The wife and I just got home. Holy moly.
Found someone relatively local on AVS who very generously volunteered to demonstrate his dedicated home theater for my wife and I. We descended into the theater after meeting and some general discussion of the hobby. He had a Blu-ray that was loaded with demo scenes, separated into three categories:
1. LFE
2. Surround
3. Visuals
We sampled a number of movie clips in all three categories. The first was a scene from the Book of Eli. We have not seen this movie yet (it's on the list). Gary Oldman ordered his goons to shoot Denzel Washington. Now nevermind how good the visuals were but when the shooting started, I began to laugh at how amazing this home theater sounded. Let me tell you a little about the components providing this experience in as much detail as I can remember from our conversation.
1. Onkyo TX-NR709 (used as a pre-pro)
2. Big Outlaw amp providing juice to....
3. Klipsch RG5.5
4. Klipsch center channel (not sure what model it was but it matched the 5.5s)
5. Klipsch surrounds (left, right, two rear)
6. Outlaw LFM-1 EX (two of these)
7. Two DIY sealed subs with 21" drivers and 4000 watts of power fed from amps in an adjacent room
Visuals were provided by a relatively inexpensive Epson projector, a 120" drop down screen, and a PS3.
Volume was set at reference. When the bullets started flying in the first clip, it wasn't just an auditory experience...it was visceral. I felt it. My hair moved. I felt it in my chest. I just couldn't help but laugh because I have never experienced anything like this in a home setting. It sounded better than any commercial theater I have heard. Clean. Clear. Loud. Effortless.
We watched clips from many movies...War of the Worlds, Hulk, Avatar, Fellowship of the Ring, the new Tron, Casino Royale, and a few others. All were fantastic.
So now I'm home and considering my own system and how I can get from where I am to where I want to be. His theater had sound treatments so I'm going to look into that immediately, targeting areas that I know are problematic in my room (based on tips from some of the nice folk in these forums). The Outlaw subs we demo'd tonight are not officially for sale but they are mine if I want to buy them. I think I'm going to buy them after Thanksgiving. We are also going to rearrange our seating to get our couch off the back wall of the room.
I'll see where we're at at that point. I didn't find the presentation of the Klipsch's to be objectionable at all. In fact, I thought they sound much cleaner than my Paradigms but I think I need to work on my room a bit before I kick the Paradigms to the curb.
We talked about the experience on the drive home and were both pretty excited by it. I may not be able to exactly duplicate that but now I know what is possible in a home theater.
