Need help choosing home theater from scratch ~$60K to spend (1 Viewer)

[jschulze]

Hi,

Just found this forum and it seemed like this would be the place to get some help. Looking to spend around $60k on a theater setup. It's gonna be in a roughly 20' x 30' x 11.5' room, being built next spring. I'm looking for a in wall7.1 setup. I'm kinda new to home theater stuff, I come from a recording studio background and most the brands are new to me. Anyway here's what I'm looking at right now.

L & R - Bohlender Graebener R-800
Center - Bohlender Graebener R-600
Surround - Bohlender Graebener R-600
Rear Surround - Bohlender Graebener R-600
Subwoofer - Genelec HTS6

I really want to go with the inwall speakers and these seem to be the best I can find, except for the Speakercraft Rogue for $50k/pair.

Amplifier - Sunfire TGA7400 (should I go with seperate monoblocks?)

Pre - Outlaw 990 (seems cheap, but I've read good things)

Projector - Sony VPL-VW100

Screen - Undecided

DVD Player - Undecided


I'm new to this stuff and I'm not sold 100% on anything, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Jordan Schulze

 

[Mark Seaton]

Why are you limited to an in-wall system? Is this a dedicated HT/music room or a living space/media room?

 

[BrianTwig]

I as well am wondering why your limited to inwalls. With that budget and a dedicated room (if that is what you have) you can easily conceal the speakers regardless of their size.

For the sub, why not take a gander at the SVS B4-Plus (if they still make it, its not on their site). Or run dual PB12-Ultra/2

 

[jschulze]

It is a dedicated theater room...The reason I want to go with in walls is to save some room and to protect tihngs a bit (clumsy friends). I don't see why I couldn't go with rectangle boxes and soffit mount them. With the BG R-800's I was planning on making MDF boxes to mount them in and them mount the boxes in the wall, so I guess rectangle boxes would be the same things pretty much.

I know this is a stupid question, but about how much percentage wise should I spend on each component. The projector is ~$10K, so there's $50k to spend audio wise. Should it be like 50% on speakers, 50% on everything else...60/40 70/30...I know it's not really that easy, but I'm new to this and I'm just trying to get a handle on it.

 

[BradJudy]

$60k and a dedicated room? Room treatments should definitely be in your budget, along with something like an SMS-1 for subwoofer EQ. Putting aside $1-2k for GIK corner traps and panels would probably be a good move ($1k gets you four corner traps and six 2" panels - that large of a room might need more). Another $600 for an SMS-1 unit and you'll probably be in good shape for addressing room acoustics.

Are all of the physical aspects of your room already taken care of: seating, lighting, etc?

Your pro/pro and amp look like decent choices, although there are a lot of options out there you should look at like Anthem and Parasound Halo as well. Check in the amp forum.

Given the projector and budget, I'd think you'd want an HD-DVD player (perhaps in addition to a good DVD player). Maybe an Oppo or a Denon 3910 for DVDs and an HD-DVD player. Check in the source forum.

 

[Seth=L]

The Genelec is huge, one of the larger subs on the market.

 

[John Alvarez]

Check this out. It will do your whole house and I know you can get better prices than what they list. I would say right at the top of your budget.

http://www.audioholics.com/showcase/...ometheater.php

 

[Shannon W]

If your looking into the sunfire amp. I'd skip the Outlaws preamp and look in to the Sunfire TGP-5 Preamp. And also with that kind of budget for speakers I'd looking into the B&W 800 Series or Paradigm Signature Series. With The SVS PB12-2 ultra sub. Also look into the Velodyne SMS-1. But thats a good start.

 

[jschulze]

Sweet, thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate everyones help.

The $60k figure is for equipment only for the home theater. There is acoustic treatment/design, but it's outside of this budget. Also, whole house audio is going in, but again aside from this budget.

I'm definatly interested in the SVSound Ultra subs. I was thinking I could do 5of them in place of the Genelec.

