Some questions around a surround setup

[Xenio]

Hello,

I'm quite new here but I've been in the audiophile world for quite some years.... with headphones. Just to make it clear I have a Schiit Bifrost, Schiit magni (bought yearsss ago; didn't know they weren't that great :/) and HD 600 currently and some other things.
I tested lots of things and .... Stax headphones are the single best thing my ears where ever able to hear (I had a SR-507 with a modded SRM-232 IIRC).

Now that I have a real livingroom and a TV I want to upgrade my stereo setup to a surround setup (5.1). And I have some questions.
I was planning on following the "hard" way i.e. not using a standard home theater AVR... because they simply just don't seem to be good.

So the plan currently kind of looks like that :

- Something akin to the Okto DAC8PRO that just seem to be "the best" dac even in stereo WHILE being 8 channels

- 3 Audiophonics power amp based on Hypex modules, I don't know if I want the NC122MP or the NC252MP variant yet (100€ price difference). I will not use one channel of the last amp ... but whatever I guess

- Elac DBR-62

- Didn't look at subs yet

- Do room correction

So now I have questions and quite a bit of them !

First about room correction :

1. I know I need a microphone such as the MiniDSP Umikk-1 because we have the data from this specific mic to correct accordingly.
   However I do possess a MiniDSP Ears bought some years ago to have some fun measuring headphones with REW.... Can I use it for room correction or do I need to buy the Umik-1 (or any other one that is higher end) ?
   
   
2. What is the advantage of using hardware dirac room correction with for example a MiniDSP Udio-8 + DDRC-88D BESIDES the fact that it has bass management and a whole lot of other features like being able to do PEQ per channel, crossover or whatsoever, I guess none ? Well we do "automatically" pay for the dirac license when buying that, so that does attenuate the price. (then the question is "dirac or rew" I guess, though I can find the answer somewhere around this forum)

Secondly about the DAC, while I know this is an amazing DAC I have two hiccups with it:

1. Purely as a stereo point of view will I be able to hear the difference with .. let's say a schiit modius or a topping D30 Pro ? I've looked at the graphs and while it does perform better I just don't know how to transform those small differences to "I can hear the diff and this I wouldn't be able to tell" for example.
   Because 1200€ is quite expensive in the end. And for example 3 schiit modius is "only" 600€ I believe. Even moreso if I take ... topping E30 for example.
   
   
2. If I buy 3 normal stereo DACs I will be able to slowly upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 then 5.1 and ... well it's nice to be able to. (I don't plan on building the surround setup tomorrow, I need to save up for it).

Now, let's say I don't buy this DAC and instead take 3 DACs, it will kind of force me to also buy a Mini DSP Udio-8 to separate the inputs. If I go the hardware room correction way I'll have one anyway so that's not really a problem.

But how will I change the volume in this case? Apparently doing it in windows is bad because it lower the resolution; okay. And apparently I can change it with the DDRC-88D... well, if I have one ! And isn't it still "digital volume control" that will still lower the resolution ?

Third about the output voltage of DACs :

1. Knowing that I won't have a pre-amp on my amps, should I care about the voltage output of the DACs ? I know that we can tell Okto what max voltage we want for the output of the dac8pro, so what should I choose ? And if I go the multi-stereo DAC route, should I care about the output voltage when choosing them ?
   
   
2. When changing the volume with the volume control of .. let's say the dac8pro it will change (lower) the voltage of the output right ?

Now about the speakers :

1. The "central" version of the DBR-62 (DCR-52) doesn't seem to be really like.. okay why not. Should I just buy another pair of DBR-62 and put one sideway for the central channel ? Would it be useful to use the last DBR-62 also for the central channel ? Duplicating signal between the two central speakers ? Since I'll have a spare speaker and channel on the last amp.
   
   
2. Are they really that great or should I take something a bit higher end you think ? I want the best quality/price while not neglecting quality at all. Just like a RTX 3080 is the "go to" for high end GPU while the RTX 3090 is the "endgame" but is kind of a stupid buy.

I have a lot of other questions too, but it's a good start and I'm not in a hurry to learn so that's enough for now.


Sorry for such a long post, and thanks in advance for those that will read and answers my questions.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I'll take a shot at these:

Knowing that I won't have a pre-amp on my amps, should I care about the voltage output of the DACs ? I know that we can tell Okto what max voltage we want for the output of the dac8pro, so what should I choose ? And if I go the multi-stereo DAC route, should I care about the output voltage when choosing them ?

