If you don't have a great sound system, is lossless audio a mostly worthless Blu-ray

[Blades1370]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

Go 7.1 if you can swing the space. Listening to the native 7.1 mixes is pure bliss.

Oh hell yes, with my newly configured set up (we recently bought a large sectional), it sounds earth shattering now. As I mentioned in my previous post, my speakers may not be super expensive top of the line ones, but they sure do shake the hell out of my place with quite a few of my action orientated titles.

[chris_sc77]

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

[bigshot]

Multi channel through good speakers in a good room is a million times more important to sound quality than higher bitrates. Lossless is an inaudible improvement in many cases.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

Ignorance can be bliss, but sadly that is not the case here.

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by varmintx

Assuming you have the space and are merely on a budget, get a cheaper home theater in a box that has a good receiver, then work your way up replacing the speakers/sub; you do not have to spend a fortune on the speakers either for them to sound good, just make sure they match. You're missing half the experience without a home theater of some sort.

This is sort of how I approached it.

I wasn't running out and spending thousands at once, so I built it bit by bit. And when doing this I also made sure that each component would be amenable to the other equipment I planned on upgrading to. For instance, I'm still at 5.1 and don't really plan on upgrading to 7.1 any time soon, but I made sure I got a 7.1 receiver, etc.

I started out with a cheap-butt HTiB. Then I got a nice receiver, then a nice set of front speakers, then rears, and a decent woofer. It's greatly improved my experience. You also don't need to get really high end stuff, either - I read a lot of reviews and don't mind buying something quality, but unless you purchase equipment as a "hobby" you find that it's a lot like buying clothes - as long as it looks good (or in the case of audio, sounds good), only you really know what the label says. Either that means something to you, or it doesn't.

Though, it's funny - I find it improves games (being able to hear stuff behind you is awesome), and live TV (the best surround is SNL when you can hear the audience all around you and pick out individual laughter, etc.) - I don't find the sound field on most Blu-rays as immersive as I hoped. Sure, in Star Wars you can hear the ships, etc. - but I always expected that I was missing a lot more in terms of surround in film content than I actually was (I think the term is "aggressive"). Still happy I built the system, but it had less of an impact on Blu-rays than the other things I use it for.

[Jimmy Bro]

What about a pair of Sony MDR 7500s?

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Bro

What about a pair of Sony MDR 7500s?

Wireless. I can't stand wireless audio. There's always interference or static of some kind it seems.

[Brian81]

To the OP. Yes. You can hear the difference between low bitrate DVD quality audio and lossless sound. It's very noticeable, even if you were to run it through a cheap all-in-one sound system.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

[ultlife2013]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.

Regular tv audio sounds better to be .

My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

:lol: classic Chris_sc77.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

You don't know what you're missing! You are only experiencing half of what blu-ray have to offer. The audio is just as essential as the 1080p video resolution. Cathe theater is only equipped with 2 channel stereo?

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

You don't know what you're missing! You are only experiencing half of what blu-ray has to offer. The audio is just as essential as the 1080p video resolution. Can you image going to a theater in today's society, with the high audio technology that's available, and it's only equipped with 2 channel stereo?

[LMN8R]

Originally Posted by chris_sc77

I have never owned speakers and never ever will.
Regular tv audio sounds better to be .
My tv sounds great. I don't need speakers with surround sound thing . I prefer my setup over that kinda thing anyways.

Have you heard a surround setup other than Bose?

[evoxturbo]

I was watching Flight on my PS3 connected to a Sony HTIB that supports DTS and Dolby Pro Logic II. The settings on the PS3 were not set to re encode the DTS-HD into DTS. It was set to Linear PCM instead of Bitstream Mix. Once I realized and switched over to DTS I could immediately tell a difference.

Same for DVDs that had DTS tracks (rare) I could always tell it sounded fuller or more theater like. I have a cheap Pioneer HTIB that decodes DTS-HD and Dolby TRU HD. The Sony sounds better due to it having higher wattage and better speakers. The sub also isn't as strong and both subs are passive.

What I am getting at is you get what you pay for. You should be able to tell the difference in audio equipment through listening or the cost of the system. I bought a 600.00 dollar Onkyo HTIB system that could decode DTS-HD and Dolby Tru HD that had a powered sub and it sounded amazing. Better then both my Sony and Pioneer. It was also the most expensive out of all of them. However it had a speaker terminal failure and ran hot so I returned it. While the Sony and Pioneer didn't sound as spectacular as the Onkyo, they have been reliable so far and still work without faults.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by evoxturbo

I was watching Flight on my PS3 connected to a Sony HTIB that supports DTS and Dolby Pro Logic II. The settings on the PS3 were not set to re encode the DTS-HD into DTS. It was set to Linear PCM instead of Bitstream Mix. Once I realized and switched over to DTS I could immediately tell a difference.

Same for DVDs that had DTS tracks (rare) I could always tell it sounded fuller or more theater like. I have a cheap Pioneer HTIB that decodes DTS-HD and Dolby TRU HD. The Sony sounds better due to it having higher wattage and better speakers. The sub also isn't as strong and both subs are passive.

What I am getting at is you get what you pay for. You should be able to tell the difference in audio equipment through listening or the cost of the system. I bought a 600.00 dollar Onkyo HTIB system that could decode DTS-HD and Dolby Tru HD that had a powered sub and it sounded amazing. Better then both my Sony and Pioneer. It was also the most expensive out of all of them. However it had a speaker terminal failure and ran hot so I returned it. While the Sony and Pioneer didn't sound as spectacular as the Onkyo, they have been reliable so far and still work without faults.

If you have the money it's better to go just a bit better with Onkyo. I have the 709 paired with their HT-540 7.1 speaker system and it is awesome. The best part is that the entire package ran me about $800.

[joie]

Tapping the Blu-ray player's stereo downmix and listening thru headphones gives me way better audio quality than the TV's speakers.

[Blades1370]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

If you have the money it's better to go just a bit better with Onkyo. I have the 709 paired with their HT-540 7.1 speaker system and it is awesome. The best part is that the entire package ran me about $800.

Are you having any issues with your HDMI output on your 709? On my 608 it burned out within a few weeks, after I realized I had been hooking my system up incorrectly. I had the Optical going directly into the receiver from the television, and my cable box and Blu-Ray player wired directly via HDMI to my TV.

I had to go back to the latter set up when my HDMI output burned out, and sadly it happened a few months after the warranty expired. For the first nearly 2 years I had my setup incorrect, and never realized it.

This will be one of my planned purchases next year, but for now despite not getting the full effect out of my system it still sounds better then TV speakers.

[AlecEiffel]

This thread makes me wish that I didn't live in an apartment and that my wife wasn't such a baby about things being "too loud".

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by AlecEiffel

This thread makes me wish that I didn't live in an apartment and that my wife wasn't such a baby about things being "too loud".

I live with my fiancée in an apartment, this hasn't restricted me

There are quite a few members who live in apartments that have set up nice home theatres. There has also been quite a few discussions in other sub-forums of this site about managing it with neighbours.

[AlecEiffel]

Originally Posted by Cevolution

I live with my fiancée in an apartment, this hasn't restricted me

There are quite a few members who live in apartments that have set up nice home theatres. There has also been quite a few discussions in other sub-forums of this site about managing it with neighbours.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the TV being just barely loud enough to hear "hurts (her) ears". I have to have subtitles on at all times otherwise I won't be able to hear the dialogue. No way a sound system would fly with her.