Assist with HT Final Setup (1 Viewer)

[Morchikin]

Greetings all!


First post, but I am hoping to get some educated opinions on what direction to ultimately go.


New construction home with a dedicated theater room in the finished basement. Approximately 1200 sq/ft that has been pre-wired for 7.2.4 (Atmos) and projector.


What I am needing help on is the audio component side. Being new to HT, I only know what google and youtube tell me and I had preliminary settled on the full suite Klipsch Reference Premier with their two large 15" subs that would be ran through a Denon 7200WA with an external amp to get all of the channels driven. I haven't found a place to really demo the speakers except for a meager setup at a Best Buy, but that's all I had access to at the time.


Fast forward to today when I had an appointment with a specialty dealer to get their take on it. For the same money budget ($10-15K), they had me listen to a 5.1 system of theirs with a pair of Sonus Faber Chameleon tower speakers at the corner stone with two tiny 8" REL subs. I don't remember the AV they were using, but the LCR channels sounded really clean. I didn't really feel any presence from the subs so I'm not sure what was going on there, but I like to have some low frequency presence from a big sub. I left asking them to spec me a system for what I wanted, which includes the AVR or separates depending on what they come up with.


To the gurus out there, what would be a general direction you would go keeping in mind that this space will be use primarily for TV and movie watching? Are the Klipsch as good as I am hearing in the interwebz to the point that they would negate some of the more premium brands that I've never heard of?


Thanks in advance!

 

[schan1269]

Properly set up subs don't make their presence overly known.

Klipsch is horn. Do you like horn? Do you even know what "horn" means?

Speakers are the cornerstone of the theatre. If you do them right, they should be in the room 30-50 years.

At that budget...

Totem
Paradigm
Ohm Walsh
Polk RTi(even LSi)
PSB
Martin Logan ESL
Magnapan(Magnaplanar)

 

[Morchikin]

I do actually like horns. I've ran similar applications in my car audio system. They can give a nice dynamic if they are done right. That being said, I'm not 100% sold on running a horn style driver. My issue is that I don't have much of a baseline to compare against since most of my audio experience is relegated to car audio SQ setups, which are impressive in their own right, but a totally different beast than HT.


My sound preferences have evolved over time to a point where I really appreciate and strive for a very crisp and smooth mid-range and mid-bass. That also does not mean that I don't like my bass to hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer when I want it to, because I do. However, I like a balance and immersive bass that isn't overbearing or boomy just for the sake of being boomy. I just have not known smaller diameter drivers to be able to give the same rumble below 80 hertz that I like in movies.


Thank you for the brand recommendations. I am going to see if I can get a demo of them and start marking what I like and don't like about them. Is there a conventional wisdom to run with all of the same manufacture for a system to hopefully match timbre or does that not matter as much in HT as it does in car audio?

 

[schan1269]

The 2/5/7/9/11 part of the package should be same brand/series.

The sub should be "best available at the remaining budget".