That will depend on the sensitivity of your speakers, the gain of your power amp(s), the acoustics of your room, the amount of DSP boost in your correction filters and your listening preferences. In my system, the default output version of the Okto is barely adequate with output level settings often in the -8 to -4dB range. I'd be happier with an addition 6dB or more headroom. (My choice was to add external gain blocks.)

When changing the volume with the volume control of .. let's say the dac8pro it will change (lower) the voltage of the output right ?

Of course. That's how it works.

The "central" version of the DBR-62 (DCR-52) doesn't seem to be really like.. okay why not. Should I just buy another pair of DBR-62 and put one sideway for the central channel ? Would it be useful to use the last DBR-62 also for the central channel ? Duplicating signal between the two central speakers ? Since I'll have a spare speaker and channel on the last amp.

I am an advocate of using the identical speakers for L/C/R but I am not in favor of doubling up speakers on any channel.

 

[abdo123]

Are you seriously going to pay for 1k$+ DAC while buying 300$ Speakers?

your priorities are not correct at all.

Also you still don't seem to know how you will get Multichannel output from your TV to your Okto.

How far are you sitting from the TV/Speakers and how loud do you typically listen?

 

[Xenio]

Thanks for the answer

I guess I'll have to dig into the maths to calculate the output voltage I'll need with the DAC
Fortunately I have a sonometer (a voltcraft something IIRC) to measure the volume range I want.

And okay, apparently everyone seem to say the same thing about the L/C/R speakers, get the same amp, get the samp speakers. Too bad I'll "waste" one DBR-62

 

[Xenio]

> Also you still don't seem to know how you will get Multichannel output from your TV to your Okto.

I won't and don't really want to. I just need stereo from the TV and I can build/buy a toslink to AES converter for this (I guess..?). Outputting sound from the TV will not be the main use case at all.

> your priorities are not correct at all.

Your are probably right, that's why I'm here !

One thing to note, it's a 1K+ multichannel DAC; so it's a bit more like I was buying 300€ stereo DACs. So it's more like pairing 500€ speakers with 300€ DAC you see, well maybe 400€ since I'll be in 5.1 at the start at least.
Also you are saying they are 300$, I only see them for 500€ where I am (france), is it too expensive for those speakers ?

But if you tell me "just buy 3 topping E30 you'll probably won't hear any differences", well I'm all for it. It's just that the okto was at the same time really good and really convenient.

As I said I could measure how loud I listen to music and movies, and I'll probably do it. Not now though it's 0:00 AM haha. But it's usually a pretty normal listening level.

And we are sitting something like2-2.5 meters away

 

[abdo123]

> Also you still don't seem to know how you will get Multichannel output from your TV to your Okto.

I won't and don't really want to. I just need stereo from the TV and I can build/buy a toslink to AES converter for this (I guess..?). Outputting sound from the TV will not be the main use case at all.

> your priorities are not correct at all.

Your are probably right, that's why I'm here !

One thing to note, it's a 1K+ multichannel DAC; so it's a bit more like I was buying 300€ stereo DACs. So it's more like pairing 500€ speakers with 300€ DAC you see, well maybe 400€ since I'll be in 5.1 at the start at least.
Also you are saying they are 300$, I only see them for 500€ where I am (france), is it too expensive for those speakers ?

But if you tell me "just buy 3 topping E30 you'll probably won't hear any differences", well I'm all for it. It's just that the okto was at the same time really good and really convenient.

As I said I could measure how loud I listen to music and movies, and I'll probably do it. Not now though it's 0:00 AM haha. But it's usually a pretty normal listening level.

And we are sitting something like2-2.5 meters away

Thank you for answering my questions, I apologize for my tone previously as it was really uncalled for.

The DBR-62 is 500 euro a pair, so you would be paying the same amount for speakers that you would pay for a DAC, which is blasphemous.

Home cinema is 80% Center channel and subwoofers.

Getting two SVS subwoofers (e.g 1000 Pro series) will be similarly priced to the Okto.

Buying active powered speakers (I recommend Neuman KH120 for your distances) will not just perform better but might even be even be the best option for the price.

Buy an AVR and save yourself the hastle, all Denon AVRs are capable of clearing CD quality and should be more than enough for typical use, if you don't like the amplifiers included turn them off via the settings and use it as a processor. Having the ability to decode stuff like Dolby Atmos, DTS and other audio codec is immensely valuable and will be more useful to you than SINAD.


I would allocate 90% of my budget to speakers and subwoofers, the rest 10% on an AVR.


DACs just need to work, Amplifiers need to be clean (without noise) but the speakers, room, room correction, room treatment is 99.99% of the experience.

 

[GD Fan]

The supreme convenience of AVRs make it really, really difficult to go any other way for multi-channel / 5.x setups.

