AV equipment to go with Philips 42PFL9664

korbend

Hi,
I am looking to pick up some AV components to go with a Philips 42PFL9664 TV I bought from the Philips shop some months back. Can you let me know which ones you stock and if there are any others you would recommend?

AV Receiver
I am thinking about either an Onkyo SR 608 or a Pioneer VSX-920.

Blu-Ray
Panasonic DMP-BD85
Sony BDP-S570

Speakers
B&W MT-25 - These would be my preference but they seem to be hard to find so you may not stock them.
KEF KHT3005SE

What sort of budget should I allow for cable, interconnects etc? I think I need about 45 metres of speaker cable and I will probably use brackets rather than speaker stands.

Thanks for your help.

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Korbend.

Nice TV and I hope you are enjoying it.

Personally at the moment, I would go with the Pioneer VSX920 as it's currently got a £100 promotion on it, bringing it down to £399 and with the 5 star What Hifi review, it's hard to pass it by. It's a brilliant receiver and one that not only sounds great but has some nice features, especially if you have an ipod touch or iphone.

I personally have a preference on Panasonic blu-rays over the Sony's if those are the two that you are thinking of. I would have gone that little extra bit and gone for the matching BDP330, although it is a bit more expensive.

The B&W's we don't stock but the KEF pack has been one that we have had in the past, although it hasn't been very popular for us. I would have to look into the Kef to see if I can still get them as our UK guys have stopped bringing them in. The Monitor Audio Radius series has been more popular in the lifestyle category and with boardies too.

We do also stock the Audica system 2. This is a very lifestyle and modern looking system that also gets very good reviews.

As a general rule of thumb, we would always say to try and budget for 10% of the cost of the system to allow for cables. This usually comes close but very rarely runs over. The brackets come in the boxes of the Monitor Audio.

I hope this helps and if you are interested in any of the above, let me know and I'll send you some prices.

ATB


Dave

Richersounds.ie: John

korbend wrote: »

Hi,
I am looking to pick up some AV components to go with a Philips 42PFL9664 TV I bought from the Philips shop some months back. Can you let me know which ones you stock and if there are any others you would recommend?

AV Receiver
I am thinking about either an Onkyo SR 608 or a Pioneer VSX-920.

Blu-Ray
Panasonic DMP-BD85
Sony BDP-S570

Speakers
B&W MT-25 - These would be my preference but they seem to be hard to find so you may not stock them.
KEF KHT3005SE

What sort of budget should I allow for cable, interconnects etc? I think I need about 45 metres of speaker cable and I will probably use brackets rather than speaker stands.

Thanks for your help.

Korbend,

many thanks for the post and apologies for the delay getting back to you - I hope you are still enjoying your 9664 - they were a total classic!!!!

That sounds like a serious system you are looking at and if it was me I would go the Pioneer route - here is a suggested system

Pioneer VSX-920 AV receiver - really excellent with Multi Room capability and iPod/iPhone control throw in! (and just reduced in price as well)

Panasonic BD85 - Blu Ray DVD Player

We dont stock the B & W speakers unfortunately - but I would add the Monitor Audio R90 HD10 radius package in it's place - I know it does retail at significantly more than the Kef or the B & W but it is worth it in Audio terms and especially in looks - It's pure beautiful! http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Monitor-Audio-R90-HD10/

For the pack including the VSX920 / BD85 / R90 HD10 The retail should be approx £2000 - I can do you a Boardie deal at just £1474.95 esentially leaving the Pioneer VSX920 and the Blue ray costing you just £200 :eek:

If you wanted to really spoil yourself and have an early Christmas we can also do the the Apex 5.1 package (this has just won the What Hi-Fi award for best AV pack over £2000) http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Monitor-Audio-Apex/ - we could do a pack including:

Pioneer VSX-920
Panasonic BD85
Monitor Audio Apex 5.1 pack

...at a crazy £2299 which esentially means that you are getting the electronics free!

Keep me posted and thanks for the opportunity for quote,

ATB,

John Mc & Crew

korbend

Thanks for the very helpful replies.

I can't find much information on the BDP330. Is this a new model?

John both of those options are very tempting though I don't think the budget to run to the second one. I'll hopefully get back to you shortly on this.

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Korbend.

Yes, the Pioneer BDP330 is a new model.

This is a seriosuly good blu-ray and combined with the VSX920, it's a brilliant combination. The one amp remote control will operate the blu-ray and it has some nice features like networking access etc.

It's probably one of the best players and as part of your system, I could do it at £279.95 for you.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers


Dave

korbend

For the pack including the VSX920 / BD85 / R90 HD10 The retail should be approx £2000 - I can do you a Boardie deal at just £1474.95 esentially leaving the Pioneer VSX920 and the Blue ray costing you just £200 :eek:

John,
I'm interested in the above package. Can you give me a quote including delivery to Dublin? I also need the following cables and leads:

35 Metres of speaker cable for rears, front and centre.
A couple of metres of cable for the sub.
Plugs/Connectors for the above
Leads to connect Blu-ray, receiver and TV. I assume I just need HDMI for this?

I have a Cisco Digital HD box from UPC. Can I connect this to the receiver with the existing HDMI cable?

Thanks for your help.

korbend

Hi Dave,
Firstly thanks for the excellent service in delivering my order the day after I placed it. I'm very happy with the new setup but I'm having an issue with connecting the UPC box (Cisco Digital HD) to the Pioneer VSX-920. I have connected the box to the receiver using one of the Cambridge Audio HDMI cables . Usually it works ok for SD broadcasts but as soon as I switch to a HD station the screen goes blank and the sound keeps cutting in and out. The HDMI light on the receiver blinks on and off as well. Any ideas what might be causing this? I tried swapping the HDMI cables around in case that was the issue but it made no difference.

Richersounds.ie: Dave

Hi Korbend.

Cheers for the post and sorry to hear that you are having issues.

Can you send me the model of your box and I'll go digging ?

The audio output from the box should not change, just because of the change in channels.

It sounds to me like the box is trying to output something that the Pioneer does not like.

Is the amp working on other sources on the same HDMI input on the amp ?

Cheers


Dave

korbend

Thanks for the reply Dave. I'm pretty sure I tried other sources in the same HDMI connection but I will double check this evening.

The box is a UPC Mediabox HD Digital Recorder. It's from Cisco and the model no. is 8485DVB.

Everything is fine if I connect the box directly to the TV via HDMI and connect the audio optically to the receiver. It's just not an ideal setup.

korbend

Richersounds.ie: Dave wrote: »

Is the amp working on other sources on the same HDMI input on the amp ?

Hi Dave,
I tested this last night and I can confirm that the Blu-ray player works perfectly if I plug it into the same HDMI input.

korbend

Hi Dave,
I was wondering whether you had any update on this?