advice for my home theare

[Hojun Yu]

Hello

Could you give me an advice regarding the in-wall speakers and receiver for my new home theatre room?

The size of the room is about 19x25' with 7.1 speaker system and it would be
mostly for watching movies. Could you recommend some speakers and receiver?
The budget is around $10-15K.

Thank you
Hojun

 

[XEagleDriver]

Hojin Yu,

First off, welcome to the forum.

Your question is a bit vague and open ended, which may be why it has received little feedback thus far. Please be advised it is generally not helpful to post the same question in three different forum locations with slighlty different titles.
- If your post is not being answered, revise it or do a "bump" post to move it back at the top of the recent stack.

A) Here are some questions for you which will help forum members better formulate suggestions:
1) What primary uses do you see for the home theater (HT)?
(i.e. movies, gaming, music, all the above).
2) How tall is the ceiling?
- Room volume helps determine speaker/subwoofer needs.
2a) Are there any room features which will effect the sound?
(i.e. large reflective surfaces like hardwood floors, large windows, big openings to other rooms, etc.)
3) Why are you leaning towards using in-wall speakers?
- Most of us would not recommend this as the best option if sound quality (SQ) is important to you, but there are good reasons to go this route (i.e. small children/pets, WAF, multi-purpose room, etc.).

B) A $10-15k budget is very healthy and provides you almost too many options if you are new to HT.
That said, here are some ideas for you:
1) You may benefit from hiring a HT designer/installer if you do not know a lot about HT.
2) With your budget strongly consider accoustic room treatments and I would strongly consider including this.
3) Does the budget include seating, racks, media furniture or not?
4) In general, plan to spend ~50% of your budget on speakers and subwoofers (~70% if no room treatments); ~20% on room treatments; ~25% on electronics (receivers, amplifiers, players, etc.); and ~5% on wires/connectors.
- Using the low end of your budget ($10k) that would look like:
$5,000 on speakers/subs ($3k speakers/$2k subs)
$2,000 on accoustic room treatments (if not doing this put the $ into speakers/subs)
$2,500 on a display, receiver/amp, blu-ray/media player
$500 on cables and connectors

All for now,
Cheers,
XEagleDriver

 

[Hojun Yu]

Hello XEagledriver,

Apology for my vague question and thank you very much for your thoughtful answers.

A) Here are some questions for you which will help forum members better formulate suggestions:
1) What primary uses do you see for the home theater (HT)?
-It is mainly for watching movies

2) How tall is the ceiling?
- About 9 feet

2a) Are there any room features which will effect the sound?
-It is a home theatre room in the basement with carpet floor and no windows

3) Why are you leaning towards using in-wall speakers?
- Just because it looks clean in my designated theatre room and my HT installer recommended it.

B) A $10-15k budget is very healthy and provides you almost too many options if you are new to HT.
That said, here are some ideas for you:
1) You may benefit from hiring a HT designer/installer if you do not know a lot about HT.
-I have an installer and he recommends Sonance LCR1. But I am not familiar with that brand and they don't even have any system with those speakers to listen to in the store. He does not suggest any other possible options. That's the reason I posted a help in this forum.

2) With your budget strongly consider accoustic room treatments and I would strongly consider including this.
3) Does the budget include seating, racks, media furniture or not?
-It is only for speakers and receiver.

4) In general, plan to spend ~50% of your budget on speakers and subwoofers (~70% if no room treatments); ~20% on room treatments; ~25% on electronics (receivers, amplifiers, players, etc.); and ~5% on wires/connectors.

-Could you please give me some suggestions of speakers and receiver with good combination within my budget $10k? I am considering Onkyo TX-NR1030 or Yamaha RX-A2060

Again I really appreciate for your help.
Hojun

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I am not terribly familiar with Sonace brand, but according to AVS they are middle-of-the-road
For speakers, dedicate most of budget for front 3 speakers plus sub. any surrounds could be practically cheapest one in brand.

Few other brands to consider: RBH, Triad and Episode
http://www.triadspeakers.com/product-tag/inwall/
http://episodespeakers.com/products/product/architectural-speaker-in-wall-550-lcr (don't know prices, but supposed to be good value)
http://rbhsound.com/inwall.php (mostly expensive, but great quality)

For AVR I'd stick to Denon or Marantz for best implementation of auto room calibration system.
Yamaha is solid in quality, but missing on features and Onkyo is missing features and long term quality concerns.

 

[Hojun Yu]

Thank you very much for your answer. It is really helpful!.
How would you like to compare Sonance to Paradigm in sound quality?

