elitelight said:
Hi,
I've just started to look into buying a home theatre system with a budget of $2500 for an A/V receiver and 5.1/7.1 speaker system. Right now, I've set my eyes on the Denon 3805 receiver, but I can't make up my mind on the speaker set. I can get the receiver for about $900, which leaves $1600 for the speakers. If anyone has some good suggestions, I'd really appreciate your help. Should I get the same brand speakers or get different brands for Front, surround, center and sub?
Am I spending too much money on the receiver that leaves no room for good quality speakers?
Nice budget, and welcome to the forum!
My opinion on the breakout:
Receiver: $700
Sub: $600
Speakers: $1000
Wire: $100
Bass management: $100
This depends a lot on your room size and listening habits (HT vs. DVD-A or SACD). In general it is a great idea to spend more money on your speakers than your receiver than what you have heere- I would allocate about 700 for the receiver (which would put you into a Yamaha 2500 series, great HT receiver, about $300 less than the 3805) and leave the rest for the speakers and sub. You could even pull slighly more out of the receiver and go for the Pioneer 1015 - not a lot of sacrifice in sound, mainly sacrificing a lot of the sound processing modes for HT which may or may not be important to you.
Depending on your tastes you may want to pull more money out of the speakers and throw it at the sub. More money in a sub equals either more volume (SPL) or lower extension (deeper bass). I would not plan on spending any less than $450-500 on the sub. I tried to do it, but subs below this price point just did not sound good to me - they either did not have enough low frequency extension (no really deep bass), or they sounded like they were playing one note regardless of what was fed to it (boomy, muddy)
http://www.svsubwoofers.com
http://www.hsuresearch.com
There are others, but these two manufacturer are noted for "best bang for the buck" and both have solid repuations with those who purchase.
Depending on your sub choice you now have about $1000-1500 left for the speakers. In this price range you will find a tremendous amount of recommendations here - my advice to you is to go listen at some high end shops with some known listening material that you bring, and decide on the type of speakers you like and thier tonal qualities - then come back here and look for recommendations in your budget range.
One of the first questions you will have to answer for yourself when listnening to speakers is how to allocate the budget for the mains, center, and surrounds. Do you want to have the exact same speakers all the way around (better for DVD-A or SACD audio and best for ensuring an even soundstage all the way around you), or do you focus budget on the center, left front, and right front, and go with a less expensive speaker for surrounds (some who do primarily home theater do this, as most energy in movies comes from the center and fronts). You will find fanatics on both sides of this fence - the only way to figure this out is to go listen to both setups for yourself.
Another option you may want to look at is limiting your system to 5.1 for the near term. That will allow you to put more money into the speakers and sub... then when you can save a bit more buy the extra two surrounds at a later date. Almost everything today is encoded in 5.1, with the occasional 6.1. 7.1 is a product of fancy processing to create 4 surround channels. 7.1 does sound more full in larger rooms.
You can always add those two back channels when budget allows, but its very difficult to re-buy the whole setup.
Another thing to consider is bass management. All small - medium rooms have modes where bass frequencies are either emphasized or reduced. These modes can make even multi-thousand dollar subs sound boomy- so you may want to consider a parametric equalizer for just your sub. The Behringer Feedback Destroyer is a popular piece of equipment for this and can be had or about $100 (you can search for it on this forum) and it will have a night and day sort of impact on the way the sub sounds.
Hope this helps. Happy hunting!
~Josh
