Home theatre and Musical Experience

Steve, I recently took my first plunge into HT. I've been a audiophile for 20 years but was always nervous about making the move to HT, because music still remains 75-80% of my listening. I bought a Proceed PAV with Classe CA-200 and Classe CAV-75 amps used for less than $3k. I'm not wealthy but I like good sound. The Proceed PAV doesn't have DD or DTS, but I couldn't find a <$1500 pre/pro that did such a good job on music. The Dolby Pro Logic does a good enough job for my limited HT watching. I also went with a seperate stereo amp for music. The Classe CA-200 drives my mains and sounds better to me than any multi-channel amp I've heard on 2 channel music. When I play HT, I turn on the CAV-75 to drive the surrounds. To me I have the best of both worlds, I know the pre/pro could have better HT setup but with my budget limitations and my listening habits I chose a used pre/pro that's strength is music over HT. How much you value or listen to music and your budget will determine where you go, there are many different directions to go in. I hope this helps.

Steve...Ditto on the same problem..I stumbled on a possible solution.....I've been a big fan of Mac/Jbl combo over the years, and have had various amps/preamps...Now I wanted all that "surround" stuff, so I went out and bought a Mac 7205 5 ch amp, c42 preamp, and msd4 processor...For sheer sonic fidelity, I was sadly disappointed....So I sold my 7205, and went back to a combination of higher power amps for the 5 channels.......An improvement, but still missing what I had been getting from my good old 2 channel stereo. For music listening, which is 95% of the time, the processor seemed to be the weak link in the system.

In the "pro-logic" mode, the msd4 threw far too much stuff into the center channel, and the front l and r became, well, "muddled".......I figured I was destined to go back to stereo for my music listening......I had an idea, a very simple one, and ran it by the guys down at the stereo store....They said I shouldn't do this, so naturally, I went home and tried it immediatly.

Here's what I did. You guys tell me if I'm going to wreck my equipment...Basicly, I wanted the best of both worlds. The full richness of my stereo, plus the ambiance of the surround......Soooooo, why not combine both signals.? For starters, I inserted a "monster " "Y" fitting into the L and R input of my main front amp. Now I have 2 female inputs for L and R. From my c42 preamp, I took my MAIN OUT and ran it to one of the 2 "Y" inputs to my main front amp that I described. Then, from my msd4 processor, I took the FRONT L & R and hooked it to the vacant input on my "Y" connector.......So what am I really doing here---I'm mixing 2 signals to my front L&R....The best stereo signal, un-muddled by the processor, and the processors signal....My other channels, sub, center, and surround l and r were left undisturbed. MAN, WHAT A DIFFERENCE...I didn't get off that couch till well after 2AM....AND....My equipment didn't blow up like my "knowledgeable professionals" down at the stereo store said.......I preserved 100% of the rich, beautiful Stereo signal, AND the full "ambiance" of my surround...WOW !! And I was ready to chuck the whole system and go back to Stereo...Any comments?? Anybody else tried this?? By the way, I am able to operate the volume control on BOTH the pre-amp AND processor from my only remote...The one that came with the C42...So once I get the volumes generally matched manually, I use the remote......I'm ecstatic!! Macfan Al...Beautiful Lake Tahoe, NV

Hi Steve,
I had the same situation 5 months ago when I had DENON AVR-1601 which was good in HT but very muddy in music. I tried to change speakers to NHT and B&W but no luck. I decided to go for separates starting from a new power-amp (EAD PowerMaster 500), a new pre/pro (Kinergetics Chiro C-802). The result was much more musical. Then , in search of musical sound, I a separate DACs and CD trasport into my system which is very satisfied. But, you know, before I got the right DAC for my system I bought 3 DACs (ADCOM GDA-600, Theta Pro BasicII, and EAD 700MKII) to test with my system. Furthermore that I bought a Camelot Dragon 5.1 Jitter reduction. Then finally, got a EAD TM Signature to replace my existing Pre/Proc, DACS, Transport, and Jitter Reducer.

I've been buying more than 20 equipments within 5 month period. I just want to tell you that I can't stop upgrading my system anymore. Everytime I upgrade and it sounds better, I never satisfied enough to stop upgrading. It seem to me that anything would be better if I keep upgrading. Just want to ask you if you sure to come this way?

In case you really want to upgrade you system. My suggestion: If your CD player is good enough ( I mean the internal DAC in your CD Player), buy a good integrated amp (Classe, Rotel, or NAD) for separate music listening. Doing this way will save you a lot of money from upgrading to separates. Or if you have money to spend and want real quality, go for separates. Good luck.

Supakit S.

So much info and so many different ways to go about it. With the budget I get to work with it will be a slow process. I suppose each step will be an upgrade and as long as I can see improvement there will be a lot of enjoyment. Today I think that the first will be a new amp that will run off the pre outs of the receiver for a while. Should improve the sound and will be able to get new speakers befor to long (possibly the magnepan mmg's). Have to decide between a 2, 4, or 5 channel but leaning to a 2 that will drive the mains. Considering the bryston 2bst, arragon 4004, but have also read great things about the anthem. Have considered the citation 7.1 that would be good later on but only if it is as musical as the others. The pre with ht pass through sound good too so may have to do a little research on pre's with this feature.
Thanks again for all the input. The help here offsets some of the frustration of being in a town with only 2 upperend stores. Even they don't handle any of the equiptment that I am considering.
Steve

This truly is a good thread. I posted something similar a while back with lesser results. It's good to see that the forum is both growing AND maintaining a high level of usable info. Kudos to all of you for helping out and sharing your experiences and knowledge.

Like many others here, i've tried to do a dual purpose system before and keep finding out just how poor most of the preamp / processors really sound on music. I REALLY found this out when i substituted one of my 2 channel preamps for the last HT processor that i had and was blown away. I would REALLY like to keep this preamp ( Marsh MSD P-2000) in the system and use an external processor, but the preamp has no processor loop and i can't find a simple way around this. As such, i keep coming back to checking into the Proceed pre / processor or the Adcom GFP-750 ( because it DOES have a processor loop ) but just haven't gotten around to it. I've got 7 channels of amplification just waiting to be kicked in the ass. Anybody have any suggestions ? Are you folks with the GFP-750 REALLY happy with them in terms of music performance ??? Anybody check into the Anthem pre / processor ??? Sean
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