HTADDICT

I think I'm going to go the ROTEL route, a used 1095 seems to go around the 1,400 dollar mark, seems they hold value pretty well. My choices are Aragon 1st, Rotel 2nd, sunfire 3rd. Just my order of what I like, feel free to persuade me.

Ever thought about adding a buttkicker? They are great!

LOL, yeah I suppose you are right, I have a buddy who is totally into the video side of it, has a nice denon dvd, panny 900 & 106" screen, but his AUDIO side of it is pretty low/midgrade. I wish I could agree completely with you, but I feel I added my tensioned 92" electric draper & panasonic 700 more for my guests than myself, I am pretty content to watch on my 32" sony. I'm way more proud of my RF-7's and svs subs than I am my projector. (it's just hard to tell someone you have an awesome HT system and the first thing they say is "cool how big of a TV do ya got?............uggggh!) People who aren't into this are way more easily impressed with a big TV (it doesn't matter wether you paid 1,500 or 15,000 just as long as it's big.....again uuuggghhhh), than when you tell them about your audio part. Half of the time when I tell people what I have they say "yeah I've got some big speakers too, my pioneer 12"s are really loud!" uuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhhhh! It's only here where I find the people to be a little more refined when it comes to good HT![]

atomic... that's kinda how I felt when I added my rf-7's as my surround speakers combined with my rs3ii's (I run dual surrounds, my rf-7's are on an amp). I am a huge fan of the lotr series and found that adding the towers on my surround channels was a huge improvement over just my rs3ii's. Anything to make lotr's better is worth it to me, I wish someone else could add floorstanders in surround position and watch lotr so they could confirm what I thought was a huge improvement. It's also good to know that the spectacle setting is good from someone else, there's just so many settings that you never seem to know until you get someone else to agree with you! []

I would stick to matching products, the idea is to match each speaker tonally.

I am using the yamaha rxv-757 and it is powering 6 rf-7's an rc-7 2 rb-10's and a pair of rs3ii's. Also employed are 2 svs pc-ultra's controlled by a velodyne sms-1. My dvd player is a sony it does double duty for music and dvd's. Now that you know what I am listening on I can tell you the rxv-757 does just fine for 9.1 or 9.2+2 in my case. Even though I'm powering some pretty power hungry speakers it hasn't missed a beat and barely ever gets mildly warm. I listen to my movies using mostly the "spectacle" setting and if you like LOTR this setup is wicked for it!!! I was a long time sony ES fan but moved to the yamaha when I bought the RF-7's, I noticed a much more "clearer" sound with alot less straining to hear voices or soft passages, the yamaha and klipsch together makes for a very dynamic presentation that makes it very easy to understand the diolouge. I think it works great for home theater which is 99% of what I use it for. For music, I don't know, I just don't seem to be too happy, it seems like when you start to get them to really sing it gets pretty stressfull on the ears. But then again I have yet to do any room acoustic treatments, which has probably got more to do with it then the system does. I also like the "night mode" for late time viewing. It has plenty of setup features to accomadate for rooms but lacks hdmi, which for the most part I could care less about, for now component is just fine for my projector and I can always by a swicher or scaler down the road when they figure out what they are going to do with hdmi. I plan on adding amps next and eventually fasing out the 757, but I am happy with it's performance so far.

I had a ksw12 then added a ksw15, then added a pc-ultra and a second pc-ultra. I liked the ksw12 but added the ksw15, while the 15 definently put out more, I for some reason thought the ksw 12 sounded better. But the two together worked pretty well. Flash forward a couple years to present, I bought one pc-ultra, it was pretty much at least six times the sub of the two ksw's put together, low clean bass without any port noise like the ksw's had. You could always tell where the bass came from on the ksw's, the pc-ultra dissapeared into the room. When I added the second pc-ultra that's when the magic really happend. Two of these are like twenty ksw-12's. IF I had too choose between the 12 or the 15ksw, the 15 wins. But the svs's are in a different race alltogether.

I have the rxv-757 & RF-7's all the way around, Yamaha is perfect for Home theater, it's bright but really helps out on diolouge, listening to music the denons are better. No problem here, perfectly sweet sounding.

I'm covering my ears and going lalalalala, man I just bought six rf-7's, they could come up with a speaker that looks like pamela anderson & sounds like berry white and nora jones singing in the shower together!!! I'm not looking at buying another darn thing[]

Welcome to the forum, and congradulations on your speaker purchase. It's hard to get a good quality system for under 1,000 bucks anymore so you did well. Klipsch is great for home theater and what you have now will help you step up to bigger and better in the future. Time has a funny way of catching up so farrrr in the future can come quicker than you think. My first HT purchase was a technics receiver that did dolby digital my second year of college. Eleven short years later and I can't believe how good my system is now! (killer system, that came with a wife and 4 kids). I wouldn't be in as big of a rush to add the back 2 channels as I would a good subwoofer, while your speakers will do just fine, they aren't quite able to keep up with some of the deep audio tracks on todays dvd's, I'd be looking at a subwoofer first and formost so you can set your speakers to small and send that info to something a little more capable. I'd reccomend at minimum a 12" sub, it's probably the funnest part of a good home theater system, and will take alot of stress off of your speakers and your receiver. I happen to have a Klipsch ksw15 that I am no longer in need of since I upgraded to dual svs pc-ultra's. If you are interested let me know. (college bills come first though![]) As far as receivers go, I'm sure you can do alot better than a HTIB one, but as long as you are getting DD&dts you can hang onto it for as long as it takes you to afford something better down the road, I use a yamaha at the moment, some people prefer the denons, there are alot of brands out there that do well. Congrats & happy upgrading.... as it never ends!

