tubes with vinyl and dts with plasmas

[ezio gallino]

:( In a small room I want mix together different things:
-enjoy analog with tubes, vinyl in mono and stereo
- go digital with films on plasma screen ,dvd's , sacd with surround experience.
My confusion is great because I've got to mix old with new,
in order to privilege sound and get two (not 5,7 +1) big speakers.
But at the same time I don't want to exclude surround sound.
Should I buy two different systems or buy a very expensive home video 5.1 or 7.1 amp? (i don't need it!) . Just a good stereo with some surround option in certain cases.
Is it a solvable problem?

My Idea was to get a good front stereo tube amb and in need put a cheap MSB decoder in order to pilote cheap rear tupe amps, but I will appreciate other budget solutions.

Happy new Year from Italy.

Ezio

[Sckott]

Ezio,

Wonderful New Year from the US.

The way I do it is through two sound systems in two places in my home. I have a living room that's actually a little small, but I'm able to fit two very LARGE Acoustat 3's as well as a center, woof and back surround speakers.

In the basement furnished room, I have a Dynaco ST70, a Bottlehead Foreplay Preamp, my Rega Planar 3, vinyl, a couple of CD players and the computer. My CDs and Lps are in this part of the house. Very little natural sunlight, almost no moisture. Perfect.

I've seperated surround and tuby experiences and have found, earlier, that using a tube amp for theatre is good, but it doesn't compliment as much as a good strong solid state amp and my electrostatics. It's because of the room size too.

Also, the tubes are great, but if I used two Dynaco ST70s, I found surround not to be as fun as mono or stereo.

I don't know how you feel, but I would suggest a seperate, serious tube experience seperate in another room along with a fairly serious home theatre, DVD, and what have you, in the living room.

Oh, the tubes seem to get less traffic from visitors, who really may not appreciate tubes, because they're in the basement.

Use speakers that compliment each experience best.

Best regards,
-Sckott

[Gary]

The way my set up is developing, I have two rooms, too. One is for 2 channel (tube gear, turntable, SACD) and eventual 5.1 SACD. The other room is for 5.1 DVD-A and DVD-V with a TV.

Gets pretty expensive when you start to look at all those speakers, though. So I save the "audiophile" listening for the tube system and, if I have to, I'll drag the DVD-A player to the "tube" room!

[proufo]

Ciao Ezio.

There's a Sony preamp that is very flexible for that type of setups. The name is TAP-9000ES.

Regards.

[Tullman]

I am in pretty much the same dilema. I have a killer/muy expensivo 2 channel system that took me 12 years to acquire. If I go with a surround system of the same quality the price goes out of this world. I am thinking of using midfi stuff for processor and back speakers while using my 2 channel for the front.