The living room audio system in all its latest gory...

The video side of the system is shown here.
And no, that still isn't a typo in the heading... [last updated: 28 July 2010]

Green arrows are digital audio signals; blue arrows are combined digital video and audio signals (hdmi); black arrows are analogue audio. My delicious multi-channel Audiolab 8000AP pre-amplifier initially doubled as my video surround sound processor. Currently I have it coupled to a very minimalist Rotel stereo power amplifier, as a conscious decision, and also as a bit of an experiment.¹

I have spent (literally) years trying and rejecting a series of surround sound solutions (going all the way back to initial Hafler systems in the Old Windsor flat over 35 years ago). I enjoyed a brief dalliance with the quadrophonic systems of the mid-1970s (Sansui's QS matrix stereo was for a while my choice, as I didn't have the room or the budget for a full-on Ambisonic system). Later came Dolby Pro-Logic (a simple matrix stereo system), Dolby AC-3 (a 5.1 discrete digital channel solution initially available on LaserDiscs somewhat before DVDs were around). AC-3 did offer good channel separation, but was compressed and doesn't compare in quality to the latest lossless 7.1 surround sound formats that have accompanied HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Another step along the way was DTS, though that too was compressed when squeezed on to a DVD. And so it went on. The more channels, the more speakers, the more amplifiers, the less the chance of what you could call domestic harmony in the living room. It's getting crazy.

Well, high-quality stereo music does more for me than any amount of whizz-bang bullets, car crashes, explosions, and helicopters flying around overhead. And I do a lot of non-surround-sound listening, so I decided to revert (for the time being) to simple stereo — hence the Rotel. It's a 250 watts per channel Class D amp with an on/off switch and, erm, that's all. Unless you count the over-bright blue ring of light (not Cherenkov radiation) around the on/off switch.

Previously, I had bridged channels in the seven-channel AudioLab power amplifier turning it from a 7.1 device to a 5.1 device to favour the front stereo pair with 150 watts each. However (to my horror) I recently triggered the overload protection relays while listening at high volume — though not that high, dammit. (The AudioLab was showing about +5dB on its range of -90dB to +15 dB.) Having an extra 100 watts in "reserve" from the Rotel means I can get the volume I occasionally want without overloading anything. Magic. Definitely an advantage of a detached house.

Bottom line: I'm now using only my main stereo front² speakers (a pair of PMC FB1i devices). I have disconnected (though not yet physically removed) the centre (dialogue) speaker (a PMC TB2+MCi) and the rear surround speakers — a venerable (and dinky) pair of "Rock Solids" that had last been my surround pair in 1998. The previous long-term rear surround pair (for the last 11 years) were Sony SS-176Es that I originally bought, in some haste, and at a time of relative poverty (IBM salary, remember), to replace my even more venerable Celestion Ditton 66 studio monitors.³

I don't have (and still see absolutely no reason to get) a DAB radio. I'm currently using a Sony Freeview box in audio-only mode as a digital radio. It seems to suffer far less from audible drop-outs than the Panasonic Freeview DVD PVR. The Humax Freesat box also delivers a goodly, high-quality, range of digital satellite radio, including all the BBC's main regional national channels (Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) and a decent set of commercial channels. The Sony minidisc recorder may be obsolescent, but it still does a grand job on spoken material so it's now what I use when archiving radio documentaries and so on. I pipe its digital output into the optical digital input on my NAD CD player, which can resample incoming bitstreams at 96 KHz and 192 KHz with 24-bit processing. This is the audio equivalent of the high-quality video upscaling I use on the video side of my A/V system.)

Footnotes

¹  Triggered by hearing that £150,000 Steinway system in May 2010. It was a stunning revelation to hear simple stereo music of a quality I hardly dared believe existed.
²  The Castle Avons that had been my main front stereo pair since 1998 are now resting as I've dismantled my study sound system.
³  I had these from 1976 when I was moonlighting as a hi-fi freelance magazine record and kit reviewer. They were magnificent, but sadly I destroyed them two decades later while foolishly playing the LaserDisc of "Top Gun" at reasonably authentic SPL to niece #2 (who subsequently [consequently?] went on to become a helicopter pilot in the RNZAF). Go figure. I don't think I'll repeat this particular flight test as it's quite an expensive business.