Formica & scooterdog, if you guys are looking at some lighting down the road, I can't say enough about the people at smarthome, I called them a couple of times and there techs were great, even when I had no clue what I was talking about they were able to put me on the right track. They are first class all the way!! They have good prices too, always seem to have different specials. I cannot reccomend any switches as there are a bunch of them and they have different ones to suit different applications, but I can recommend the IR x-10 command console 4040 as it works really well. (the switch I bought supports scenes but is a stand alone switch and not meant to be used with any other x-10 switches)

Great room, how about some x-10 lighting? If you put that column lighting on x-10 you could set a delay dimming, when you hit off on your remote it would slowly dim them to off. Easily done with macro's on a remote. X-10 is cheap and easy, just buy the IR controller (35.00) and a switch (35.00) and you're in x-10 scene lighting heaven. It's a really cool effect and let's you operate things from your chair. Gives it that movie theater feel. Plus how many really cool things can you buy for under 100.00?

Nice rack!!!! That looks like a sweet pinnacle of power you got there. The 3005 is on the top of my shortlist of amps.

Good point on the crossover filter, it is another link in the chain, one has to ask himself, is the chance of lesser quality sound higher by using the crossover filter, or higher by setting them to large and adding extra strain on the amplifier and introducing more low freq. waves into the equation.

I had to dig this one up and put in another post because it has been one of those topics that I've been thinking about since I first read it here. When I first posted I had a couple of beers in me and had some pretty strong opinions on just where george lucas could put his thx, while I still feel that way about any big marketing ploy, I am coming around to that way of thinking due to some system upgrades. I now have six rf-7's, 2 rb10's, and 2 rf-3 ii's all employed for hometheater duty in my setup........and now I just added 2 svs pc-ultra's that are being controlled by the velodyne sms-1. Before I had the very capable dual subs, and all of my other current speakers, I do believe setting them to large was not such a big deal, I was getting good bang in the right places, sounded good enough I suppose. NOW when I look around at six rf-7's and those 2 big subs I think about things like standing waves, bass boost due to room acoustics, nulls that I can't get rid of, room reflections, and the simple fact that what I am trying to acheive is the best, most accurate sound from the listening position. I bought the RF-7's because I liked the fact that they sounded good from the bottom octave to the top, setting them to small or crossing them over at 80 doesn't mean that they will sound any less good at 80 and above, if anything they will sound better due to the fact that my receiver doesn't have to strain to supply the subwoofer effect that they are capable of and a little less cabinent resonace can't be a bad thing either. For that matter they can be a pretty demanding speaker, and for home theater (not 2 channel listening) the 80hz and up is all anyone can really hear reliably anyway, and that is what home theater surround channels are meant to do, steer sound in the right directions! This has become even more evident now that I bought the velodyne sms-1, it's one thing to talk about room acoustics, nulls, standing waves, room reflections, phase, boost in certain hz regions, cubic space the sub has to fill, etc.etc. It's another thing to see it on screen how opening a door can totally change your response curve. What I'm getting at is, the whole point of buying the velodyne sms-1 was to get the most and best sounding slam I could possably get out of my svs pc-ultra's, and to visually see it onscreen that not only what I was hearing could not only be felt but also verified on screen with a nice flat response, but when you introduce six rf-7's or any other full range speakers into the equation, you might as well forget it because it is impossable. You are constantly getting a boost in a hz region where you don't want it, or your getting a standing wave canceling out one that you do. So when I look around at my stuff, even though I have RF-7's all the way around, I don't look at it as I'm loseing the power that those big woofers will put out, I'm gaining the clarity of what I really bought them for, plus I'm letting the dual svs pc-ultra's do what they do best and give me clean clear thumping bass. Props to Mr.McGoo for makeing me think. []

Ditto on the kung-fu movies, you have to see Kung Pow - all time funniest!!.......also monty pythons seach for the holy grail.

Also check out videogone (it usually has less expensive stuff than audiogone). At that price, in that size of room for 6.1 you are pretty limited.

