Speaker/Mini home cinema help

[ValeTudoGuy]

The BOSE companion 5's are not a bad product at all and to my ear are actually pretty decent given the size, my only gripe with them is that they are IMO too heavily marketed and this equates to them being over priced by around 40% when considering the materials IMO.

There's a lot of crap (and some truth.) spoken about BOSE... No highs, no lows gotta be BOSE..
Buy
Other
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Equipment

The list goes on. In reality they have historically been an initiative company who does things a little differently, but you pay through the nose and have to accept some short comings for your style your buying into.

Their 901 and 301 speakers are pretty astounding IMO and the lifestyle systems with cube speakers while expensive, put some pretty serious surround Sound into tiny packages... are they KEF, B&W or JM Lab/Focal quality.... No. but those speakers alone Will cost close to the sum of the entire Bose system and are still bigger.

Their headphones aren't as bad as people make out either... especially when you compare the price to a pair of frickin Beats....

[Edamski]

I can't be doing with Beats because of the price of them, theyre only as good as my ?14 pair of skull candy's (which are surprisingly good)

Friend of mine has the BOSE lifestyle system and the clarity is astounding, the room which is sizeable is just filled by these tiny speakers, it's great

[Edamski]

Anyone got any pointers for a small decent amp? so I can weigh up my options of a custom build. Home stereo really isn't a strong point

[butternutsquashpie]

Anyone got any pointers for a small decent amp? so I can weigh up my options of a custom build. Home stereo really isn't a strong point

Define decent. What purpose and what's the budget.

Keep in mind that TV amps differ from Guitar amps which differ from Music amps.

[Edamski]

Define decent. What purpose and what's the budget.

Keep in mind that TV amps differ from Guitar amps which differ from Music amps.

Read the first post jizza and all shall be revealed [emoji4]

[ValeTudoGuy]

What's a TV amp Jizza?

Edit: do you mean an Arial signal booster/amplifier.... if so that's not what Ed's after.

[ValeTudoGuy]

Anyone got any pointers for a small decent amp? so I can weigh up my options of a custom build. Home stereo really isn't a strong point

You can't really go wrong with most integrated amps from known audio companies... the one problem is your pre requisite of small. Most small amps these days are either shockingly expensive or pretty cheap class D Tripath chip amps.
The Tripath amps are good and Muse the company who do the DAC do some for about ?25. The main problem with them is that they are relatively low powered "though getting more powerful." this puts you in the strange position where you need extremely efficient speakers (expensive) to get any volume out of your cheap amp.

A much better option IMO is active speakers, as they have an amp that's matched to the impedance and sensitivity of the drivers/crossover... effectively made for the job. Which is why I suggested the ADAM's

[butternutsquashpie]

What's a TV amp Jizza?

Edit: do you mean an Arial signal booster/amplifier.... if so that's not what Ed's after.

I mean one of those miniscual but powerful treble boosters that are made only for attaching to TVs. Either that or an entire surround sound system.

[ValeTudoGuy]

This is about as small and cheap as you can go down the non Tripath chip route.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Stereo-Amplifier-Pyle-Pta2-Msc-Merchandise-/321433209357?hash=item4ad6e98a0d

It's ugly as sin IMO and it's not going to impress any so called Audiophiles... But it's a little work horse and it Will power regular sensitivity speakers to uncomfortable listening levels. But it's a big chunk of the budget and the money left over wouldn't get you even close to the quality of the ADAM's speaker wise unless you found a 2nd hand bargain.

[Edamski]

Yeah I thought as much [emoji20] I think most decent amps are a bit bigger than I'd like.

Those Adams do look mega sexy just more than I wanna spend to be honest as good as they are.

Save the expensive stuff for the big hi fi [emoji4]

[ValeTudoGuy]

Ah, well if you have/plan to have a full HiFi separate from this then it's a no brainer for me. Small and as much for your money as possible.

The AE + DAC option can be done for under ?150... less if you drop On a bargain and you Will see how good it is.

[Edamski]

I still think it's too big but the denon dm39 looks good!

[ValeTudoGuy]

Denon put out decent micro systems... the speakers won't be anything special though.

[Edamski]

Richer sounds do it with and without speakers. Come with tannoy and q acoustics, but again top end price wise. Although can get some warfdales for ?60 from them dunno if they're any good mind.

My old man has the 9.1 diamonds and they're pretty good

[ValeTudoGuy]

Hmmm, Muse have an amp they didn't have when I bought mine.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MUSE-M50-EX-TPA3123-T-Amp-2x50W-Mini-Amplifier-w-Power-Supply-Black-/271648910412?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_Amplifiers&hash=item3f3f896c4c

It's putting out more than twice the power of mine so volume shouldn't be an issue which is the only issue I have with mine as it's paired with fairly inefficient speakers. though it sounds good and still gives listenable sound levels.

Talking about speakers, I have mine paired to an older version of these.

http://m.richersounds.com/#!/product/QACO-2010I-GRAPH

A great product for the price. You would need to still get the DAC but it's tiny as is the amp.

I can effectively demonstrate this setup to you too, it's just that you would have to bear in mind that this amp I'm linking above would give more volume than mine.