You're most welcome, Kenneth!
Your situation is fairly common. Many people buy a sound system and then move, or they simply want to buy speakers that will work really well in most any room.
There are two ways that I look at it:
1) You can buy neutral speakers that are accurate and that will sound good in the widest variety of room. This is a very "safe bet". And if the sound is not to your liking, you can be pretty darn sure that the speakers are not "to blame" and that the cause of your "bad" sound is the acoustic environment or the positioning.
2) You can take the acoustics and the positioning "as is" and buy speakers that will specifically compensate for the room and setup's short-comings.
In the end, no speaker can really "make up" for a bad acoustic environment or bad positioning. But it is often the case that people have to put their speakers in less than ideal positions or they are unable to alter the layout of the room or to add acoustic treatments to improve the acoustics. More and more speaker manufacturers realize these constraints and they are making speakers that, in a strict sense, are not really neutral or accurate, but they are specifically designed to compensate for common "bad" placements - like being right up against a wall, or being stuffed in a corner
Personally, I believe that where there is a will, there is a way
There is a whole lot more choice in the way of acoustic treatments these days. And that means it is possible to acoustically treat and therefore improve the acoustics of far more rooms. Acoustic treatments no longer have to look like big ugly panels or weird "egg crate" foam. You can get acoustic panels that literally look like posters or works of art. You can get bass traps that literally look like end tables or plant holders or picture/art stands. And you can get diffusion and absorption panels that come in really cool and funky colors and designs so that they become decoration rather than an eye-sore.
Speakers too can come in many attractive styles these days. You'll still find the lowest priced speakers that focus only on great sound are mostly plain, black boxes (because that helps to keep the price as low as possible). But there are certainly some very attractive speakers out there. This can go a long way in helping you to better position the speakers. Because if you do not mind the way they look, they can become part of the decoration of the room, so you won't be so tempted to try and "hide them away" in a corner or way up high or way off to the side or something.
And there are also many, many very good in-wall solutions as well. For people who really just cannot stand having speakers of any kind visible in the room, in-wall speakers can offer a truly "invisible" speaker solution.
So...if you like, we can go ahead and recommend some of those "safe bet" speakers that are very neutral and accurate and will sound good in almost any room. If nothing else, those recommendations can give you a list of speakers that you can try and audition so that you can hear them for yourself. Speakers are such a personal purchase. What you like the most might not be the same as what I like the most. My preference is to try and get as close to the same sound that is heard in a professional mixing studio so that I am hearing something very close to what the people who
made the recording heard as they were producing the soundtrack. But not all studios are the same, so even with that goal, it is only a close approximation. Some people just plain like more bass or just plain like more treble and there is nothing wrong with that...it's just personal preference.
So, in your price range:
definitely try to find an RBH dealer in your area and audition some Signature and Signature Reference RBH speakers.
I would also highly recommend Paradigm's Studio and Signature lines of speakers as well as their Millenia line (which is VERY sleek and stylish).
If you can find someone in your area who has some Salk speakers, those are definitely worth a listen.
And I would certainly recommend finding people in your area with speakers from the best-known internet direct brands, such as: Axiom, Ascend, SVSound, Aperion and Emotiva.
Almost all of the internet brands have really active owner communities with owners all over the country who are willing to have people over to listen to their speakers - it's quite a lot of fun and you meet some great people!
To get ahead on your acoustic treatment considerations, definitely head on over to the Auralex and GIK Acoustics websites. Ready Acoustics and RealTraps also offer a lot of great information and ideas. You'll start to really see what's available and start to get a really good idea of what acoustic treatments are all about.
In the type of open concept room that you described, getting great bass is going to be a concern. To get great bass, you have to be able to pressurize the entire open space. Bass in non-directional and you cannot "aim" it just at your listening area. There are a lot of great and extremely capable subwoofers these days. And using multiple subwoofers is the easiest and best way to not just fill a large, open space with great bass, but to also make sure that the bass is even and uniform throughout the entire space.
Internet-direct subwoofer companies definitely offer the highest value. But most of them come in the form of large, plain, black boxes
Still, it never hurts to start looking into them!
SVSound and Epik are two of my top favorites when it comes to awesome output levels at very reasonable prices. Elemental designs and HSU Research are the other big names in internet-direct subwoofers.
But there ARE other subwoofer choices out there - even in-wall subs!
So I've just given you a TON to think about and to research, but I think it's a good start and you can have a lot of fun!
By the way - AWESOME choice on the Pioneer Elite plasma! I have a 60" Pioneer Kuro KRP Monitor myself (virtually identical to the Signature Elite Monitors). Plain and simple, there is no better flat panel display out there! So a great display and a great receiver deserve nothing less than great speakers and a great acoustic environment, yes?
Have fun!
