Final 5.2.4 HT setup - Suggestions welcome!

Well, you asked.

Not a fan of Klipsch, and really not a fan of in-wall speakers, unless your goal is to get a fraction of the quality and performance for double the price. There are too many better speaker brands to list, but Paradigm and ELAC come to mind in your price range. Klipsch speakers do have the benefit of being very efficient, so they don't need much power.

As far as subs, nobody ever seems to believe me on this, but a single $1,600 sub will blow away (2) $800 subs every time. A single sub can be (carefully) placed in most rooms for excellent sound distribution. Instead of two decent PB 2000s you could get a single 4000, or maybe a PowerSound S3010, either of which will go lower, louder and cleaner than a PB 2000 ever could.

SR7013... excellent choice.

I don't know projectors, so others can help with that, but that seems awfully expensive.

Cables, forget Audioquest and go Monoprice all the way.

 

You said your primary aim is to control costs. By that, I assume you don't want to spend more for something that's not an improvement. I'd like to make a couple suggestions.

Have you thought about making your own screen? You're planning on spending $2000 for a fixed screen. That's 2 grand for a frame with material stretched over it, that's hung on a wall. I've got a fixed screen that's 155" with a 2.4:1 ratio, framed on black molding, with controlled lighting around the periphery. Not counting the Lutron unit I put in the room for remote controlled lighting, the screen material, frame it's stretched on, the molding, black paint and mounting hooks for the rope light came to about $120. My stapler bit the dust during construction, bit it was also about 25 years old, and I didn't include that in the cost. I also had a mitre box and framing clamps to start with, but those are still pretty cheap to purchase. Building a frame, stretching the fabric and hanging the screen can be done with relatively modest woodworking skills. I might also mention that if you go this route, make sure you can get the assembled screen into you theater room from where ever it's built.

You mentioned what the room will be used for, but you might want to consider your situation and how it will effect the rest of the household. If there are other people to consider, sound control might be a consideration. That can also have an effect on acoustics in the room. The room has fairly good dimensions to minimize harmonics, but some attention to preventing sound coming in could help, and deadening opposite walls along with some sound diffusion, at a minimum, may improve the sound quality in the room. Are there windows? Light control while using a projector can be helpful.

One other consideration before finalizing plans. Throw in something to sit on, and try different layouts. What I started out thinking and what I ended up with changed after trying the projector on the wall and watching portions of a few movies from lawn chairs with one of my cats. I discussed several options with her in the middle of the night. She didn't have much to say, bu the process improved the final result.

Good luck!

 

I don’t know that brand either, which makes me a bit wary.

If you’re trying to control costs, I think you can get something that’s 90-99% as good as that JVC for a fraction of the price. If budget is a primary consideration, you can get something for a lot less that will in all likelihood be just as satisfying to you. I personally would not recommend an $8000 projector to anyone who has told me that their primary aim is to control costs. What kind of content do you usually watch? Are you watching primarily HD or 4K/UHD material? How do you usually watch? Disc, streaming, cable?

I think in general $4000 is a huge amount of money to spend for a fixed screen and there are tons of better values for getting a screen. That’s probably one of your installer’s biggest profit margin items. You can buy special paint, sand your wall, paint it, and install some masking and curtains yourself for a couple hundred bucks or less. You can also buy screen fabric inexpensively, buy some wood from the hardware store, and make a fixed frame yourself - again, in the hundred or two hundred dollar range. You could even buy a good quality premade screen for far less. Again, if your primary aim is to control costs, this was a ludicrous suggestion on behalf of your installer.

 

You won't want my feedback.

I don't know much about projectors and screens, but even with that, I'm in complete agreement with Josh about those costs. Common sense tells me that's completely unreasonable.

Speakers and how to power them is my area, and I just don't understand alloting that much of a budget to a HT and insisting on hamstringing the audio. (Pardon my vent mode...) There are ways around in-wall or on-wall speakers, especially with front projection, using an audibly transparent screen with a space behind it and some small shelves for the surrounds. After hundreds of questions about speakers, I get the impression there is only one speaker manufacturer on earth. Klipsch. I don't understand that either.

