I have been working on a home audio news blog for a few weeks and I would like to get some feedback. My goal is to provide a source of home audio (and some video...dvd players mostly) news in addition to linking to interesting threads I'm reading in the forums (audiocircle, avsforum, hometheater...
From experience I would say that you would be better off spending $400 on a pair of speakers and forego a 5.1 setup for awhile. I've found that a nice 2.0 or 2.1 system is much more satisfying than a mediocre 5.1 system. AV123 is having a great special on their ELT powered towers...you get a 2...
Without giving a price range its hard to give a definite recommendation but considering your speaker choices I'm guessing a $1200 sub isn't out of reach so I'll recommend the SVS PB12-Plus/2.
I'll go out on a limb here and suggest the Ascend CMT 340...it's not as detailed as the Onix Ref 1 but its very balanced, neutral, and 1/2 the price of the Ref 1.
You can find the JBL E50s for ~$250 for a pair and a decent reciever for ~250 and have a nice 2 channel system w/ the ability to upgrade to 5.1 later. I think its best to start w/ two good speakers rather than a mediocre 5.1 sytem but there are some OK HTIB systems in the $500 price range.
Taking room gain into account, even at 3m away from the A/V2s, 100w from an amplifier that can handle a 4-ohm load would get you to 105db easily. So I stand by my recommendation of a $400 reciever ;) In regards to the bpt conditioner, I recommend atleast some type of power conditioning to negate...
I guess I should have written...the signal stays in the digital domain through the amplification stage and then is converted to analog before it is sent to the speaker. As far as 100w/channel not being enough...the speakers sensitivity is 91.5db at 1w/1m so even at high volumes (100db) you are...
The panasonic receiver is a direct digital solution...the audio signal stays digital until it reaches the speakers. It uses a TI chip to do a PCM-PWM conversion...so there is no DAC between the preamp section and the power amp section. It can be modded by Wayne at Bolder Cable to sound even...
I have an Panasonic RP82 and if you change it to dvd video mode on the last tab in the setup menu you can access the dolby digital and dts tracks. You can switch between the multichannel and 2 channel versions by switching between multichannel and 2 channel in the setup menu. I've never used an...