RB-75's all the way around would be killer. Your diy screen idea would be good. low cost so you can buy other stuff until you can afford a really good screen. Projectors are like a car, always new models, they need maintance(bulb life) and just when you get it paid off, it's not worth anything. Get the cheapest with the most performance. bang for buck !!!!! After you get your important long term stuff done, it will be time to replace that projector anyway. The IB sub mentioned before would be the dream sub, if you can't diy - allocate alot more in this department because it is what your friends will be most impressed with. svs ultra's or velodyneDD, klipsch rsw-15 or thx subs. With all the changes in hdmi, and a new HD audio format comeing out, I really can't reccomend a receiver or pre-pro right now. I bought a yamaha rxv-757 to get me through. Yamaha is great for movies with klipsch, but I can't really recommend it for music, unless paired with a good amp. IMO My advice is to either wait, or not sink alot of money on a receiver at this moment. Accesories, a good remote, some x-10 lighting, buttkickers, an spl meter and some setup dvd's. Spend the most money on things that last!!!

It's a little less critical what you use as back surrounds, but it's always nice knowing you have a good tonal match for all your speakers, I would look at the rb-75's or rf-7's first and second choice would be the rs-7 if you didn't have room for a floor stander.

The RF-7's are very good for the money, I had rf-3's and upgraded to the 7's, then I upgraded everything until I had 7's all the way around, and I did it at a substantially lower price than what you were quoted by purchasing used. Don't worry about feeding them gobs of power right away just be careful not to overdo it, they are fine with my 100x7 yamaha for now, until I can afford a good amp. The biggest upgrade for the money was the rc-7 over the rc-3. Plus it's fun knowing you have the biggest pair![] (in the reference line)

How about this, you know you are going to replace whatever receiver and speakers you buy now, with a dream system later so how about purchasing them items in that bang for buck category. You should check out the AVS forum, when it comes to finding that point of diminishing return on an item it is definently hashed out on that forum. You could definently find that best bang for the buck item there! Picking out a budget system is fun, it's when you try to get that be-all-end-all system is when it gets serious. If I were picking out a budget system I knew I was going to replace it would go something like this: 1.Panasonic xr55 receiver ($225.00?) or yamaha htr5860 receiver ($325.00?) 2.Panasonic s77 dvd player($200.00?) 3.Piece together the best KLIPSCH system I could, focusing on the best center channel I could get and trying to match the rest of the speakers around it with a good set of towers also. (you might be mismatched for a little while, but these are just temporary right?) 4. Last but not least, here is where I would try to allocate most of my funds, even if I had to wait to fully complete my klipsch speaker system by buying used or ebay stuff..........the subwoofer, the reason I would buy the biggest baddest sub I could afford, is it is the anchor in a cheaper sytem, with your budget you are probably not going to be getting anything that can really nock your socks off in the bass department. A sub is not something that outdates easily like a receiver, it doesn't have to be brand matched like your mains, center and surrounds, so if you upgrade you can still keep your sub. And it's something you can enjoy now, and integrate into a future system and have less to buy later. Not to mention it will make everyone OOOH and AHHHH, My suggestion would be to get the best svs you can afford, they are the bang for the buck subs, and is what I plan on purchasing also. I do not own any of these (except for a yamaha rxv-757 receiver), so make your own choices, but I don't think you could go wrong with a 1.great sub, 2.Bang for the buck reciever, 3.workhorse panasonic s77 dvd player 4.temporary klipsch system until you can build that dream one. Good luck!

surprisingly enough, I kept my rs3ii's and added a pair of rf-7's. Kept my rs3ii's exactly where they were, left them hooked up to the receiver power,......put a pair of rf-7's directly below them, ran them off of an old kenwood amp 200x2 via surround preamp outs, and I really liked the results. The benefits are that you get a little extra of everything, directness of the rf-7, and the tonal match, and the rs-3's high above them give it that extra wide, dispersed sound. Really adds alot to the surround sound. Plus an extra pair of Klipsch's in the house are always welcome! If you can at least try a tower along with your existing surrounds. I don't know if many are doing this, but I am.

I will like to see what you choose, cause I feel the exact same way, lots of choices! Mine are rotel, aragon, sunfire, sherbourn. (the best combo imo would be aragon 3005 & 2 palladiums) but I really like the looks of the rotel.

Thanks westcott, yeah I came off a little gruff there, My only reason for saying that is, there is a lot of power and money behind a thx liscensing, and in the end the little guy ends up $paying for it$. I fought getting ICAR certified tooth and nail, because I know it's a racket, you pay them a couple of hundred bucks per test and they give you a patch that's worth a buck and a half that says your certified to do repairs. It's nothing more that a pyramid scheme if you ask me, the tests are not hard, and an ICAR patch says absolutely nothing about your abilities. If people need that thx liscensing to feel good about their purchase, that's ok by me too. But to be fair, yes george lucas has been a great pioneer, and it's good to standardize things if they are done well and for the right reasons. Just be aware that it does have a very good potential to shut out any other advancement's that don't seem to fit the THX platform, or for any other reason that the "powers that be" decide to come up with. I do not think that the THX technology is bad, I just don't care for any process that says unless you have the thx badge, you probably aren't as good. Maybe BS was a little harsh[:$]

I agree with colter, who made george lucas god of thx, I'll belive him when he comes and sets up my sytem in my house, thx is a bunch of BS if you ask me.