Help Me Spend My Wife's Money

[JMZMTA]

I would like to purchase a Home Theater System and I don't know what to buy. I hear that separate components are a better choice than a AV receiver. I would love to buy a 5.1 amp and a good sound processor for a cleaner sound. Which brand should I be looking at? I need a HT that will sound great will music as well as video. I have a budget of about twenty five hundred dollars for separates (Amp & Preamp) or a receiver and another twenty five hundred dollars for speakers.

Can someone in here put together a system for me. I'll will appreciate any recommendation. Thank you very much for your input.

P.S. I already have a sub. (M&K V-125)

Jmzmta

[Florian]

What size room?
Is there glass?
Reflective surfaces?
Open corners?

I need to know this, because it might be good to have some acoustic treatment. The best components cannot perform if the acoustics are crap.

Cheers

Flo

[GMichael]

Look into these:

MMGC for the center channel
MMGW for the surrounds & rears
Then maybe the the MMG12's or MMG 1.6's for your mains.

http://www.magnepan.com/

[Woochifer]

I would actually split the budget more towards the speakers. You won't have many options with multichannel separates for $2,500. You could just go with a $1,000 midlevel receiver and add an outboard two or three channel amplifier for the front channels. That kind of configuration would open up your options to include panel speakers and low impedance monitors such as Dynaudio, which receivers typically cannot handle in a 5.1 configuration.

Later on, you can add another amplifier and upgrade to a dedicated processor preamp as budget allows. The initial focus should be on the speakers, because their tonal characteristics vary a lot more than anything else in your system, other than maybe the room acoustics (which are another issue entirely, but still very important). AV receivers can work fine if the speakers are relatively efficient. The benefit with separates depends on how demanding the speakers are.

The key is to find the speakers that you like, and then build the system around that. To find the right speakers, you need to go out there and do some listening. The audible differences between amps are typically a lot less significant than between different speakers, so set your budget accordingly.

With multichannel audio especially, the biggest obstacle if often not with the quality of the components, but in how you set them up and how they work with your room acoustics. So, in the meantime, learn as much as you can about the steps needed to properly position the speakers, measure and adjust the levels and distances, treat the room for acoustical problems, use the crossover settings on your receiver/processor, and equalize your subwoofer.

[N. Abstentia]

Outlaw Audio would be my first stop. You can get top notch seperates for around $2200 that will beat the pants of any similarly priced receiver, much less a $1000 low end model.

For speakers...if it was ME with your budget....Paradigm Studio 40's in the front, Studio 20's in the rear, a Studio center, and some nice stands. Should come in around $2500.