MatrixDweller

This might be a little late for you Youthman, but for others looking for a solution I thought I shold share. I have RB-81's and use the BT77 wall mount. The RB61 has the same depth as the RB81 (12.25"). They say they can accept speakers up to 11" wide and 13" deep and up to 55lbs in weight (so a really big bookshelf speaker). I put a bolt through the bottom of the BT77's swivel mount into one of the threads on the bottom of the RB81. I did not want to drill or put screws into the speaker itself. The mounts work well and look great although with the RB81, which is 11" deep, it doesn't give it full motion to swivel around 180 degrees. That's fine though because they are set to the right angle. They are very solid when screwed into a stud. The B-Tech BT77 is about the wall mount that will fit the RB-81.

I've heard popping or crackling one and a while on my system. It's probably some sort of noise on the digital line in from the satellite reciever or HD-DVD player and the AVR isn't filtering it out. Noise or signal distortion could easily happen on your satellite reciever, but your HD-DVD player shouldn't have that problem. It could be possible that you have some dirty power issues also. Make sure your gear is on a fairly clear circuit and doubly make sure it's not on the same circuit as any applicances, fans, or motors. I have my stuff hooked into a power conditioner, and still hear the occasional pop or crackle (pretty loud too) from satellite. I'd have to attribute it to the satllite signal.

The A20 will downgrade the Dolby True signal into a 1.5mbps DTS bitstream (the max DTS allows). A lot of DD or DTS is not at 1.5mbps so in theory the downsampled stream should contain more data. I have found that the downsampled bitstream seems to be muted slightly. What I mean by that is if I choose DD I have my volume at -45db and switching over to Dolby True I need to turn it up to -35db to get the same level. I'm assuming that it is part of the compression used when downsampling. To my ears they sound pretty close and I couldn't say either sounds better but that they both sound good. I'm hoping to upgrade my receiver to a Denon 3808 or similar so that i can take full advantage of the new formats.

I've had my A2 for about 6 months now and haven't had any problems with it. I have a Denon 3805 and pass the DTS bitstream to it via the optical output. For the lossless audio you need to use the HDMI output to a receiver that accepts LPCM over HDMI. The down sampled DTS still sounds great IMHO.

Its like having a porsche, yeah that car you thought was fast ain't that until you have it....... A subwoofer is not a subwoofer until you felt it Similarly it's like having a Porsche Boxter and then taking a Lamborghini Murcielago out for a drive. The Boxter is a nice car but the Murielago is in a whole different league.

You can get Herseys or Lascalas for $400 a pair????

I guess you have to ask yourself what are you going to get in the future and what are you going to have to upgrade in the future. To future proof things as best as possible you should picture what your system will be when it's done. Depending on what twists and turns your life takes it could be 2 years or more before your system is complete (7.1). You will regret not going with the 605 over the 505 in a couple years because the 605 has Lossless Audio codec processing and the 505 doesn't. Why this will be important in the future is because players will soon ship without decoders inside them (transports). Those players will be more affordable and eventually very few players will probably have decoders. An extra $100 will save you at least that on a player in the future. Get the best speaker(s) you can afford. Skip the sub if you have to and go with RB61's (or RB81's)and a good receiver. When you've saved up enough grab a good sub. Although this is a Klipsch forum a lot of people here will say you'll get better bang for the money out of other manufacturers like SVS. The RB61's and 81's go pretty low for bookshelves. I had my sub turned off by accident once, without remembering, and thought my system sounded different but still pretty darn good. I think the 61 goes down into the low 40's which is pretty impressive.

1) get peice of granite, marble, heavy steel, or something else very heavy and flat 2) cut to the size of the sub's base 3) drill holes at the dimesnion of where the foot screws are (bore a slightly larger hole on the underside to countersink the bolt heads) 4) Get some bolts and nuts the same size as the thread on the sub foot screw downs 5) Attach the base to the sub leaving some space between the sub and the base (more so if down firing)

Onkyo has some pretty nice stuff out this year. If you can afford it (save an extra month before buying) I'd get the TX-SR605 or higher. The TX-SR805 is UltraTHX2 certified and priced to move. If you're getting stuff at cost+5% I'd kick you if you settle for the 505. The wattage really isn't the issue, it's the features and quality. You might want to consider getting some RF62's (or 82's) instead and buying a sub later if you're going to be listening to 2-channel mostly.

With the Lutron Grafik Eye system you can purchase an IR ceiling mounted eye (GRX-CIR-WH) or auxiliary wall stations with IR that connects to the main switch unit via low voltage wire. I am considering this for my set up. Of course they're not cheap. There is also the GRX-IRI which you can connect an IR repeater. I managed to get my GRX-3102 for under $200 on Ebay. They retail for more than twice that. I think the ceiling mounted IR retails for $200 or so. I wouldn't say Lutron is the cheapest for sure. I just got a deal on mine.

Using separate subs in HT can be very useful if you want to put a sub on a certain channel (ie: center, surrounds, etc). If you're not going to do that then using 4 would probably be overkill in your room and the money would be better spent elsewhere in the system. What are the other components in the set up?

The setup functions aren't 100% on the Harmony I admit, and what is there is harder to navigate.

X-10 is radio frequency so you'd need a fairly high end remote unless you had an IR to RF module (added cost). I went with a Lutron GraficEye with 2 zones for my basement (yet to be completed). If you only need one zone the Lutron Maestro is very affordable ($40 or so) and is IR not RF. I control my GrafcEye with a Logitech Harmony 550. Any learning remote will do the trick though.

Just get a Logitech Harmony RC. Sure it's not the original Denon, but it's better. I have a Denon 3805 and the remote is just huge and clunky and eat batteries faster than Kobayashi eats hot dogs. I bought a Harmony 550 for $80 on sale over a year ago and am still in love with it. I'd take it to bed with me, but the wife might get jealous.

The perfect setup is all speakers matched but in reality the rear surrounds don't get much play in movies. You'd want them to be similar but not nessessarily the same. A lot of people recommend dipole/bipole for surrounds and monopole for rears. I think in and good system the power handling should be about the same on all speakers and driven adequatly by the amplifier. I would think you wouldn't want 150W speakers up front, 100W on the sides and 50W at the rear. I would think that would have the potential to do some damage to the lesser capable speakers if you were to turn it up loud. In most movies it would probably be safe but for 7 channel audio such as DVDA or SACD or matrixed modes it might be questionable. Anyone else chime in if I'm wrong please.