Best Home Theater under 3K

[spike99]

Hello to all, new to this forum.

Looking for some suggestions when building my Home theater.

Basically I have a 13x14 room that I'm setting up my home theater. My receiver is a Denon 4308 and I mostly watch blue ray movies.


Honestly, I'm a bit clueless what speaker I should get but I want to keep it all under 3K.

I have my eye on Polk Audio and leaning towards the following speakers
2 Front speakers RTi A7 $1,100
Center speakers CSi A6 $450
2 Rear speaker FXi A6 $560
Sub DSW PRO 600 $680
Total $2,790

I would appreciate if anyone has any thoughts about my selection and if you have any other good suggestions, I would like to hear them.

Thanks in advance.

[GranteedEV]

I got two sets of suggestions:

a)
2 x Epik Legend subwoofer - $900
2 x Emotiva ERD-1 surround - 289
3 x Ascend 340 fronts - 568 + 30 + 298 + 20
3 x Ascend Pedestal stands - 100 + 30 + ???

b) Aperion holiday sale O_O Intimus 6T system

http://www.aperionaudio.com/catalog/...otions,76.aspx

and then get a second bravus 12D.

Either option will blow the polks out of the water.

-Also consider option A with EMP Tek Impressions, JTR, and Aperion Verus Grand fronts. Stick with the Emotiva surrounds, they're that good.

[shadyJ]

I like the idea of Ascend speakers, but JTRs would be wasted in that room. I would steer away from the Aperions due to their weak sub, although I think the speakers would be OK. The Epik subwoofers would do fine but for the money I would rather go for some Outlaw Audio LFM Pluses or LFM EXs, or some Hsu VTF2 or VTF3s, if you have room for them. They would have more punch and deeper bass, and you could use them as speaker stands since they have the correct height. For the surrounds I would go with Ascend CBM170s, I prefer the sound of direct radiating speakers over bipoles or dipoles. A system like that would sound terrific and come in under budget.

Take some of the money saved and look into room treatments if you haven't already, it would be a very good idea for a dedicated theater. If you have nothing but hard, bare surfaces for walls, it could really diminish the sound due to reflectivity. Look into acoustic dampening. Trust me, it would be better to have good speakers in a treated room rather than perfect speakers in a acoustically reflective environment. You should view your room as a part of the speaker system.

[GranteedEV]

I would steer away from the Aperions due to their weak sub, although I think the speakers would be OK.

weak sub? It's got dual 12" drivers, 500w amplifier and was well reviewed.

[shadyJ]

Yeah, that sounded worse then I meant to say. I don't think the Bravus is a bad sub, what I meant was it doesn't present as great as performance value as other internet direct subwoofer vendors do. I should have said it isn't nearly as powerful as some other $1k subs out on the market instead of saying it was weak.

[spike99]

Thanks, I will start looking into your suggestions. I noticed that suggestions are mixing speakers from different companies... But in general I would prefer all speakers from same company.

Thanks for suggestions, I will start checking

[3db]

Check out the Command Performance Home Theater System as shown on this link:
http://www.psbspeakers.com/Image-home-theater-systems from PSB if you have dealer near by.

Audition as many speaker systems as you can possibly can.

What I would do is to take a pad of paper with you, write down the make and
model of each speaker you audition and what you liked and disliked about the
speakers you were auditioning. Was the bass tight and deep or was it boomy
and loose sounding? Were the mids life like or were they hollow or just too
pronounced? Was the treble irritating and harsh or were they dark and not
revealing or were they smooththat made you want to listen for more? How was the imaging?

Bring music with you that you are very familiar with and know quite well. To
make it easier to audition HT speaker systems, listen to the main speakers in 2
channel mode with music. Music is much harder to reproduce accurately then a movie soundtrack so if the speakers do well with music, then they will do well with HT. Speakers that do HT well may not do well with music. When auditioning the center channel of the same brand and series as the main speakers, pick a difficult source like an announcer that mumbles alot. If you can understand what the mumbling announcer is saying, then you have a good center channel.

