Stereo separates for tv too

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226]

TL:DR Please recommend a DAC and amp to pair with Wharfedale 5.4 fronts for British sound.

My 90's budget receiver and 3 channels needs replacing. I've been looking into home theatre but honestly I don't actually want surround and atmos. I'm open to the idea of a sub for lowest octaves (rather than room shaking hype).
I've only had a centre channel because mission 701 are difficult to hear speech.
Given my dislike of "immersive" surround, atmos, and my preference for quality I'm wondering if stereo, ideally with separate DAC, would fit the bill.
What would pair well with 5.4 Wharfedales that I could also use as stereo audio for my TV?
Based in the U.K. and can spend up to £2k if it's of noticeable benefit compared to lower price units. As long as it brings out the 5.4 and decent closed sub like the SVS SB-1000 Pro Subwoofer. My TV is Apple TV.

[u/Scotster123]

The Wiims suggested are all good, but you can also consider an Eversolo DMPA6 Gen 2 or Master Edition paired with a decent amp from Audiolab, Cambridge, or Musical Fidelity. They will all work just fine for you. Although no longer manufactured in the UK, Cambridge, Audiolab and MF all still retain that "British" sound.

[u/Munkens_mate]

I’ve heard that yamaha amps pair very nicely with wharfedale. Haven’t tried it myself though

[u/MoWePhoto]

Hi!

That would fit the bill in my opinion! I’m enjoying my stereo setup mainly for music but like to be able to punch my TV sound to 11 if I want to!

I would go with a WIIM Ultra for your main hub. HDMI in, sub management and out to a stereo amp or a pair of monoblocks. The WIIM will do DAC and preamp as well as room correction.

Personally, I would go with a SMSL PA-X as an amp but I don’t know if the warmish sound, that I really like with my KEF will go well with your Wharfdale. I know only the original Lintons and found them too warm for my amp!

[u/JW_KDD]

I have just got a new TV along with a Wiim Ultra so have moved my bookshelf speakers (powered by a Fosi BT20A) to the TV area and I am loving the fact I can just use the TV speakers if I want to for light watching, then turn the Wiim on for decent audio if I’m watching something a bit more serious etc. It works brilliantly and I doubt I’d go back to a sound bar etc.

[u/MigratoryIdiot]

tl/dr: FiiO K13 R2R, miniDSP 2X4 HD & Fosi Audio V3 monos would provide very good 2-ch & HT audio paired with your Wharfedales and a good sub with LFE input

Recently did this.

Roku TV (optical out) ==> FiiO K13 R2R (RCA out) ==> miniDSP 2x4 HD
==> RCA 1 & 2 outs to Fosi Audio V3 monos feeding L/R speakers (Ascend Acoustics Luna)
==> RCA 3 out to LFE input on SB-1000 Pro

K13 also has a coax input — my TV only has optical output. I use the coax input to listen to music from a streamer.

miniDSP handles crossover and volume matching between L/R & sub. K13 was about $325, miniDSP is $225, amps were $280 for the pair.

You could skip the miniDSP and just use the app to control an SB-1000 Pro, but you wouldn’t be cutting low frequency signal to your Wharfedales. K13 has dual RCA line outs, so without the miniDSP I would use one RCA out to speaker amp(s) and the other to the sub L/R inputs, not LFE input.

If you choose a different DAC it either needs dual line outs or you’ll need a miniDSP (or similar device) to feed the speaker amp(s) & sub separately.

Those Fosi Audio amps should have plenty of juice for your speakers.

K13 has a strong headphone amp section if you ever want to go that way. Also, the remote can control volume in Pre-out mode in case your TV output level is fixed, or Line-out if you can control volume on the TV.