Is the sunfire a good amp or should I look for better individual monoblocks?

Also I looked into the B & W Signiture 8NT and that looks like it would work out well for me. Plus it's a little cheaper than the BG R-800. Has anybody heard the JamesLoudspeakers and know what kind of a price tag they run?

Thanks, Jordan

 

[BrianTwig]

5 SVS Ultras? What are you trying to pressurize, a sports arena?

 

[RichardH]

If you're not going to purchase for a little while, you should also check into the upcoming BMF from av123 and the "submersive-1" from Seaton Sound (Mark was the first poster on this thread). A pair of either of those would be fantastic for your space.

 

[SethH]

Another speaker option would be Aerial Acoustics. The guy who owns it is a former designer from B&W. He has a system called the Theater Wall that has speakers which can all be used in-wall. I'm sure you could pick and choose the speakers you wanted out of that package or you could just purchase the entire package.

I'm not saying they're the best thing in existence, but should be extremely competitive in the in-wall (or on-wall) market at your price point.

 

[Seth=L]

The Genelec is a very awesome sub, that even SVS might tremble in fear to.

 

[Seth=L]

The Velodyne Digital 1812 is in the same price range as the Genelec so that is something to consider. It is also extremely large and has Higher SPL's and lower extension, though the sub itself is quite cumbersome. Below is a link.
http://www.velodyne.com/velodyne/pro...3&sid=800u269d

 

[Shannon W]

As for the Sunfire question, I like that equipment. I have one of the Cinema Grand 7 Channel amps.
I now want to upgrade to the TGP-5 Preamp and sell my sony.

 

[jschulze]

I'd like to thank everybody for taking the time to help me with this stuff. I'm starting to get a better handle on everything.

I think I'm going to try to demo as much stuff as I can, but it really helps knowing what I should try. There's nobody in my area that carries this kind of stuff, but does anybody know any decent dealers in the detroit area?

I'm going to be down there working on some other things and I was hoping to check out some of these things first hand.

Jordan

 

[Mark Seaton]

jschulze,

If you are in the Detroit area, there is a large group of enthusiasts in your surrounding area that have grown out of various get togethers that originated in the AVS Forum Area Home Theater Meets. Look for mention of the "HEMI" group, aka Home theater Enthusiasts of MIchigan. The first two SubMersives are in MI and there are plenty with SVS PB12-Plus & Plus/2's in the area. There is also a great guy who goes by "thebland" on the forums who has an amazing theater I have helped along who is probably pretty close to you (find it here: http://www.winglake.com/NHCTheater.asp ). I know of 2-3 of these guys, one probably being thebland, are having meets between now and the end of the year. Then you can't leave out the most visible member of the group which is Art Sonneborn with his amazing theater you can see at www.artsonneborn.com , who is out in Battle Creek and just had a huge meet on August 19th.

Hope that helps,

 

[Arthur S]

It is always a pleasure to have Mark Seaton contribute to a thread. Mark mentioned Art Sonneborn. Last I knew, Art is using 4 SVS PB-12 Plus/2 in his amazing HT. This is a little awkward as Mark is working on 2 new subs which will be awesome. A pair of the forthcoming Seaton designed BMFs would be killer, and from what I can tell, eye candy as well.

 

[BrianTwig]

Seth,

"The Genelec is a very awesome sub, that even SVS might tremble in fear to"

Well, at $8,000 they are targeting a different audience I would think.

 

[Arthur S]

Brian

One HTF members, Frank Manrique, is using 2 SVS B4's (4 12 inch drivers, currently being redesigned, as are the Ultras with ~14 inch cones). Additionally, Frank uses 8 16-46's. And as I mentioned, Art Sonneborn uses 4 PB-12 Plus/2. Then there are the folks that have 2 PB-12 Ultra/2's.

Just trying to suggest that the lines are no so clearly demarcated as you might think