But... there it is... again.

As far as the receiver, I read up on the Anthem and checked into the two speaker lines you are considering. Unlike Klipsch free-standing models (which are highly efficient), the in-wall ones are average efficiency. Virtually identical to the Procellas. I'd never heard of those, but that's not big deal, since there are an absurd number of speaker manufacturers. There are probably hundreds I've never heard of. I'm highly skeptical that any receiver can sufficiently power a 7.x.4 system alone, so of the choices you gave, I'd personally go with the SR7013 and an Emotiva A-5175, which is a five channel amp, not a two, to drive the front three channels and front surrounds. I'm guessing the two channel model you are talking about is the A-300. I don't recommend driving the L/R with an external amp and the center with the receiver. You want that front soundstage as integrated as possible. Emotiva does make 3 channel amps, but they are much more powerful and expensive than the A-5175.

However, it you decide on the Klipsch speakers, I'd probably go with the Anthem receiver, because the harshness you noticed from them will probably be improved with the Anthem's gentler sound.

 

I definitely wouldn't go with the projector that nobody here have ever heard of.

 

$8000 is absurd to spend on a projector on a budget conscious project. I think your guy may have suggested the JVC because it’s a known, reliable but expensive performer, and then offered to sell you something no-name at a much higher profit to himself after finding out that you were willing to spend that much, by suggesting he was cutting you a deal.

$4000 is ludicrous to spend on a screen if you’re trying to be budget conscious.

The cost of those two items as you were quoted, $12,000, is more than my entire setup, and that’s not even a complete system for you. There’s nothing wrong with spending top dollar if that’s what you want to do. But I’m telling you, you could get an Epson 5050 projector or something similar that would give you 95% of what that JVC would, and it would be under $3000. Is an extra 5-10% improvement in picture quality, at best, under ideal viewing circumstances with the small handful of content that’s been mastered to support that full capability of the more expensive machine, worth tripling your costs? For some people the answer is yes. But when I hear “budget” that’s not the mindset I think of.

 

From what Josh said, it sounds like you could knock $8K off your projector/screen cost and maintain about 95% of the result. If you put that productively into audio... holy smokes... what a difference that would make.

 

I’ll be curious to see what kind of content/sources he intends to watch - depending on his usage, it may be worth scaling up or scaling down on the projector budget.

 

The Epson 6050 is a sure bet. Try looking at Da-lite screens. Definitive Technology puts out some damn good speakers, all 11 with a $200-$300 amp. Earthquake makes a great sub. Denon puts out excellent AVRs. And $400-600 remote. My setup is below and I just love it and my HT is 12' x 17'.

 

The XPA-3 would be a good choice with the SR7013. BTW, I have a lot of Emotiva equipment, and their amps have always been excellent performers. FWIW, I use an XPA-2 for the L/R and an XPA-5 for the center and surrounds. Mine are Gen 1. In particular, the XPA-3 would be good for music, since it'll give the L/R nice headroom for 2.0 or 2.1 playback. In fact, even if you went with the SR8013 (is that available yet?) I'd still at least keep the door open for the XPA-3, since expecting any receiver to truly power 11 channels is probably asking too much. No receiver will ever have enough power supply to do that. Not in my book, anyway.

As far as the Anthem receiver, I know people who have Anthem receivers, love them. I don't doubt there's a difference. That's a tough decision. You're sacrificing power with the Anthem and power is extremely important with HT. It's a decision you have to make.

Regarding Dirac, ARC and Audyssey, I much prefer getting the best sounding equipment and using those features to just do some fine tuning, rather than relying on it to fix things that are wrong or of low quality. So, they're not a major priority for me. Maybe I'm missing out on something. I just see a lot of people who disregard so many important factors in their setup, believing "XYZ processing will fix everything." Don't forget, the Marantz units also have Auro 3D, which people seem to really like. However, keep in mind that it appears some of those post-processing codecs might be unavailable with some soundtracks. It's an evolving thing that people are upset about. I haven't researched it.

 

Woww It's awesome setup bro,
Really impressive, this information is really valuable for us.
Thanks for this amazing knowledge...