I'm newly registered here, thanks for the opportunity.
I'm adding three speakers and AVR to make functional a finished home theater in a recently purchased house. The builder of the home theater was a home theater business owner. We purchased from the second owner who did not build the theater. I can probably locate and communicate with the original builder if necessary.
The theater is now minus the AVR, front left speaker, front right speaker, and front center speaker.
The room is 16' X 12'6". The ceiling is 9'.
The room is a bedroom space purpose built as a home theater.
It has full acoustic treatment, unverified below the finish fabric but appears to be multiple inch thick foam-board, insulating drywall, and acoustic caulk. Very well done visually.
Elevated platform for second row seating. Completely carpeted.
I have verified with the door closed sound is nearly completely contained within the theater room.
There are currently 5 ceiling speakers, 2 rear wall speakers, and one sub-woofer.
The ceiling speakers are all SpeakerCraft AIM7 three's.
The ceiling speakers are arranged three across in front, two in back.
The front row of three ceiling speakers are 33" from the front wall/screen. They are located 43" from the outside wall with the center splitting the distance between the other two.
The two ceiling rear speakers are 46" from the rear wall. They are located 30" from the outside wall.
I can not verify brand/model of the rear wall speakers, but feeling the outline through the wall fabric indicates an enclosed 19-21" X 8-10" separate woofer/tweeter speaker. It seems likely these are SpeakerCraft brand.
The rear wall speakers center-line is 27" from the outside wall, and 67" from the floor.
The sub is a SpeakerCraft cinema sub 12.
The sub-woofer is located in the front left, built into the wall. This cinema 12 is in an AccuTuneBox 12, and driven by a Bass Power 250.
The listener height front left, front right, and front center channel speakers are not present but the wiring is.
I'm looking into a used set of EMP E55Ti's and E56Ci from a member here.
The budget for AVR is $1000, preferring to keep around $750.
Owing to this budget used or discontinued will be considered.
I have been considering last years models, like the Yamaha RX-A2030.
The theater use will be 50/50 satellite/dvd-bluray.
There will be little if any music streaming with this system.
The satellite connection (DirecTV genie) is already installed.
The projector is a Runco CL-420 showing a max resolution of 1080i.
There needs to be one HDMI output for another display just outside of the theater room.
This display has a max resolution of 1080i.
This display will have audio provided by an older Technics analog stereo system with four tower speakers.
The use of this system will be 70/20/10 music/satellite/game.
This display will be controlled by the same DirecTv genie as the theater.
The DVD/bluray player is a PS3.
My preliminary thought is to use four of the ceiling corner speakers as front height and side/rear surround speakers as part of a 9.1 channel array and leaving one ceiling speaker unused.
I assume I would need THX certified or Dolby Pro Logic IIz capable AVR to account for the height surrounds.
I have no idea which calibration type would be best for this approach.
I am hesitant to open up the fabric covering on the rear speakers to positively identify them.
I would like to use the existing speakers up to the point of minimally sacrificing sound quality.
I would likely go with a 5.1 system versus the expense of adding other on-axis speakers if the existing ceiling speakers are unusable.
Please recommend a suitable AVR, advise on using the ceiling speakers for surround (I have read on the inherent compromises of ceiling speakers), or educate me on any point of my plan.