 

[XEagleDriver]

Hojin Yu,
Thanks for the additional information.

Concerning B) 1) above: I am suspicious of any installer who only provides one option. He/she may be too closely aligned with the Sonance brand to be providing you other/better options for your situation. Not all installers are necessarily good audio system designers.

Concerning B) 4) above: I would definitely consider either bookshelf speakers on stands or tower speakers in lieu of in-walls for the front three speakers (L/C/R). The front three speakers are the most important for excellent SQ and provide the vast majority of the movie sound.
- With the Sonance LCR1's being ~$1250 a pop (~$3750 total) you have lots of budget to get excellent bookshelfs or towers for the front three. For surrounds, it is up to you and in-walls may make for a cleaner look; the surrounds are not very important to the movie SQ as a generality.

A couple speakers to consider are below (there are a lot of others) with links to the websites.
1) Buy three Ascend Sierra-2s (~$2300) which have the very excellent RAAL ribbon tweeter; or get two Sierra Towers with the RAAL ribbon tweeter option (~$2800/pr) and one Sierra-2 (~$800) as the center channel.
- Both of these options come in at or below the Sonance option.
- I own the Sierra-2s, as well as Sierra 1s, and highly recommend them both.
(FWIW: I have no financial interest in or association with Ascend)
2) Buy three Philharmonic Audio Philharmonitors (~$1750) which also have the RAAL tweeter; or get two Slim Towers (~$2200/pr) and one Philharmonitor (~$700).
- Many others believe the Philharmonic brand provides the same or better performance as the Ascends at a bit less cost. I do not own and have not heard them.
3) A bit more expensive, but similar option is three Salk Song series speakers in the RT varient (i.e. with RAAL tweeter), two Song Tower RTs (~$2900/pr) and a Song Center RT (~$1450).
4) Concerning receivers (the much less important part of the purchase) I am not a fan of Onyko (reliability?), but would recommend Denon, Yamaha, or Marantz.
- For the receiver, adequate power (~100-150W/ch), ease of use, and the right feature set are the aspects to pay attention too.

Cheers,
XEagleDriver

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

How would you like to compare Sonance to Paradigm in sound quality?

I won't - I heard various Paradigm speakers, but never Sonace. In general Paradigm speakers are typically represent lower value proposition, but that says nothing about their very good quality.
In simple english, Paradigm are good speakers, but too expensive for that they are.
Like XE above mentioned stand-alone bookshelf or tower speakers sound typically better than in-wall, but in-wall beats in-ceiling by far. The issue is inwall are very inflexible installation and upgrades and repairs are going to be very challenging to say the least.
+1 for Ascend and Philaharminic brands - both makes exceptional speakers. Including not very expensive CMT340SE speakers.... using CMT-340SE for LCR will allow you more budget for better sub(s) and/or projector.

 

[Hojun Yu]

Dear XeagleDrive and BoredSysAdmin,

Thank you. You are so wonderful !

You mean I don't need to install same speakers for the center, right and left or front and surround speakers?
Even different watt power?
I thought they should be the same.

Thanks
Hojun

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Dear XeagleDrive and BoredSysAdmin,

Thank you. You are so wonderful !

You mean I don't need to install same speakers for the center, right and left or front and surround speakers?
Even different watt power?
I thought they should be the same.

Thanks
Hojun

Yes, power for speakers, is maximum speaker could absorb (safely). power doesn't have to match, as long as speaker nominal impedance is 6-8ohm - you should be fine.
In addition your nice budget allows for external amp for front speakers (only if necessary)
Front speakers should (strongly) from same brand and series. surrounds (small preference) from same brand, not necessarily same series. You could easily use cheap in-wall dayton speakers for surrounds -
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-cs620w-6-1-2-2-way-in-wall-speaker-pair--300-036
All Identical speakers only really needed for (rare usage case) of surround music.

 

[Mike Ruby]

I have installed and listened to many pairs of Sonance speakers and they do make some of the best looking installed designs, but their emphasis is on aesthetics and installation and not on performance. BSA's advice is spot on with regard to performance of inwall vs. in ceiling. There are a few good in wall speakers that perform as well as a good sized bookshelf but they have back boxs like "real" speakers do. 5/8 drywall is not the ideal cabinet material. Check out BSA's recommendation about Triad. I think almost all of their designs have back boxs, also check out PMC's wafer 1. I am biased toward the PMC's - I use their AML-1's in my studio system which are big active monitors. The PMC wafers are quite serious speakers compared to the Sonance speakers but are big and quite involved in installation compared to the ease of other in walls I've installed.