Hi there! Welcome
It is wonderful that you will be acoustically treating your room and driving your speakers with some excellent gear. When I first saw your thread title (before seeing the body of the text) I was thinking this might be another case where the budget would be better used if divided between speakers and acoustic treatments. But lo and behold, you're already well ahead of the game!
Let's get some ground work out of the way first, shall we?
Your room is large. If we take just the rectangular portion (ignoring the 'L' shape for a moment) you already have close to 4000 cubic feet (assuming an 8 foot ceiling). Regardless, that part of the room is already large and when we include the 'L' area, it becomes a very large acoustic space.
With that in mind, the first consideration is getting superb bass output. Excellent bass is what takes a home theater from "meh" to "WOW", so this should be a primary focus. I would definitely recommend at least 2 subwoofers.
Next, from your description, you are going to have quite a bit of distance behind your seats to the back wall. From what you described, there will be something around 13 feet behind your seats where the pool table will go, yes? With that sort of layout, I
would recommend a 7 speaker setup. A lot of people have smaller rooms and only have a few feet (if that) behind their seats. In those types of rooms, having the additional surround back speakers does not really help and can, in fact, make the surround effect worse, IMO. But in your room, you will have lots of distance behind your seat and the "wrap around" effect could be lost if you only make use of two surround speakers to either side.
I subscribe strongly to the THX recommended speaker placement. So please, check out their
diagram for 7 speaker placement Also make note of their specific recommended placement for the
surround speakers. I heartily agree with this recommended placement, although I am sure Jostenmeat will voice his opinion that the surround speakers should be at ear level (he and I have debated this in the past and do not fully agree although we can both see the arguments for both recommendations
)
Since we know that you already enjoy the sound of the B&W 804S speakers and did not enjoy the Paradigm or Focal auditions quite as much, I think I have a fairly good understanding - at least a ballpark idea - of what sort of sound you like. Given that I am strongly recommending dual subs and 7 speakers, the price of the B&W setup would likely go over your budget. For that reason, I'm going to make a strong recommendation for RBH speakers here: their
Signature Series in particular, due to your price point.
The speaker package that I would recommend would be as follows:
3 RBH
661-SE across the front.
1 pair RBH
66-SE surround speakers
1 pair RBH
41-SE speakers for the surround back speakers.
If you wonder why I am not recommending tower front speakers, I have a number of reasons:
1) I am simply a fan of using identical speakers for all 3 front speakers whenever possible.
2) Given your description that about half of the room's length will be dedicated to a pool table behind your seating area, your actual distance from ears to speakers is around maybe 12-13 feet. The 661-SE speakers will be able to provide plenty of output for that distance.
3) I strongly subscribe to the THX notion of allowing the subwoofer to handle the bass. This means that your main speakers need only be able to reach down low enough to properly cross-over with the subwoofer. I do not subscribe to running full-range front speakers. I believe the bass can be better handled by subwoofers. So I see no need to "waste" money on extended bass performance from a tower speaker when the subwoofers will be handling the bass anyway
4) Price.
I am not sure what you local RBH dealer will offer for pricing on this package, but I would expect it to be around $3000-$3800. Please try to
locate an RBH dealer within your area and find out what sort of pricing you will get on this package.
Regardless, you should have a healthy amount left in your $5000 budget for two subwoofers. But depending on your RBH speaker pricing, it's not a huge budget for two subwoofers.
If your RBH pricing is closer to the high end of my expected price range, then the choice is pretty easy, IMO: 2 SVSound
PB12-NSD or the cylinder version:
PC12-NSD if you prefer the smaller footprint, but much taller configuration.
I recommend the PB12-NSD all the time because it is simply the best performer, to my knowledge, in its price range. Most impressive is its relatively low distortion output at very loud output levels while it maintains linear response right down to about 22 Hz. Extremely few subwoofers can maintain linear response that low when asked to play very loud and even fewer can do so while keeping the distortion under control. If you need to fit your 2 subwoofers into a lower budget, the PB12-NSD/PC12-NSD is easily the way to go, IMO.
If your RBH speaker pricing is closer to the low end of my expected range, then you can look at some pricier subwoofers. SVSound remains an excellent candidate if you move up to their "Plus" models. Epik Subwoofers is also a strong contender. Their "Phoenix" subwoofers would be a suberb choice if they fit your budget.
Regardless of your subwoofer choice, it is vital (and I bring this up with every subwoofer recommendation that I make) that you decouple the subwoofer. The best device that I know of for decoupling is the Auralex GRAMMA. Depending on your choice of subwoofer, you might need two GRAMMA risers for each subwoofer. Each GRAMMA costs $50, so factor that into your budget as well
Best of luck!