 

[Xenio]

>Thank you for answering my questions, I apologize for my tone previously as it was really uncalled for.

I honestly don't care don't worry

Okay so first why is it so important to decode DTS, atmos etc on the AVR if my PC can handle it ? I will never try to decode surround sound from somewhere else than a PC.

Anyway, let's say I follow your advice and use an AVR.
So I take 3 active speakers like the Neumann you recommended me, it will be indeed cheaper than 3 DBR-62+Hypex amp modules, and better according to you. I can believe that.

The way you phrased your post makes me wonder some more things :

- What are the advantages of having TWO subwoofers ?

- Should I care about the quality of the rear speakers more than what I thought (which is not a lot) ?

Room correction seem to be the most important thing to do, which is exactly what I thought. Should I invest in the Dirac software ?


PS: "save yourself the hassle", it's not hassle for me btw

 

[abdo123]

>Thank you for answering my questions, I apologize for my tone previously as it was really uncalled for.

I honestly don't care don't worry

Okay so first why is it so important to decode DTS, atmos etc on the AVR if my PC can handle it ? I will never try to decode surround sound from somewhere else than a PC.

Anyway, let's say I follow your advice and use an AVR.
So I take 3 active speakers like the Neumann you recommended me, it will be indeed cheaper than 3 DBR-62+Hypex amp modules, and better according to you. I can believe that.

The way you phrased your post makes me wonder some more things :

- What are the advantages of having TWO subwoofers ?

- Should I care about the quality of the rear speakers more than what I thought (which is not a lot) ?

Room correction seem to be the most important thing to do, which is exactly what I thought. Should I invest in the Dirac software ?


PS: "save yourself the hassle", it's not hassle for me btw

I thought you had a TV too?

Anyway lets assume you bought the Okto, you have 8 analog outputs from 1 to 8. You would assume windows would assign 1 and 2 to L and R and 3 to C .etc but that is not really the case, you need to use a program that will assign the analog outputs to whatever function you would like.

Additionally The majority of multichannel content is in propriety formats, it's not like stereo at all. so you would need 'something' that will decode these formats, and should probably work well with what you used in the previous issue.

Like I think this entire forum has to come together to properly decode Dolby Atmos from the Netflix windows app to 7.1 via USB to the Okto.

With an AVR literally all of these issues disappear, it receives the audio signal unadulterated via HDMI, it decodes it, it routes it to whatever speakers you have and voila.

 

[abdo123]

>Thank you for answering my questions, I apologize for my tone previously as it was really uncalled for.

I honestly don't care don't worry

Okay so first why is it so important to decode DTS, atmos etc on the AVR if my PC can handle it ? I will never try to decode surround sound from somewhere else than a PC.

Anyway, let's say I follow your advice and use an AVR.
So I take 3 active speakers like the Neumann you recommended me, it will be indeed cheaper than 3 DBR-62+Hypex amp modules, and better according to you. I can believe that.

The way you phrased your post makes me wonder some more things :

- What are the advantages of having TWO subwoofers ?

- Should I care about the quality of the rear speakers more than what I thought (which is not a lot) ?

Room correction seem to be the most important thing to do, which is exactly what I thought. Should I invest in the Dirac software ?


PS: "save yourself the hassle", it's not hassle for me btw

Two subwoofers will give you a little bit more headroom and you will get a lot smoother sub-bass response across the entire seating area.

as for the rear speakers they will be working 10% of the time, while the center speaker will be working 90% of the time. so yes i would budget my build accordingly but I would not cheap out on it. Infact I would start with a 3.1 or a 3.2 and then progress into 5.2 and 7.2 in the future if i'm limited with budget. Center channel and subwoofers first imo.

 

[Xenio]

Yes I have a TV, a LG OLED BX65, I (we) just never "watch TV", we use it directly from a PC or we also sometimes use the youtube/spotify app directly in the TV when friends come, so only stereo comes out directly from the TV

As for the matter with decoding those formats, video players like MPC-HC will decode them and assign them right ?
Well, I thought that if I used the windows netflix app it would decode them too... even though I don't use netflix.

It really blows my mind that we can't find anywhere an AV processor that has digital outputs btw

For the rear speakers I currently have dali zensor speakers that I could use for that, I know they aren't great but it's probably going to be "good enough" for something that is used 10% of the time.

Well all of that is so far from what I was looking at haha. It's cheaper though, I probably should start with a normal AVR yeah then maybe, one day years from now, if I want to have some fun fiddling with stupid things, I could do what I said initially just for the sake of doing it. And maybe we'd have a processor with digital out.

Sometimes I tell myself I should just take a good 2.1 setup and just be done with it.

