This is my first post. Thanks in advance for the help. We just purchased a new home in a relatively small town (35K people). This is important because my choices for audio purchases may be limited locally, but obviously I have the entire internet at my fingers.
We are trying to place a home theater environment in the basement. The room is L-shaped. The TV/audio setup is in the large part of the L. This portion of the room measures approximately 19x16. I've included pictures of our furniture and existing entertainment center. For the now, the TV will remain in the entertainment center. We will probably upgrade to a plasma in 1-2 yrs. Sorry for the mess in the pictures. I have 3 small children.
The primary purpose for the room will be for movie watching. I am looking to spend $2000 to $2500 for the receiver and speakers. We will be doing some audio listening in the room as well. I would like to be able to stream my MP3 files from my computer to the receiver. I am also contemplating adding a multi-room home audio system. Our house is pre-wired for this. Unfortunately, the room that the surround system will be placed in is in the basement. I do not know where the speaker drops are. However, behind the entertainment center and sofa are utility rooms. As such, I can get speaker wire to the back wall behind the couch with a fair amount of ease.
Ultimately I may want the receiver that I choose to be fed into a multi-room home amplifier. I assume I could use the zone 2 option on some receivers to do this? This is my main reason that I would like a receiver that would allow me to stream MP3's from my PC. I'm considering using the Russound CAS44 which would allow 4 zones. One question that I have is: does anyone know if the CAS44 can be installed by a do it your selfer? Or do you have to have a custom installer?
The system that I'm thinking of going with is the following:
Network Receiver - Yamaha RXN600
L & R Bookshelf Speakers - Klipsch RB61
Center Speaker - RC52
Rear Surround Speakers - Klipsch RS42
Sub Woofer - B&W ASW600
All of those items can be had locally for around $2300 plus extra for speaker stands and cables. I'm basically looking for other suggestions for receiver/speakers in my price range. In particular, I've read that B&W may be overpriced. For the sub-woofer I was quoted a price of $494. Thanks again. Chad
