Dedicated Media Room, needing advice (1 Viewer)

[Mark Hudzinski]

My fiancee and I are getting married late next summer, and will be buying a house shortly thereafter. One of my conditions is that whatever house we buy will end up having a dedicated "Theater room" for my movie/tv watching. I have a basic HT system now, and will probably sell off all that I own in favor of new equipment for the new room. I'm looking at spending about 15k on the equipment in the room, meaning all of the electronics/acoustic treatments. I would really like to do a projector system, but I am also very picky about picture quality, and the low-price projectors I've seen (InFocus X1) don't do it for me at all.

What would you all recommend? Is there a certain way that I should break down my budget? A friend of mine recommended 30% Monitor, 30% Speakers, 30% Electronics, 10% Cables/Acoustics. Does this sound about right?

I'm new to the hobby, and really want to do this one right.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Since you appear to be asking for projector advice in the form of specific model recommendations (along with all the rest of the equipment needed), I've moved your post here in Display Devices. The Basics area is for general questions about home theater.

Good luck on assembling your system.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

for 15k do a FP system for sure. There's no hard and fast distribution of costs, IMO. IT really depends what you're trying to do, what you want, your priorities, etc, since a set amount of dollars can give you WIDELY different performance in any one category depending on how smart you plan/shop.

You can split 15k a LOT of ways, but say you put 6k towards speakers and room acoustics, perhaps a little more, then like 4k in electronics, that leaves like 5k for video. 5k could easily get you a mint 8in CRT projector, and you could also fit a killer HTPC into that budget to drive it, along with a DIY screen, or even a purchased screen for a few hundred dollars or perhaps a bit more. That gets you reference picture (for some effort, though), with FP, without the lacking PQ of the entry-level digital projectors.

also, don't be afraid to work in current equipment if it's up to the task at least temporarily.

There are lots of equipment discussions in the particular forums, I would peruse the speaker forums to get as many brands as you can to listen to and go auditioning. That's the only way to choose speakers. The display forums here are good for RPTVs and entry level digital discussions. For higher up, and CRT projection, i suggest you read a lot on AVS too.