Neato!
Some really nice gear you've picked out there. The only thing I'd quibble about is the Monster brand power conditioning. I would have gone with a more affordable and much better APC battery backup solution, such as the S20 or the J15. But other than that, you've got the absolute best flat panel on the market, a superb pre/pro, some very good matching amplification, the best Blu-ray/DVD-(A)/SACD player available and a great remote.
I'm not personally a huge fan of Def Tech speakers, but that only speaks to my personal taste. I have zero problem with them and if they suit YOUR tastes, then they're a great choice!
One BIG question though - where are your subwoofers?! Are you relying solely on the subs that are built into the Def Tech towers? If so, I have virtually no qualms about running your front L/R as "Large" full-range speakers, but I'd certainly want to add a pair (or 4) genuine subwoofers to that s setup to really deliver the deep (read: good) stuff
The SVSound PB13-UltraDSP (or the cylinder version - PC13-Ultra DSP) is a personal favorite of mine (I was EXTREMELY impressed with it when I got to hear one play), but if you're looking for a little bit lower price, I have to hand it to Rythmik's FV15HP, which is very clean and very capable and a really excellent value at its price point.
But you asked about room treatments? That's easy
Get yourself over to gikacoustics.com. They have everything you need at the best prices out there. Even if you went DIY (which you've already meantioned you don't want to) you'd barely save any money. GiK really sells their stuff for about as little profit as you can imagine. They're easily the best deal out there for acoustic treatments and they perform great as well!
I'd also be remiss if I didn't stress how important it is to decouple your tower speakers and subwoofers from the floor. You've paid good money for good speakers that can play nice and deep bass. Why not get the absolute best performance out of them for what amounts to a very small price in comparison?
I recommend Auralex' GRAMMA, Great GRAMMA and SubDude isolation risers. They're all the same thing, just different sizes. It's just a matter of buying the one that is the size you need for your given speakers or subwoofers. Decoupling does a number of very beneficial things. Inside your theater, you're treated to far fewer rattles and distracting vibrations. The result is "tighter" sounding bass that really helps to highlight details and delineation. But perhaps the biggest benefit of decoupling happens outside of your theater. You know how you can hear bass thumping away in other rooms, maybe even from your neighbors house? You can hear that bass thumping, even when the higher frequencies cannot be heard? That all comes from a lack of decoupling. Bass travels in two primary ways: through the air and via the physical structure of buildings and the earth itself. It's that physical, structure-borne transmission of sound that allows bass to "bleed" into other rooms and be heard, even when the higher frequencies are blocked. Decoupling largely stops this structure-borne transmission and it makes a huge difference and improvement!
So grab a decoupling riser for every tower speaker and subwoofer in your setup. For the walls and ceiling, here's how I recommend you do things.
1) Put basic 2" absorption panels on the front wall - behind the TV. You can't really overdo it here. Just have absorption behind and between the span of your front speakers - so pretty much all along your front wall. Don't worry about down low, close to the floor. Just worry about ear level. GiK offers basic, very inexpensive 2" panels. They also offer panels with nice wood borders. And best of all, they offer "Art" panels, where you can have an image printed on the panel to make it blend in seemlessly with the room as a nice poster or work of art!
2) Treat all the corners of your room with bass traps. Here, you want to focus on the wall-wall-ceiling corners the most. If you have the budget and space, you can go full ceiling-to-floor with bass traps, but the higher corners are where you want to concentrate first. GiK offers their "Tri-Traps" which fit nicely into a 90 degree corner. For less money though, you can use their 4" absorption panels and simply "straddle" the corner with them.
3) Put some basic absorption on the side walls at the "first reflection" points. To find these points, sit in your primary seat and have a friend hold a hand-mirror on the wall. Have that friend move the mirror towards you along the wall until you can see your front speaker in the mirror. That's your reflection point and you want to put some absorption there. As we are mostly concerned with the mid-range frequencies (ie. the range of the human voice), I would recommend that your absorption be a bit thicker on the side walls - such as GiK's 4" panels rather than the 2" panels.
4) Directly behind your primary seat, you should put some absorption. You don't want to cover your whole back wall (more on this later), but directly behind you, you want to absorb any potential reflections. The idea is that the sound coming from in front of you should be very clear. It should "wash over" you and then "disappear" behind you. So that's why we're making the front of the room very absorptive and then making the wall directly behind you very absorptive. If you get one of GiK's full-room packages (which I wholeheartedly recommend), you can use the big "Monster Bass Trap" on that spot directly behind you to really keep the mid-bass and mid-range clean and reflection-free!
5) Treat the side walls (other than the reflection points in front of your seating position), the back wall and the ceiling with diffusion. If you really want a clean front soundstage, you can put absorption on the ceiling at the first reflection points up there, but I personally prefer to use diffusion to keep more sound energy in the room (plus diffusion panels tend to be lighter weight and easier to mount on the ceiling
)
GiK offers several great diffusion products. Have a look through their product list and put some diffusion on the side walls, back wall and ceiling.
You're done! It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, it can look great (especially those "Art" panels) and you will reap tons of sonic benefit from acoustically treating your room! There is no better value out there than GiK. And as an added bonus, I've never been less than absolutely thrilled with their level of customer service and how quickly and easily they ship their products and offer to lend helpful advice!
As to your question about whether a separates solution was worth the extra money over a receiver, I would say that you did NOT waste your money. Good amplification can last you a lifetime. You will soon see new receivers with new features that might interest you. If you have to replace the entire receiver every time you want a new feature, you sort of end up wasting money on the amplification section over time. Granted, pre/pros often cost just as much or more than their receiver counter-parts, but my main point is that a separate amp is pretty much never a bad investment! You can swap out that pre/pro one day, maybe even use a receiver with pre-outs in its place if that ends up making more sense at some point. But that amplifier will likely stick with you and serve you well for a long, long time to come. So it might cost a little more right now, but I think, in the end, you'll wind up with the better value with separates over the long haul.
Anywho, hope this is helpful. And congrats on your purchases!
