Rather than look at your electricity bill in terms of RM, it is easier to calculate it if you look at the KW consumption. Try working out the baseline KW consumption per day and you will find that the biggest item is normally the fridge.

A fridge is about 250-450W normally (depending on model) and it is on 24 hrs. So per day is about 6-11 KW/day.

1hp aircon is nominally 700-750W. Turn on for 8 hours means about 6KW/day.

As for HT equipment, the load varies so quite hard to predict. But even Class A amp might not consume that much. Say it is 500W and you run for 2 hours every day, that's only 1KW/day.

Seems quite low elec bill for that kind of usage (esp the 1.5hp aircon for 8.5 hours nightly).

Your baseline usage should be about 16-20KW/day. Or about 480-600KW/month.

Going by the current TNB tariff (assuming 480KW/month), the bill would be:

first 200KW = 200 x RM0.218 = RM43.60
next 100KW = 100 x RM0.334 = RM33.40
next 100KW = 100 x RM0.400 = RM40.00
next 80KW = 80 x RM0.402 = RM32.16

Total = RM149.16

Maybe you have a 'special' meter The former house I bought in BU also had a 'special' meter.

This kind of spoilt meter, no need to fix!

When it comes to bills, having peasant bills is

Start with 5.1 first. Later on can add another pair of rear speakers to become 7.1.

You might consider splitting your budget like this:

AVR = 2500 - 3500 (consider Onkyo if priority for movies)
Sub = 3000 - 3500 (e.g. Paradigm 3400, Rythmik F12)
Front + center spk = 4000 - 5000 (depends on your taste)
Surround spk = <1000 (depends on your taste)

Often it is not mentioned clearly (or maybe in small print). Best is to get a pic of the rear panel (normally you can see in the website) and look there. Example like this:



For current Onkyo I think it is available from 709 onwards. For Denon from 3312 onwards. Anthem MRX also has them.

Must be quite high grade carpet for that price.

Don't think he is using any power amp.

Congrats on the nice power amp.

Most AVRs won't have balanced outputs. You will need a pre-pro like the 5508/5509 for that.

Anyway, what made you decide to add the 5501? You felt the 807 not enough power?

I'm using Denon with Cinenova Grande.

Shop? I'm not running any shop.

5 channel.

Anyway, when you are looking at amps don't just look at the wattage. There are many factors which impact the amp performance, including current delivery, capacitance, transformer size, etc.

This post has been edited by jchong: Nov 15 2011, 05:46 PM

Wah, poison me to get a pre-pro izzit?

Oh, which expensive amp is that? If you don't want to mention openly, can pm me.

Anyway, I think in that case it might be something to do with the amp itself. Not so much whether THX certified or not. There are many non-THX amps which also sound great.

Increasingly those good hifi speaker brands have matching center channel, maybe not for all series but for some of them at least.

Yeah, the maximum current drive/power output is unchanged.

I think only the signal voltage gain is 3dB extra. Do you know what effect this has? Is it beneficial or not?

Thanks for the elaboration on balanced config.

Yeah, it's not easy to find true differentially balanced power amps. I wonder if those AV pre-pros with balanced outputs are true balanced or not?

Some say to get the real benefit of XLR cables both the power amp and pre-pro must be true balanced.

You can try Belden cables. Check in the Trade Zone.

Which shop did you demo it? I didn't know it was available locally.

What was the price they quoted?

Thanks for the info.