Home theatre stereo for new house

[pHEnomIC69]

So, my family is in the process of moving. I am away at college but I do go home from time to time.



We had a meeting with our structured wiring guy. We are gettin the works with wired stuff.

So, onto the Home theatre.

The structured wire guy is trying to get us to go
with a 4.1 Klipsch r3650w setup with a rw12d subwoofer. I am not sure,
maybe he is planning a 5.1, will have to find out. He is charging 2400$
for the speakers, sub, to flush mount the speakers in the wall, and to
do wiring. I am familiar with klipsch products and I do know they are
some of the best.



I havent had time to do research on home theatre lately. Do you think
we should take this offer or should I just do the wiring myself and get
better speakers for the money (if these aren't that good), I probably
wont be able to mount the speakers in the wall myself but i was never a
fan of that anyways. I was going to use klipsch speakers anyways but I
dont know much about their HT speakers, I have been into their Computer speakers for the most part.
I want this setup to sound awesome, to pound, and not get outdated.

At our current house: We have a 56'' standard tv,
tons of decks and capability to play dvds, video, games, laserdiscs,
radio, casettes, cds, etc. We had a fancy wall unit built to hold
everything and we have inwall speakers. The idiots who did this when i
was small used very low quality bose speakers and left out wires so
nothing worked right. I modernized the system a couple years ago and
rewired everything so it all worked.

Any and all help is appreciated. If anyone wants to chat on aim hit me up at : phenomic69 or icq: 17354672

[Capa]

IMed you

[DrWho]

Considering the amount of work involved that sounds like a reasonable quote. Instead of mounting speakers in the walls, what options do you have for normal floorstanding or bookshelf type speakers? I would think it more practical to have your wiring guy run wire in the room to prep it for 7.1 sound in multiple configurations. There are fancy wall plate terminal jacks with banana plugs that can be mounted near the floor at every speaker location. There is then a master jack panel near where the reciever would go where you just connect short jumper wires inbetween. When you prep the room for mulitple directions, you simply wire everything in parallel and just not connect anything to the panels you're not using. Of course this is all overkill - I have no problems running wire across the floors.

For what it's worth, I would take the Synergy F3 package over anything wall mounted packages. The sound will be infinitely superior and speakers really should be part of the furniture in the room. Not something you try to hide.

[PhilMays]

I agree with Dr Who. I love to look at the speakers. Sometime I am amazed and find myself simply staring at the system while music is playing.

Usually (DTels wife excluded) women are the ones who want everything hidden. Sometimes you have to choose your battles!

In the family room I will loose everytime. Speakers and everything hidden, but in my Den of Horrors...OMG...I would set a speaker on everyones lap if I could!!!

[mas]

Just a suggestion...

I would not mount the speakers 'in' the wall...and thus benefit from the lessons learned in the studios and the building technique pioneered by Russ Berger.

By this I mean, if you choose to flush mount them, I would mount them on pedestals that connect only to the foundation while avoiding any coupliing to the wall structure. The resonance and secondary transmission issues avoided will be well worth the small amount of work needed to do this in the pre-build stage of contruction. If this cannot be done, I would not recommend mounting them in the walls.

If anyone desires more info on this mounting technique, please PM me.

[pHEnomIC69]

Ok so the decision has been made. We aren't going to flush
mount our speakers, so now lets say we got 1000-2000$ to work with.
Give me a good recommendation on an awesome setup with sub, and
receiver.

Can you guys lean me towards a 5.1 or 7.1 system? I
am not too familiar with 7.1 but if it is going to be the norm anytime
soon, might as well go to it.

[DrWho]

I think you might be able to swing the Synergy F3 system for around that price:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=999959200050003&st=Klipsch&lp=17&type=product&cp=1&id=pcmprd59400050003

You might need to back it down to a 5.1 if you need to purchase a reciever too. You can always add the extra channels later. For reciever I would recommend something along the lines of a Denon AVR 1907
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7862654&st=Reciever&lp=3&type=product&cp=1&id=1151658134647

Keep in mind additional costs like speaker wire and interconnects. The guys at Best Buy will try to sell you the expensive stuff - I would recommend going to your local radio shack and just buying their "Radio Shack Gold" cables (not the monster cable).

The important thing here is to have long term goals and slowly build your system to where you want it to be in 5-10 years. I can think of plenty of lessor 7.1 systems you could afford, but you'll probably end up wanting to upgrade them in the future. Anything you buy now that you won't use in the future will pretty much hurts you in the long run as you will never get your money back from reselling. Heck, you might even consider getting a real nice 2-channel system for now and then expanding it out down the road. But these kinds of decisions are all up to you as you know best what you want now and in the future.

What percentage TV/Movie/Music listening do you do?

[Capa]

I could get you a pair of RF-52s (towers), a pair of RB-51s(bookshelf surrounds), and an RC-52(center) for $1050+shipping, then add a Pioneer 1016 for around $425 and an Elemental Designs A2-300 sub at $235...would be a pretty solid starter system.

Another solid option would be SVS SBS-01 surround package which runs $1200 for 4 surrounds, the center, and the PB12-NSD sub. You could make it 7.1 for another 200 bucks

We really need to know what size speakers you will be allowed to put in the LR...is a 4 foot tall, 120 pound KLF30 an option? Do they need to stay bookshelf sized?