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Congrat, Chuck, I know you were searching for one for a long time. You're gonna love it. C

Call Sunfire directly and inquire. They'll be the first to tell you who's authorized and who is not. You can then make an informed decision as to whether it's worth trading off a factory warranty for a lower price (if in fact the person is not an authorized dealer). JMHO, C

Put half in a good mutual fund and half towards your purchase. If that crimps your budget, borrow the half you invested from your folks and pay them back from your job earnings this summer. In five years you'll have some nice equipment from your current purchase AND some capital appreciation to fund future acquisitions (you always need a slush fund to keep up with this hobby). JMHO, C

I have been using a Panamax Max-1500 for years and it has served me well. Artto is right on the money with the reasons why you should use one in your system. I've heard the purists argue that such units can degrade the sound by limiting the amount of current available to an amplifier, but I have never personally experienced this. I'd rather have my hard earned equipment hooked up to a Panamax (or some equivalent) as opposed to chancing it. My neighbors have experienced melted phones and fried security systems over the last several years, while my gear keeps on chugging along. My 2 cents, FWIW C

Ed, That is a beautiful listening room, thanks for sharing. I look forward to the additional photos. Thanks again! Colin

Hey Ed, I was thinking of upgrading to the Salamander racks you've highlighted...even the same color scheme...cherry with black. Do you have any photos of your set-up?? I seem to recall some previous photos when you completed your listening room, but I'm not sure if the Salamader racks were evident. I'd like to get a view of them in action, other than the standard photos on the Salamader website. Thanks! Colin

In the immortal words of Marv Albert - "Yessssssssssss" Congrats Rob, job well done! C

I'm a closet high wattage guy as well, but don't admit to it too often in public, mostly because I fear the tube guys might pummel me their caps and triodes. I've got my Chorus II's hooked up to a 300 watt/channel Carver Lightstar. The sound is smooth and neutral, even at higher volume levels. I've heard good tubes and bad solid state, and vice-versa, often with little correlation to the price tag. As many have already pointed out, it's how it sounds to you that matters. In my case, the Lightstar and Chorus combo makes music (as opposed to noise), and that's what counts. Plus I always have a spare power source if I need to do some arc welding around the house... C

RS-7's make for a nice combination with the Chorus/Forte/Quartet front-end. I use them with my Chorus II's, and they sound great! C

Jhawk is right on, as usual. I used to have a KLF-C7 matched with my Chorus II's. While the KLF-C7 is a good speaker in its own right, it is not an ideal match with the Chorus or Forte speakers. It tends to be more "shouty" (excuse the technical term) and therefore stood out amongst the front soundstage. I realized audio (or at least home theater) nirvana with the Academy, thanks to some gentle prodding from JHawk. There is no center channel now, as distinguished from the left and right channels. There is simply a transparent soundstage emerging from the front of my viewing area. You can't distinguish the speakers, and the sound is uniformly smooth and seamless. My recommendation - find an Academy - or preferably two -one for you, and one for Chuck. C

Hey...cool avatar.... C

LOL...thanks for adding a little levity Jim, we sure need it here these days... Colin

All I can add is a big "thank you" to the brave men and women who serve in our armed forces, both past and present. I too was glued to CNN's coverage of the 7th Cavalry racing through the desert last night. I'm proud of them and proud of our country. C

Colin, Colin, Colin, Your hands must be getting tired cutting and pasting that same old Carver story. In defense of Carver products, the M series (200T, 400T, 1.0t, 1.5t, etc.) are all old magnetic field designs. They were tremendous engineering achievements for their time, but c'mon, they are 20 year old designs. Paired with Klipsch, they may or may not make music. They will make noise, as the magnetic field designs were always known for transformer hum (which our good old Klipsch will faithfully reproduce). Jim Croft led a design in the early 90's which radically altered the engineering topology of Carver amps. Most of the breakthroughs came as the team engineered the legendary Lightstar amp. The Lightstar was based on the principle of a tracking power supply, which provided high current and could drive almost any load. Carver had tried to build such an amp in the 70's and 80's, but eventually gave up and opted for the mag field design instead. The result of Croft's work was the Carver Lightstar, which every reviewer who auditioned it remarked at how absolutely neutral it was. The problem with the Lightstar was that it had to be built by hand, and employed some very sophisticated circuitry in order to achieve a signal tracking voltage that is infinitely variable. The result carried a price tag of $4,000, which took it out of mass market reach. Croft and his team took the learnings from the Lightstar and created a series of Carver amps that utilized a similar topology to the Lightstar, but with design tradeoffs to cut cost. The biggest tradeoff was the application of three discrete rail voltages as opposed to an infinitely variable implementation. The result, as many reviewers observed, was an amp that was very smooth, could drive difficult loads, and sounded remarkably like the Lightstar. The TFM 35x and 55x amps are based on this design, as are the later A-series amps. By this point, Bob Carver had left Carver and founded Sunfire (actually, the board booted old Bob and then proceeded to run the company into bankruptcy). Bob took the original Lightstar design and created Sunfire. The Sunfire amps also feature tracking power supplies. As a matter of fact, the tracking power supply is at the core of Sunfire's subwoofers as well...they are the reason why such prodigious power can emanate from such a small footprint. Bob stated that he "voiced" the Sunfire amps on the side of being slightly warmer than the Lightstar (I believe through the insertion of 1 ohm resistors at the output stages). The Lightstar, on the other hand, has been touted as dead on neutral (nothing added, nothing subtracted). Tube-o-philes who have heard it are amazed at how...shudder to saw..."tubelike" it sounds. Enough of the history lesson. I always chuckle when folks denigrate the old Carvers and then tout their Sunfires. They're all a product of continuous engineering evolution. But as Colin and others have pointed out repeatedly, it's how it sounds at the end of the day that really matters. If a particular solid state sounds good with your Klipsch, go for it. If a tube amp is a better combo with your beloved PWKs, congratulations as well. But don't dismiss a product because of the name on the faceplate until you've actually heard it with your set-up. You might just be surprised. My 2 cents, FWIW... Colin (the other one)