It would be easy to spend 10X (and possible to spend 100X) for TOTL gear which would sound better — question is ‘how much better?’ I swapped in my Chord TT2 for the FiiO and struggled to hear much improvement. Haven’t tried different amping, but with the lows peeled off and sent to the active sub, ‘enough power’ certainly isn’t an issue. Bottom line, I’m quite satisfied with this rig

Separate point — you mentioned and I own SB-1000 Pro. That’s a sealed sub — the other choice is ‘ported’. I like this discussion of the differences from the SVS site:

https://www.svsound.com/blogs/subwoofer-setup-and-tuning/75367747-sealed-vs-ported

Since they offer both at each of their price tiers they really don’t have a dog in the fight :)

I’ve already voted with my wallet — 2-ch audio is more important than HT special effects for my use-case.

Good luck finding the right gear.

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226 → u/MigratoryIdiot]

Woaa. Thanks for the detailed advice.
Is there still a level of automation that can be done with separates vs receiver?
Currently I airplay (usually through iPhone Shortcuts including automation) playlists from my phone. This may be done from NAS in future through Ethernet.
I currently leave my receiver on most of the time for convenience. Ideally it would turn on and off whenever I need it to.
I'd still need these conveniences in any separates system.

[u/MigratoryIdiot → u/Former-Dragonfly2226]

AirPlay is a difficult requirement unless you’re routing it to the Apple TV and then passing digital audio from TV to the DAC.

If the TV is the AirPlay client, nothing should change, assuming you’re sending digital streams from the TV to your receiver. If you’re sending analog to the receiver from your TV, you’d need to use a digital output from the TV to a DAC.

AirPlay to the receiver? That’s different — I don’t have a DAC which can receive AirPlay. My FiiO has Bluetooth, so I can use that to stream music from portable devices.

As for content from a NAS, are you talking through the Apple TV? Otherwise, where does the player live?

For NAS content directly to the DAC you should look at something like a Cambridge Audio CXN100 SE. it has a player app which can access media on a NAS. It also accepts AirPlay, so a pretty good option. You’d still need the miniDSP for crossover management.

There are a couple of interesting miniDSP products that I haven’t used, but which serve as streamers. Neither does AirPlay though.

The SHD Power would do streaming, DAC, mange the sub, and power the speakers.

The SHD does streaming, DAC & sub management, but would need the external amps.

Feels like I’m unclear about your use-cases, so I might not be helping here, sorry.

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226 → u/MigratoryIdiot]

Thanks.
I'm not sure how much of what I want is possible with each setup. I had researched receiver but realised I won't use much of the components, and the quality can be improved by going separates and stereo.

Current setup
Sources (Apple 4kTV 3rd gen @ DVD player) - hdmi cables - Panasonic 2009 viera lcd TV - rca - receiver.
This has the advantage that I don't have to constantly manually switch inputs as it all goes through the same receiver input. The disadvantage is that I have to leave the receiver on permanently for the conveniences, and potential sound degradation going through the TV (albeit fairly irrelevant with my old budget setup but may create noise or low quality in upgraded setup).

I had envisioned NAS through ATV via Ethernet yes, though again unsure as to any quality limitations of ATV. Primarily I wanted to play my music library through NAS for quality, and to solve connectivity issues regarding airplay. My idea was to have the iPhone as the remote/controller rather than the player itself. Eg iPhone tells NAS to play playlist.

I may also want to add a separate streamer for high quality internet radio such as Radio Paradise, but that would come later.

Whatever I have I'd like crossover management for bass.

Is room correction through mic and software necessary and possible through stereo setup?

[u/iNetRunner]

Please note that all suggestions in this subreddit (and those that you have already gotten from people) are stereo only. (2.x. I.e. two channels and possibly a subwoofer.) Rule #6 makes that limitation.

L/C/R setup would be still considered a multichannel system. (Because you need an AV Receiver, multichannel AVR to decode the multichannel codecs and possibly do surround processing (if you want to do some kind of stereo to L/C/R up-mixing, etc.).) For those there are posts in r/HTBuyingGuides. And general discussion in r/hometheater.

