No, it's totally appropriate to shop around and make the dealers work for their money. A good dealer will have no problem doing setups for you or even scheduling appointments so you can have a personal multi-hour audition. You should not give them your budget right away, just so that you can try to find out what sounds best before they start steering you towards the super high-end stuff.
A few tips:
-Don't get sucked into buying magic cables. They're a huge profit margin for stores and don't improve your sound. If you want pro-quality cables, check out
Blue Jeans.
-With your kind of budget, don't neglect to include acoustical treatments and/or consultation. I'm assuming that you're not building a dedicated room, but rather adding equipment to an existing room with some minor modifications.
-If you have the ability to have a dedicated room for your HT or if you're going to be installing it in a room where you have excellent light control (as in you can eliminate most of the light), opting for a front projection display would be your best bet. In your budget class, you get the most display for your dollar with a projector, as well as a huge screen and the feeling of a true theater.
-Don't forget to budget for a good subwoofer. Subwoofers play a big roll in action movies, as well as music with low bass.
-If you can, opt for a setup with 3 identical towers across the front for a very uniform front soundstage. The rears for HT purposes tend to work better as bipoles, dipoles, or multipole speakers.
-Unless you can get a super deal at a shop, it's much more cost effective to purchase your projector from an online dealer like Visual Apex and your screen from a company like Carada (also an online seller).