Jt1stcav, Well said. "Sometimes it's not always the most popular guy that gets the job done." Gordon Gekko C

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?spkrfull&1053175697&2&3&4&

I bet Justin could digitally alter that first image to put a Klipsch logo on the side of Mike's vette... C

Mike, You forgot to mention the most important thing after family and career...how's your handicap??? We up here in the Northeast are jealous of folks who get to play all year, while we patiently wait for the snow to melt on our favorite course. Glad to see you back... C

If you look at my signature, you'll see I've got Carver amps powering my entire system. I used to have M1.0ts powering the system, but those old Magnetic Field amps could be very noisy (hummmm.....) with ultra sensitive Klipsch. I then upgraded the system to TFM 35x's (not a mag field design) in an attempt to weed out the noise and get a more tube-like sound from the system. The 35x's were designed to emulate the legendary Carver Lightstar amp at a more down to earth price. Last year, I had the opportunity to purchase one of the 77 Lightstars ever produced, and it sounds superb with my Klipsch. Forget the specs -- I'll never use the 300 WPC or come anywhere close -- but the neutral sound, total absence of noise, and dynamic quality of the amp is outstanding. None of the harshness you'd typically associate with a powerful solid state are present in the Lightstar. I now have the 35x's powering the centers and surrounds. I have to tell you, they really do a teriffic job of emulating the Lightstar (they were built to sound like the Lightstar, but didn't employ as sophisticated circuitry, and hence retailed for about quarter of the Lightstar's MSRP). They are quiet and very smooth -- most notably in the midrange -- and have a very pleasing top-end. Any harshness that existed in the system before has since been eradicated. I really enjoy both Carver products. And yes, even though Carver has gone through bankruptcy, you can still get them serviced through Sunfire. Like many, I've had all kinds of amps in and out of my system since my first Klipsch purchase. But I'm keeping these. Perhaps one day, when time and money permit, and the little one is older, I'll set-up a 2 channel system based on a tube amp. But for those of us who can't devote the resources to the proper care and feeding of a tube amp, the Carver solid states I've referenced sound awfully good (dare I say tube-like??) My 2 cents, FWIW.... C

I have an M&K MX-100 (it's now referred to as the MX-200) and it does a great job seamlessly integrating with my Chorus II's. Easylistener is spot on -- the bass is very, very tight. C

A higher damping factor is not always a good thing. High damping factors generally equate to very low output impedances (remember, we're talking ratios here). To get very low output impedance, the amplifier design probably has a lot of negative feedback. Unless designed very carefully, an amp with negative feedback will probably exhibit more phase shift than an amplifier that has less negative feedback - and that means it will distort the sound. The more phase shift, the more distortion. So damping factor shouldn't be taken out of context -- it's one barometer among many to use when evaluating an amp's performace. C

There was an interesting article written a year or so ago than lends a lot of creedence to the configuration Steve has described. The study configured a 6.1 and 7.1 system with various commbinations of monopoles, dipoles and direct radiating speakers for the surrounds and rear center. As Steve has pointed out, the room configuration has a lot to do with what sounds best. In the article, I seem to recall that the author found that a 6.1 configuration generally sounded better if the surrounds were dispersion type designs but the rear was a direct radiating speaker. This configuration tended to better anchor the sound, without being overly localized or overly dispersed. Interestingly enough, the author found that in a 7.1 system, the use of direct radiating speakers for the rear centers tended to cause the listener to localize on the right or left rear center channel, therefore degrading the surround experience. There was some discussion of the way the human ear processes sounds, particularly when the listener is closer to one rear speaker than the other. Net-net, it was a very interesting article...I'll post the link this evening if I can find it. C

