray player that does double duty as a CD player.

I still buy CDs. It's nice to own sonething physical, and at 1440 BPS it knocks MP3 into a cocked hat quality wise, not that I listen to it a lot these days.

 

[ELL]

I'm a bit of a Bose man myself. I have a lifestyle surrond sound system in the front room for TV, blu-ray, Radio, CD and has the ipod dock as well. Thing I love about it is the amazing sound you get from such a small package. I also have the sound link which is a nice small portable unit which uses bluetooth connection.

 

[derrick]

Two seperate systems, keep your HiFi for your music, your surround sound amp for tv dvd.
Naim Hi Fi. the best i have ever heard, Denon for surround sound.

 

[TVC]

One of these does everything for me:

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/sony-davtz140-cek-5-1-dvd-home-cinema-system-12716783-pdt.html

Connected to the telly I get radio through Freeview
Plays CDs, DVDs and USB sticks
The PS3 is plugged in so I can handle Blu-ray as well

Sorted for £100.

 

[Milo]

Technics amp, Nakamichi tape deck, Cambridge DAB, Mordaunt speakers. All quite old now, except for the Sony Blu Ray player that does double duty as a CD player.

I still buy CDs. It's nice to own sonething physical, and at 1440 BPS it knocks MP3 into a cocked hat quality wise, not that I listen to it a lot these days.

On my one day list for hifi is a proper tape deck i have envy for Nakamichi they are expensive and hard to find now.

 

[02GF74]

If you want quality, then the best sources are CD and vinyl - I am not convinved mp3 is going to give the same quality, and that would mean separates. And it also depends on your budges - you can trawl ebay for separates that are 5 years old and put together a great sounding system from £ 300-400 (CD, amp, speakers, speaker cable and interconnects) and you can keep spending by paying 10x and more but it won't sound 10x as good - law of diminishiung returns. Check out the HiFi web sites for their recommendations but brands like naim, audiolab, cyrus, arcam, musical fidelity, B&W, monitor audio are ones to look out for, not to mention japanese brands, so I won't.

For convenience you can buy a tinny little box that has all you music on hard disc (mp3 or some other format) but I don't know much nor am interested about that stuff.

 

[02GF74]

On my one day list for hifi is a proper tape deck i have envy for Nakamichi they are expensive and hard to find now.

loads on ebay, the lower range Naks can be gotten for£ 40 or so - also check out Denon decks which have HXPro.

..... and Dolby S - which was the last gasp of cassettes trying to compete with CDs (not heard Dolby S but it is meant to be pretty close to CD quality).

 

[Milo]

Always wary of getting a knackered one. Finding someone to service them must be a chore these days. And I want a three headed one.

 

[02GF74]

^^^^ and it has to be dual capstan too!!!

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Rip your CD's to FLAC or WAV and then run them into a streamer.

Here we use a Logitech Touch to grab music from a PC and then output into an Arcam rDAC and then into a Sugden A21 amp' and finally some Dynaudio speakers.

Storming sound!

I came late to the streaming party being slow on the uptake on tech' advances but it is brilliant.

The ability to build playlists or have random music via genre, year, artist etc etc is fantastic.

MP3 does not sound great to me but it is all that a generation or two know. My daughter thinks her MP3's sound fantastic through her iPod and big earspeakers. Sounds like a bag of nails to me.

 

[doctornige]

We use iTunes and AppleTV with some surround speakers attached.