I would go to speciality stores first and start auditioning speakers first
instead of going to the internet first. Once your likes are determined, you can
mention them here and fellow members can make internet brand recommendations based on your likes/dislikes. The specality stores are better setup acousticaly then the big box stores which will make auditioning a little easier. It will give you an idea of what you like in a speaker.

Keep track of what amp or receiver is powering the speakers you're auditioning. Try to get a receiver/amp that closest resembles what you have or want to get. It just reduces another variable when audtioning speakers.


One thing to keep note off. When auditioning speakers, make sure the volume
levels are matched between the diiferent speaker pairs because the louder
speaker pair will always sound better. Listen to levels that you think you
would listen to most of the time because thats how you are going to be using
them most of the time.

[spike99]

Yes, I suppose it makes sense that I audition for speaker at stores but at the same time, I would like to know ahead of time which speakers I should be asking about.

On a side note, I'm trying to replace my Bose Acoustimass 10 Series. but my understanding is that these sattellite speakers are not really good compared to what I'm looking for. I've had them for over 3 years now.

My current setup... I have my TV on my BDI cabinet.. I probably should have a TV mount on wall so that TV is not sitting on cabinet, but my idea was to have center speaker in speaker drawer which fits a center speaker with a maximun height of 8".

I started to check Aperion Intimus 6T, and seems good since its on sale... but found that the center speaker is 8.5" in height. If I place center speaker on top of my bdi, It will cover part of my TV. I may place my TV in a TV mount in the future... but don't know. So, for now, I would probably prefer a center speaker that it 8" or below so I can place in my BDI speaker drawer.

[RMRM]

I would like to say thats real good advice from 3db. I would like to add IMO keep the speakers the same. I had Axiom's with some Paradigm surrounds replaced the Paradigms with Axiom surrounds. It just brought the system together so IMO stay with the same speaker. Have a good one

[InTheIndustry]

Hello to all, new to this forum.

Looking for some suggestions when building my Home theater.

Basically I have a 13x14 room that I'm setting up my home theater. My receiver is a Denon 4308 and I mostly watch blue ray movies.


Honestly, I'm a bit clueless what speaker I should get but I want to keep it all under 3K.

I have my eye on Polk Audio and leaning towards the following speakers
2 Front speakers RTi A7 $1,100
Center speakers CSi A6 $450
2 Rear speaker FXi A6 $560
Sub DSW PRO 600 $680
Total $2,790

I would appreciate if anyone has any thoughts about my selection and if you have any other good suggestions, I would like to hear them.

Thanks in advance.

IMO, your layout is over under.... Over on your mains & under on subwoofer(s). But for your room, your budget ceiling is appropriate to really get something fantastic, if you buy smart!

Something like this would lay out aesthetically well with the mains & rears being on-wall....

3 - Jamo D500 LCR (THX Select on-wall in gloss piano black) http://www.jamo.com/eu-en/products/d...r-description/ . MSRP $349/ea x3 = $1050

2 - Jamo D500 SUR (THX Select Matching Dipole) http://www.jamo.com/eu-en/products/d...r-description/ . MSRP $699/pair

2 - Phase Technology PC SUB-WL10 (300 RMS/900 watt peak 10" powered front firing servo w/ 10" down firing radiator) http://www.phasetech.com/products.html?product_id=WL-10 $1538/ea x 2 = $3076.

Total MSRP = $4825
Total from a dealer who does strong volume in these two brands = (barely) under $3k. Trust me, I know this from experience

This system would destroy your room (in a good way), and allow for you to have a very clean look by keeping all of the speakers, save for the subs, off the floor. All of the speakers are available in gloss piano black as well. The subs are wireless (uncompressed up to 50') & outperform the similarly priced Velodyne Optimum series, which I will also vouch for from expereince. Although, the Velodynes are also excellent & could be inserted into this system for very close to the same price if you wanted to do so.