- Mar 19, 2014
- 170
- 14
- 18,595
I decided it was time to upgrade from my 14 year old Sony MHC-NX3AV surround mini hifi. It was a great little system, but the display had gone, the CD player skipped a lot, I never used the tape deck or radio and it had component surround which I'd never been able to use, as nothing I owned, other than my PC, had component outputs!
I'd upgraded the rest of my home entertainment setup, so I thought it made sense to get a decent AV amp to do everything. The Sony STR-DN1040 had awesome reviews and it was suggested that it was also a decent choice for home audio. I don't know a thing about home AV or home audio so went with the reviews with the intention of using it with my old 5.1 speakers (speaker specs are on page 46 of this manual - https://docs.sony.com/release/MHCNX3AV.PDF) which consisted of 2 bookcase sized front speakers and 3 satellite.
In terms of home AV, it sounds pretty good to my mind - its nice actually being able to use my surround speakers for the first time!
I'm not so sure about audio from hard disk or from the PC though - it seems to be missing any significant bass and maybe a bit in mid range, which I don't recall being an issue with my old system. I don't have a sub woofer and was wondering if that would likely make a difference for audio? (bass doesn't seem to be a problem for AV) Or am I just trying to achieve too much from an AV amp?
If I am trying to achieve too much, I guess even an oldish second hand amp from Fleabay or something would be worth looking at, but how do you integrate that with a home AV amp (and 1 set of speakers!)? I may also want to get a CD player (multi-disk preferably) as the PS3 really needs the TV to be on which seems daft for just audio - I guess I'd need to integrate that somehow too
Advice gratefully received!!
I'd upgraded the rest of my home entertainment setup, so I thought it made sense to get a decent AV amp to do everything. The Sony STR-DN1040 had awesome reviews and it was suggested that it was also a decent choice for home audio. I don't know a thing about home AV or home audio so went with the reviews with the intention of using it with my old 5.1 speakers (speaker specs are on page 46 of this manual - https://docs.sony.com/release/MHCNX3AV.PDF) which consisted of 2 bookcase sized front speakers and 3 satellite.
In terms of home AV, it sounds pretty good to my mind - its nice actually being able to use my surround speakers for the first time!
I'm not so sure about audio from hard disk or from the PC though - it seems to be missing any significant bass and maybe a bit in mid range, which I don't recall being an issue with my old system. I don't have a sub woofer and was wondering if that would likely make a difference for audio? (bass doesn't seem to be a problem for AV) Or am I just trying to achieve too much from an AV amp?
If I am trying to achieve too much, I guess even an oldish second hand amp from Fleabay or something would be worth looking at, but how do you integrate that with a home AV amp (and 1 set of speakers!)? I may also want to get a CD player (multi-disk preferably) as the PS3 really needs the TV to be on which seems daft for just audio - I guess I'd need to integrate that somehow too
Advice gratefully received!!
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