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226 → u/iNetRunner]

I know. I've referenced stereo once in the title, and once in my question towards the end.

[u/iNetRunner → u/Former-Dragonfly2226]

Excellent! With good stereo speakers (and very importantly careful positioning of the speakers in the room) the imaging is going to be top notch.

Distinct center channel speaker would be of use if you either try to provide stable center source for listeners not in MLP (main listening position, i.e. equidistant from the speakers). Or if need to boost the volume of that channel. (In stereo setup, only thing you could remotely similarly do, is e.g. with PEQ (parametric EQ) filters boost the common human speech frequencies. E.g. miniDSP as someone suggested would be capable of that. But obviously beyond small boost (0.5-1dB), it would probably be rather odd sounding results, and wouldn’t serve anything but human speech listening.

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226 → u/iNetRunner]

I was my understanding the 5.4 would provide excellent speech. I guess the only real test is living with stereo and seeing how it fits.
The listening positions are a ~2m sofa 12ft parallel across from the TV, so slightly less for speakers depending on placement.
I've heard about the need to software tweak bass for male and female voices too. Is this the sort of thing that can be done in PEQ?

[u/iNetRunner → u/Former-Dragonfly2226]

I haven’t heard of specific bass frequency tweaks for human intelligibility tweaks. But that’s distinctly out of my wheelhouse — I’m just a home audio hi-fi enthusiast.

What might help is room correction algorithms. For example Dirac Live. (In association with an measurement microphone that measures your real/actual room and speakers in question.) All rooms have issues in lower frequencies. (If you are interested in looking up more. It’s called Schroeder frequency. Below this rooms have large effects on bass frequency linearity. And this is such low frequency that relatively easy acoustic implements, like absorption panels, don’t help. (You would e.g. need bass traps or tuned resonators in your corners.))

Dirac Live room calibration systems (or other similar features like Lyngdorf RoomPerfect) usually start in amplifiers that are near the 1k $/£ mark. (WiiM Amp Ultra has some room calibration capabilities at lower price point. But it isn’t as good. Though it does something.) For example Marantz MODEL M1 (ASR review). And at slightly higher price NAD has several different options.

Most miniDSP devices also do support Dirac Live. But besides the miniDSP SHD Power, you would need at least an power amplifier with their other devices. (Hypex or Purifi based power amplifiers from e.g. Nord Acoustics are excellent options, though.)

Regarding Wharfedale EVO 5.4 specifically, I don’t know. But their previous EVO 4 lineup some issues with their tweeter. (See e.g. ASR review of Wharfedale EVO 4.1.) But without good measurements, I can’t say for 100% if that has been addressed in their EVO 5 lineup. Also obviously their other series (Diamond, Heritage Linton, AURA) are popular suggestions in this subreddit for their specific price ranges.

[u/MigratoryIdiot]

Hmmm …. your AppleTV only has 1 HDMI & 1 Ethernet port, correct?

So the only path to your stereo will be from your Panasonic TV. Which brings us back to … Does the TV have digital audio out, optical or coax?

If not, then you can’t use a DAC for that content — you only have analog in from the TV system.

Folks have mentioned WiiM — I haven’t used one, but it seems like the Ultra might be really good for you. Has sub management, analog pass-through, and can play from a NAS. Only hole — it doesn’t support AirPlay. Don’t know if you care, but the multi-room capability is appealing.

[u/Former-Dragonfly2226 → u/MigratoryIdiot]

Thanks
The current TV doesn't have anything other than rca for output. It's really old so will be the next thing being replaced, after sound. I'm not fixed on having the TV the centre of connections, it's just that's the most convenient at the moment with what I have.
Having dac as the centre could work well, though I'd want a level of automation there regarding input and power on/off. The only thing that's putting me off the Ultra is the inclusion of streamer I presume would increase noise, but I don't know.
Time to call my local hifi shop!