I want to make my own surround sound system, advice?

[SidusNare]

I am a hardware nerd and a bit of a carpenter, and I have been wanting to build my own surround sound system for a while. By build it, I mean from the component level up. My own amplifiers, pass filters, toroid windings etc.. but while I cant/dont want to do is build a decoder / DAC.  My TV is only hooked up to a Mac Mini and an original Playstation 3. It would be nice to be able to pull the plain 7.1 digital audio as well as TruHD and DTS-HD out of the HDMI, but I would be willing to do something else, IE USB3 for the MacMini and optical digital for the PS3.

tl;dr: Anyone know a good HDMI DAC with a high bit width and 7.1+ channel output?

[tp4tissue]

If your budget for a 5.1-7.1 is less than $4000.  DON'T bother.  It won't be any good, and you'll end up having to upgrade everything.


If your budget is something like $2000,  I'd recommend a nice Stereo setup. surround sound is honestly very overrated and under utilized by the movie// game industry.

They spend very little time on it.

Buy this receiver

http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-R-S700BL-Natural-Stereo-Receiver/dp/B0044779G8/ref=sr_1_88?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1376430122&sr=1-88&keywords=%22stereo%22+receiver


Then Split the rest of the money for 2 front towers and a Sub.

Decide how big a sub you will need to fill the room you're putting it in.

Then spend the rest on the Towers.

Then You're done HURRAY..


That's literally how it works, if anyone gives you anything more complicated,  they're giving you personal preference, and you should just disregard it.

[tp4tissue]

The BULK of the Hifi industry comes down to selling things with UNMEASUREABLE performance.

Don't fall for the Super expensive $10,000 stuff.. Anything more than $5000 is mostly Confirmation Bias on part of the purchaser.

This excludes Loud Speaker systems obviously.

[SidusNare]

I can build my own amps and filters, its more to have done it myself than any performance improvement.

http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-R-S700BL-Natural-Stereo-Receiver/dp/B0044779G8/ref=sr_1_88?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1376430122&sr=1-88&keywords=%22stereo%22+receiver

This appears to be a wholly analog device, what I am looking for is a basic digital to analog device or component.

[tp4tissue]

I can build my own amps and filters, its more to have done it myself than any performance improvement.

http://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-R-S700BL-Natural-Stereo-Receiver/dp/B0044779G8/ref=sr_1_88?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1376430122&sr=1-88&keywords=%22stereo%22+receiver

This appears to be a wholly analog device, what I am looking for is a basic digital to analog device or component.

Oh, I assumed you had one.  ah.. just get the complement CD player from yamaha, it's got burr brown, so can't go wrong with that.

If you want PC digital,  I recommend something like a titanium HD card for your PC, it's pretty solid and very little hassle.

The Botique DACs are honestly NOT WORTH IT... the markup is really high on them because the product volume is so low. They don't sell that many.

[SidusNare]

Oh, I assumed you had one.  ah.. just get the complement CD player from yamaha, it's got burr brown, so can't go wrong with that.

If you want PC digital,  I recommend something like a titanium HD card for your PC, it's pretty solid and very little hassle.

The Botique DACs are honestly NOT WORTH IT... the markup is really high on them because the product volume is so low. They don't sell that many.

Thank you for the advice.

Its a MacMini, cant put a card in it, is there nothing that pulls 7.1 or 5.1 out of HDMI and isn't integrated into a huge over-engineered unit?

[pandather]

How about this?  Also Pioneer SP-BS22-LR's are amazing surrounds on a budget, actually, I'm using them as mains right now and it sounds great!   For a subwoofer, I love the Klipsch RW-12d, and it's great for it's price too!   I also am using a little 50 w/ch amp you can get for $20 on Ebay that's great, though you'll need a laptop battery charger to power it, and you need to supply a case unless you don't need one. (I have mine mounted in my closet. )

[SidusNare]

How about this?

Dosent fix in a Mac Mini or Playstation 3

  Also Pioneer SP-BS22-LR's are amazing surrounds on a budget, actually, I'm using them as mains right now and it sounds great!   For a subwoofer, I love the Klipsch RW-12d, and it's great for it's price too!   I also am using a little 50 w/ch amp you can get for $20 on Ebay that's great, though you'll need a laptop battery charger to power it, and you need to supply a case unless you don't need one. (I have mine mounted in my closet. )

Ill check it out, but was hoping for a simple DAC.

[whileycoyote]

LG does some great budget sound system stuff. I dont know if you want something higher end but if you want something practical look at LG systems