Folks, My apologies if any of my previous posts appeared to come off as hostile. That was never my intent. We have a motto at work that says be tough on the problem, not on the people. That approach, combined with the impersonal nature of text-only exchanges, can leave one with the impression of hostility, whereas only frank and direct dialog was intended. Again, my apologies if Ive offended anyone with my style. That being said, I think the exchange over the past several days illustrates the difficulty of making a purchase over the Internet from someone unknown to you. If I walk into an authorized retailer, I pretty much know what Im getting. Likewise, if I buy something thats just fallen off the back of the truck, I also know what Im getting. But making a purchase sight unseen from an individual over the Internet forces you to be a smart customer. Its my hard-earned money at stake, which means I get to ask the questions. If I like the responses I receive in return, I buy; if not, I walk. Thats my inalienable right as the guy holding the greenbacks. While my Socratic method of questioning might have been interpreted as too harsh, at the end of the day the facts were laid out for all to review. Fact: The person in question is not yet an authorized Halo retailer. Nothing against that person as an individual (I actually enjoyed my email exchanges with him). Fact: Buying from an unauthorized dealer precludes me from receiving warranty coverage. Once the facts are out on the table, each person can individually choose whether or not to pursue a deal. As for another posters suggestion that I take my warranty and conduct a home proctology exam, that may work if we were talking about a 90 day warranty on a $200 VCR. But thats not the case here. The item in question here has an MSRP of $4000. One of the features of the product is a 10 year manufacturers warranty. Parasound is one of the few companies in the consumer electronics industry that has such an extended warranty. Having previously sent back a Parasound product for repair after six years of service, I can personally vouch for how superb their warranty service is. So yes, it is a big deal for me to understand whether or not Im entitled to receive warranty coverage. Suppose I sold you a component over the Internet for a great deal, but upon receipt you came to find out that the unit was missing the faceplate. You might be a little perturbed. No, the lack of a faceplate doesnt impact the component's musical reproduction, but it is a feature that you reasonably expected (the lack of which I should have disclosed as the seller). The same applies to the warranty. Some of you have pointed out that for the money saved on such a deal, I should be willing to source parts and fund any future repairs. While I can do that, I have the right to decide in advance whether Im willing to tradeoff warranty coverage for the option of self service. I get to make that choice, since Im the consumer (see above). Please dont make that choice for me, or assume Im just as happy not knowing. As for the likelihood that Parasound scrambled the jets on their dealer network after receiving my call, I highly doubt it. The call was very brief and innocuous, and didnt mention names or prices. Why would I want to scuttle a deal I could potentially take advantage of? While others my ascribe my actions as naiveté, I call it being a smart customer and finding out what Im getting into. Again, as the customer, I get to ask the questions, assess the level of risk Im willing to accept, and proceed from there. You dont get to decide for me. Ive said my peace. As others have suggested, its probably time to put this to rest or take it offline, so Ill back off now and leave the posting to others. Just the facts, Maam... C

Media Design, I guess I can be counted among the "few people here (who) blew it for the rest of you." But nothing I've stated in my previous posts has been factually incorrect. You are not currently an authorized Halo retailer by your own admission (above). As such, you cannot offer a factory backed warranty on Halo units you sell, per Parasound's own warranty policy (below): "In order to insure maximum customer satisfaction, Authorized Parasound Dealers are, with only rare exception, prohibited from selling our products by phone, mail, or over the Internet. Before purchasing Parasound products over the net (or by phone of mail order), be certain to check with Parasound to verify that the seller is an Authorized Parasound Dealer, because Parasound products which are purchased from anyone other than an Authorized Parasound Dealer are expressly excluded from Parasound's warranties. Parasound's warranties, like our products, are exceptional. Don't make the mistake of buying from someone who has chosen not to meet our qualifications, and in doing so run the risk of being sold not only the wrong product, but one for which you have no warranty protection!" Futhermore, when I contacted Parasound directly, I was told that the Halo line was being sold factory direct to a limited group of retailers, all of whom were listed on the Parasound Halo website. If I were to purchase from anyone else, Parasound informed me that I would not be eligible for warranty protection. Rather than being "obscure" as some have referenced, I've tried to turn up the contrast and reveal the facts. As such, this affords each individual the opportunity to gauge the risks and make an informed decision based on complete information. I plead guilty as charged if that's what I'm being accused of... Caveat emptor, C

Sorry gang, but I think I'm being vilified here for looking under the covers and casting a bit of a critical eye. So let's lay the cards out on the table, shall we? We can get to the bottom of this issue pretty quickly, as facts are always our friends. I have three simple questions for Media Design. 1. Are you an authorized Parasound Halo retailer? 2. If yes, why aren't you listed on Parasound's Authorized Dealer list for Halo? 3. Are you the same company as Legacy Media Design in Texas, or are you a different company? I was under the impression it was the latter, as your contact name and number are completely different from Legacy Media Design. Thanks in advance, C