Audiophile question

[johnnyrod]

I've been mulling over this one for a while but I've found a gadget to satisfy almost my every need. So, I've got an old NAD 320 amp and I've been using our Yamaha DVD player as a CD player, and very nice it sounds too. We need to get into streaming audio plus get the output from the Sky box as digital rather than plugging a 3.5mm jack into the TV headphone socket (explosions just don't vibrate the sofa/your ribs like they did with audio direct form my old VCR straight into the amp, booooo). As you can tell, connectivity hasn't got a lot of choices. So, I've come across the Yamaha WXC50 which doth stream muzak and can take in the optical output from the Sky box. This then plugs into the amp and boom. Alternatively there is the WXA50 which does all that but has an amp in there so it would negate the need to keep the NAD, although its inputs are a bit limited in number (but does that matter these days?). The main question though, is for a couple of hundred quid extra, is there any mileage in considering it the WXA, or would I be better sticking with my NAD and WXC? They're both on sale at Richer Sounds and I'd go for a demo but God knows when I could do that. So yes it's a bit of a hand-waving question, but what do you reckon?

[Sir Trev]

I'm sure Bibs will be along soon to answer this for you, as I don't pretend to understand it all myself...

My elderly Sony mini hi-fi unit (it has a tape deck in it) has phono inputs on the back panel and I've plugged my TV in to it this way. That makes the sofa vibrate when we use it to enhance the tinny speakers in the TV so heavens knows how good your proper amp will make your TV sound using better connections.

[Bibio]

i'll take this bit by bit.
first off does your sky box have HDMI, or what sky box do you have?


the yammy is just a network streamer/pre amp. this is controlled via an app on your smartphone/tablet. they are ok but very limited in what they can do.


what kind of TV do you have LED, CRT or other and how old is it?

[johnnyrod]

Sky Q, HDMI and optical out but no RCA or anything analogue. The Yamaha can take in optical, the WXA model has a power amp so you can attach speakers directly, but I don't know if it's worth chopping in the NAD for it. TV is a dumb LG LED 47", think we got it in about 2011. It's fine so I don't want to replace it. Its only analogue output is the headphone jack. I also read that HDMI sound for TV can suffer from sync issues that are essentially impossible to fix, but I don't know if that's just ARC, which I'm not sure it has anyway.

[Bibio]

your modern AV amps do pretty much everything these days. ARC is not so much of an issue as it was and i use it and have no problems.


my recommendation is to dump the NAD and get an AV amp. all the sub £400 amps are pretty much the same and its just power and connections that are different. the lower priced amps usually have spring clip speaker terminals instead of proper binding posts.



connectivity. HDMI does everything now including sound in one cable. unless you use the TV's built in tuner/smart programs like Netflix there is no need for ARC.


forgot to say that the lower priced AV amps only use bluetooth for music streaming and usually by proprietary app.