My Sony 5.1 DVD player is goosed – a channel is intermittent (front left) so it really annoys me. Also one channel of the headphone out is faulty (perhaps the same problem, ie an amplifier fault).

So – do I get another DVD player (which means taking up the carpet and moving furniture to get it wired up unless I get a wireless one which cost loads).

OR

Do I get out my old very good Sony separates biwirable amp and use that to drive sound from the Sky+, TV and Playstation 3 (which I could also use instead of a DVD player). I would pair it up with a decent set of bookshelf speakers (Mordaunt Short?)

Of course I won't have surround sound but I would have much better sound quality in stereo.

Thoughts please!

Hi MF,
From memory there are one or two Hi-fi / av types here on STW, so guidance may be forthcoming

If not may i suggest you try AVForums.
I'm sure the guys and gals there would be happy to offer suggestions (including 'best bang for buck' on a replacement, if you go that way….)

Chris (running 2.1, wishing on a 5.1 system, really wishing he'd thought about the 5.1 before the oak floor went down……. 🙄 )

Yeah, it's just the faff of subscribing to another forum and the advice on here is sure to be more straight forward than on a specialist forum where they would probably laugh my set up out like we would someone on an Apollo here 🙂

well i've got a moderate sony surround sound system for movie viewing and game playing, and a much better quality 2 channel setup that's bascially music only. despite the lower quality of the surround system, i'd rather that for films and games just for the immersion effect. so i'd do the former. while you're doing it, i'd get a ps3 so you can have bluray loveliness with a games console thrown in. 🙂

I have a PS3 – which is what I would use instead of the DVD player (and for the bLuray of course)

Are the speakers from the DVD player powered ? Any reason why you couldn't get a cheap(ish) AV Receiver/Amp and simply use the existing speakers you've got rather than reverting to stereo ?

A cheap AV receiver would probably be around 150 ish from Richer Sounds – and going back to stereo (even with high quality bits) is tough once you've had full 5.1 ….

Unlikely I guess, but does the DVD player have pre-outs for the front channels you could plug into a separate stereo amp? If so, is the signal intermittent on the pre-outs as well as on the amplified outputs?

The way I've sorted my system is to use a middle of the range (£700 ish new but nice and cheap second hand from AVForums classifieds) Yamaha AV amp to process the surround sound, and drive the center and back ceiling speakers, but feed the front channels via pre-outs into my much better stereo amp and speakers. My music stuff (CD, old skool turntable) goes straight into the stereo amp, but for AV I can have 5.1 (which, as stevehine says, you'd miss if you didn't have it) with better fronts.

It's one extra box, but I'd do it again – the difference between a good stereo amp and a 'good' AV amp turns out to be vast.

Hmm, good point re AV amps – perhaps that would be the way to go – use the PS3 for any DVD (mostly Bluray now anyway) and cannel it all through a reasonable AV amp.

Gawd, it is a minefield!

A good AV amp must be the way, I have just invested in an Onkyo 577 from Richer sounds, coupled up with an old pair of Mission 761's and some new Tannoy SFX speakers and a sub woofer and could not be more happy with it.

My inputs via HDMI into the amp is a nice Samsung Blue ray player and Sky HD+ via HDMI and optical input as well.

Personally I would go for an amp with sound output of TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus as this is what all the new blue ray disks have, believe me its good.

I have gone for a 7.1 amp but only have 5.1 wired up at the moment, based on the fact it is a relativity small room.

7.2 is available (2 sub woofers) but unless you have a very big room its overkill.

The Sony below is the cheapest with True HD sound I can find.

sony clicky