Denon X3700H is a good idea ? Seems to be decently priced while being well reviewed here.

I'm going to sleep, thanks for the advices

 

[Chrispy]

I'd just get an avr/avp, and that's what I've done for quite a while. I have several and the fidelity is just fine, especially for your purposes. I'd concentrate on the subs/speakers and setup as with any system, tho. The Denon 3700 is a nice unit whichever way you use it. One of my older avrs does have a pair of limited optical outputs for recorders. I'd think the only use post-processing in an avr/avp might be to make it easier to rip certain protected digital media....and would think that's the basic restriction as to why that feature is not there. Sure would be nice, make it much easier to rip some of my discs like my multich SACDs

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
AVRs, say the famed Denon AVR 3600/700 are the Clark Kent of the Audio world. They can help tune a system in ways that most people have no idea of. Even 2-channel music system will benefit from a MCH AVR such as the Denon as its control venter. The DACs are good enough for the purpose of music and movies and the amplifiers stout enough for anything but the most palatial living rooms and inefficient speakers. They decode with no fuss most of the formats the audiophile or videophiles are likely to ever encounter and that at a relatively sane price.
Don’t overthink it. Get a Denon AVR3700. A pair of SVS subwoofers. You’re are about good to go. The rest is a matter of integration. Takes time. Be patient and don’t skip that part.
Peace

 

[Mountain Goat]

Hi
AVRs, say the famed Denon AVR 3600/700 are the Clark Kent of the Audio world. They can help tune a system in ways that most people have no idea of. Even 2-channel music system will benefit from a MCH AVR such as the Denon as its control venter. The DACs are good enough for the purpose of music and movies and the amplifiers stout enough for anything but the most palatial living rooms and inefficient speakers. They decode with no fuss most of the formats the audiophile or videophiles are likely to ever encounter and that at a relatively sane price.
Don’t overthink it. Get a Denon AVR3700. A pair of SVS subwoofers. You’re are about good to go. The rest is a matter of integration. Takes time. Be patient and don’t skip that part.
Peace

This, except a pair of Rythmiks instead of SVS.

You have to have an AVR to deal with the surround codecs. And they're integrated with room correction, such as Audessy for Denons. (It works fine.)

Also, as you grow your system, you can use the preamp-out RCAs on any 3700+ Denon AVR to drive combinations of active speakers and/or external amps with the internal amps. Although the best setup is turning off all the internal AVR amps (preamp mode) and running with all active speakers and/or external amps.

 

[Chrispy]

No, a pair of Hsu subs

 

[Mountain Goat]

Haha. Servo ride-or-die.

But yeah, any good subs, which definitely includes Hsu and SVS. The more the merrier, because low-end is the vexation.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Hello,

I'm quite new here but I've been in the audiophile world for quite some years.... with headphones. Just to make it clear I have a Schiit Bifrost, Schiit magni (bought yearsss ago; didn't know they weren't that great :/) and HD 600 currently and some other things.
I tested lots of things and .... Stax headphones are the single best thing my ears where ever able to hear (I had a SR-507 with a modded SRM-232 IIRC).

Now that I have a real livingroom and a TV I want to upgrade my stereo setup to a surround setup (5.1). And I have some questions.
I was planning on following the "hard" way i.e. not using a standard home theater AVR... because they simply just don't seem to be good.

So the plan currently kind of looks like that :

- Something akin to the Okto DAC8PRO that just seem to be "the best" dac even in stereo WHILE being 8 channels

- 3 Audiophonics power amp based on Hypex modules, I don't know if I want the NC122MP or the NC252MP variant yet (100€ price difference). I will not use one channel of the last amp ... but whatever I guess

- Elac DBR-62

- Didn't look at subs yet

- Do room correction

So now I have questions and quite a bit of them !

First about room correction :

1. I know I need a microphone such as the MiniDSP Umikk-1 because we have the data from this specific mic to correct accordingly.
   However I do possess a MiniDSP Ears bought some years ago to have some fun measuring headphones with REW.... Can I use it for room correction or do I need to buy the Umik-1 (or any other one that is higher end) ?
   
   
2. What is the advantage of using hardware dirac room correction with for example a MiniDSP Udio-8 + DDRC-88D BESIDES the fact that it has bass management and a whole lot of other features like being able to do PEQ per channel, crossover or whatsoever, I guess none ? Well we do "automatically" pay for the dirac license when buying that, so that does attenuate the price. (then the question is "dirac or rew" I guess, though I can find the answer somewhere around this forum)

Secondly about the DAC, while I know this is an amazing DAC I have two hiccups with it:

1. Purely as a stereo point of view will I be able to hear the difference with .. let's say a schiit modius or a topping D30 Pro ? I've looked at the graphs and while it does perform better I just don't know how to transform those small differences to "I can hear the diff and this I wouldn't be able to tell" for example.
   Because 1200€ is quite expensive in the end. And for example 3 schiit modius is "only" 600€ I believe. Even moreso if I take ... topping E30 for example.
   
