Selecting receiver and speakers in a room showing films to 50 people (1 Viewer)

[jackoflefty]

I just picked up a used Sanyo PLV-70 and Oppo OPDV971H. They will be major upgrades for my local film society shows. I'd love your help figuring what speakers and receiver to consider buying. Right now, we use a pair of JBL EON 15", self-powered speakers, designed more for bands than the quality sound I want to work towards. Our films are shown in the local community center (meaning the eqpt is put up and taken down each time). The room is about 30' from screen (12x7 foot homemade job that works well) to back wall. The screen is at the front of the stage. The rom is also about 24' wide and 12' high. We get about 45-55 people for movies. Many of the films are dialog-intensive versus action-oriented. We have lots of power and plugs all around the room.
I'd like to spend up to $2000 (if possible to stay that low), but really don't know how to start. I'm afraid that a surround sound will be geared to the folks sitting in the middle of the room and not be fair to those on the end seats or in back. I don't know if 1 subwoofer will work, or should I get 2? Should I forget rear speakers, just get small ones, or even things all the way around? Help!

 

[ChrisWiggles]

2K is a small budget for this task. I would go for quality PA type speakers from the pro arena which will be able to be loud enough for your purposes to cover a large room well and also robust for being setup up and taken down and stored regularly. Personally, I really like Mackie when setup properly, I think a couple of something like these would do really well:

http://www.mackie.com/products/srm450/

This keeps things simple, you can plug these in (you said you had plugs accessible easily) and just run the audio outs from a DVD player to two of these and keep system costs down.

While these aren't a whole lot different than the JBLs you're using now, I am not a fan of JBL in general, including those EONs, I think the Mackies would be a nice step up.

I don't think you're really going to find speakers designed for the home that are really going to be appropriate for this large a venue. I would stick with pro arena speakers, cinema speakers etc.

 

[jackoflefty]

Thanks for the fresh look at my circumstances. It's not exactly what I was hoping, but tht's why I'm asking you "pros from Dover." It's interesting that you recommend another pair of PA type speakers to replace my EONs. Yikes, I would have never thought of that! I need to figure what addl value I'll get by essentially swapping out one set of PA speakers for another. It's hard to get my head (and heart and wallet) around this and am anxious to see if others might agree or not. Thanks again!

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Well, like I said I don't think there's going to be good choices from hifi speakers designed for the home which won't get loud for that kind of a space. I think you'll basically be trying to choose the best sounding pro speakers, and in my opinions those EONs sound like garbage. I think the Mackies can sound better, and they're similarly mobile. You can also look towards commercial cinema speakers as I suggested too, but you're going to blow past your budget really quickly, and you may not end up with a sound quality that's altogether that different really.

 

[jackoflefty]

What's the right number of speakers to use in the room I described? Could I use the EONs in the back, turned way down and the Mackies up front? Do you think I should just go with two speakers and replace the two I have/ Thanks.