   
2. If I buy 3 normal stereo DACs I will be able to slowly upgrade from 2.0 to 4.0 then 5.1 and ... well it's nice to be able to. (I don't plan on building the surround setup tomorrow, I need to save up for it).

Now, let's say I don't buy this DAC and instead take 3 DACs, it will kind of force me to also buy a Mini DSP Udio-8 to separate the inputs. If I go the hardware room correction way I'll have one anyway so that's not really a problem.

But how will I change the volume in this case? Apparently doing it in windows is bad because it lower the resolution; okay. And apparently I can change it with the DDRC-88D... well, if I have one ! And isn't it still "digital volume control" that will still lower the resolution ?

Third about the output voltage of DACs :

1. Knowing that I won't have a pre-amp on my amps, should I care about the voltage output of the DACs ? I know that we can tell Okto what max voltage we want for the output of the dac8pro, so what should I choose ? And if I go the multi-stereo DAC route, should I care about the output voltage when choosing them ?
   
   
2. When changing the volume with the volume control of .. let's say the dac8pro it will change (lower) the voltage of the output right ?

Now about the speakers :

1. The "central" version of the DBR-62 (DCR-52) doesn't seem to be really like.. okay why not. Should I just buy another pair of DBR-62 and put one sideway for the central channel ? Would it be useful to use the last DBR-62 also for the central channel ? Duplicating signal between the two central speakers ? Since I'll have a spare speaker and channel on the last amp.
   
   
2. Are they really that great or should I take something a bit higher end you think ? I want the best quality/price while not neglecting quality at all. Just like a RTX 3080 is the "go to" for high end GPU while the RTX 3090 is the "endgame" but is kind of a stupid buy.

I have a lot of other questions too, but it's a good start and I'm not in a hurry to learn so that's enough for now.


Sorry for such a long post, and thanks in advance for those that will read and answers my questions.

Buy an Anthem with Infinity, JBL and/or Revel. Less headache.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Hi
AVRs, say the famed Denon AVR 3600/700 are the Clark Kent of the Audio world. They can help tune a system in ways that most people have no idea of. Even 2-channel music system will benefit from a MCH AVR such as the Denon as its control venter. The DACs are good enough for the purpose of music and movies and the amplifiers stout enough for anything but the most palatial living rooms and inefficient speakers. They decode with no fuss most of the formats the audiophile or videophiles are likely to ever encounter and that at a relatively sane price.
Don’t overthink it. Get a Denon AVR3700. A pair of SVS subwoofers. You’re are about good to go. The rest is a matter of integration. Takes time. Be patient and don’t skip that part.
Peace

Denon room correction sucks.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Yes I have a TV, a LG OLED BX65, I (we) just never "watch TV", we use it directly from a PC or we also sometimes use the youtube/spotify app directly in the TV when friends come, so only stereo comes out directly from the TV

As for the matter with decoding those formats, video players like MPC-HC will decode them and assign them right ?
Well, I thought that if I used the windows netflix app it would decode them too... even though I don't use netflix.

It really blows my mind that we can't find anywhere an AV processor that has digital outputs btw

For the rear speakers I currently have dali zensor speakers that I could use for that, I know they aren't great but it's probably going to be "good enough" for something that is used 10% of the time.

Well all of that is so far from what I was looking at haha. It's cheaper though, I probably should start with a normal AVR yeah then maybe, one day years from now, if I want to have some fun fiddling with stupid things, I could do what I said initially just for the sake of doing it. And maybe we'd have a processor with digital out.

Sometimes I tell myself I should just take a good 2.1 setup and just be done with it.

Denon X3700H is a good idea ? Seems to be decently priced while being well reviewed here. An OLED

I'm going to sleep, thanks for the advices

I feel sorry for the family. An OLED with Dirac or Anthem correction. OCD?

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Two subwoofers will give you a little bit more headroom and you will get a lot smoother sub-bass response across the entire seating area.

as for the rear speakers they will be working 10% of the time, while the center speaker will be working 90% of the time. so yes i would budget my build accordingly but I would not cheap out on it. Infact I would start with a 3.1 or a 3.2 and then progress into 5.2 and 7.2 in the future if i'm limited with budget. Center channel and subwoofers first imo.

3 channel center. Expensive unless Infinity.