24k to spend, need help

[swgiust]

guys, my brother in law is spending $24,000 on his home theater. here's what he's
buying. a pioneer elite 50" plasma, pioneer elite receiver, boston acoustic speakers
7.1 with sub woofer. his room is almost 40x40 with a vaulted ceiling of almost 15ft.
the plasma is costing him almost $12,000. there has got to be a better way to
do this. i think you do a 65" crt tv and spend the difference on separate components.
say a lexcon pre/pro and their 7.1 200 wpc amp. i want lots of imput to give him.
let me know what you think. what would you buy if you had $24,000 to spend.
lets go wild!!

[mtrycraft]

guys, my brother in law is spending $24,000 on his home theater. here's what he's
buying. a pioneer elite 50" plasma, pioneer elite receiver, boston acoustic speakers
7.1 with sub woofer. his room is almost 40x40 with a vaulted ceiling of almost 15ft.
the plasma is costing him almost $12,000. there has got to be a better way to
do this. i think you do a 65" crt tv and spend the difference on separate components.
say a lexcon pre/pro and their 7.1 200 wpc amp. i want lots of imput to give him.
let me know what you think. what would you buy if you had $24,000 to spend.
lets go wild!!


That is a massive room. He needs a very capable sub to fill that volume. Same witht he main speakers.
He may want to considert a front projection system with a much larger screen.

[uncooked]

well i would go with the projection system idea. it would be probably even cheaper then the tv and be like twice if not more bigger.

about the sub, what about getting a large one for the front with a line in and a line out and then running from the line out to a smaller one in the back to help fill the room. with 24k its definetely possible !

[mtrycraft]

. about the sub, what about getting a large one for the front with a line in and a line out and then running from the line out to a smaller one in the back to help fill the room. with 24k its definetely possible !

I would hesitate to comment on this approach but I doubt the small one would add much to it.
I would, however, recommend contactin TV, one of the owners of SVS subs. He has conducted all sorts of different testing and am sure he has some very good ideas to pass on about how to best energize sucha large room properly.
I'd think he would recommend maybe several of the same size either in one of the corners or in maybe two.

[Geoffcin]

guys, my brother in law is spending $24,000 on his home theater. here's what he's
buying. a pioneer elite 50" plasma, pioneer elite receiver, boston acoustic speakers
7.1 with sub woofer. his room is almost 40x40 with a vaulted ceiling of almost 15ft.
the plasma is costing him almost $12,000. there has got to be a better way to
do this. i think you do a 65" crt tv and spend the difference on separate components.
say a lexcon pre/pro and their 7.1 200 wpc amp. i want lots of imput to give him.
let me know what you think. what would you buy if you had $24,000 to spend.
lets go wild!!

I hate to tell you this, but 24k, while a decent sum, will not let you go wild. You could easily spend this on a decent 2 channel system. Think Magnepan 20.1's with a couple of Pass Labs monoblocs and your already there.

The first thing you want to consider before buying any components is the room. A 40'x40' room with a vaulted ceiling sounds nice, but you've just described a nearly perfect echo chamber. Possibly the worst thing for high fidelity sound reproduction. To bring this room up to usable for HT your going to have to treat the walls, floor, and especially the ceiling.
I would consult a company like http://www.realtraps.com/ before he puts anything in that room.

[Bryan]

His room is extremely massive at almost 24,000 cubic feet. If he is really loves the bass at reference levels, better stock up. Probably looking at between four and six VMPS Larger Subs (at $909 each delivered, includes Megawoofer upgrades and soundcount) and three Crown K1s to power them ($1,049 each delivered from Parts Express (http://www.partsexpress.com). Your talking spending between $7,500 and $9K to cover the low end, leaving you with $15K for the tv, etc., a sum easily spent on the tv and receiver alone. Even if he spent the vast majority of it on speakers I rather suspect he would be unhappy because they would be unable to fill the room with sound.

A far better thing to do, IMO, would be to spend $5K - $6K on a wall or two and room treatments to divide that room or put it in a smaller room. Even if he decides to go with a room that is 25 x 20 x 15 he is looking at 7500 cubic feet and something far more managable. If it were me, I'd rethink putting a HT in such an extremely large room with such a small (relatively speaking) budget.

[This Guy]

His room is extremely massive at almost 24,000 cubic feet. If he is really loves the bass at reference levels, better stock up. Probably looking at between four and six VMPS Larger Subs (at $909 each delivered, includes Megawoofer upgrades and soundcount) and three Crown K1s to power them ($1,049 each delivered from Parts Express (http://www.partsexpress.com). Your talking spending between $7,500 and $9K to cover the low end, leaving you with $15K for the tv, etc., a sum easily spent on the tv and receiver alone. Even if he spent the vast majority of it on speakers I rather suspect he would be unhappy because they would be unable to fill the room with sound.

A far better thing to do, IMO, would be to spend $5K - $6K on a wall or two and room treatments to divide that room or put it in a smaller room. Even if he decides to go with a room that is 25 x 20 x 15 he is looking at 7500 cubic feet and something far more managable. If it were me, I'd rethink putting a HT in such an extremely large room with such a small (relatively speaking) budget.

I say he gets a couple Lab horn subs, maybe two or four of them stacked in a corner. They'll get down to 25 hertz and would be EXTREMLY loud. As long as you know a good wood builder this would be the cheapest and loudest bass for your money. These guys could help you out. http://www.prosoundweb.com/community/forum.php?board=3 . The only way I see filling your room with bass is going with a horn. They aren'y easy to build, but are worth it in the end.

-Joey

[woodman]

guys, my brother in law is spending $24,000 on his home theater. here's what he's
buying. a pioneer elite 50" plasma, pioneer elite receiver, boston acoustic speakers
7.1 with sub woofer. his room is almost 40x40 with a vaulted ceiling of almost 15ft.
the plasma is costing him almost $12,000. there has got to be a better way to
do this. i think you do a 65" crt tv and spend the difference on separate components.
say a lexcon pre/pro and their 7.1 200 wpc amp. i want lots of imput to give him.
let me know what you think. what would you buy if you had $24,000 to spend.
lets go wild!!

First, I have to agree with those that criticize the whole idea of trying to put a home theater into a room such as you describe. Does he not have any other room in which to put it? How far away from the screen will the (main) seats be? His choice of the Pioneer Elite 50" plasma is most definitely NOT the best choice for a room of that size. What's called for is a front projector along with at least a 100" screen (4 times the screen area of the 50" plasma).

Secondly, the audio in that room is gonna be so far short of optimum regardless of the equipment chosen that it's a bit of a joke! Someone suggested partitioning the room down to a manageable size before proceeding (if that's the ONLY room available to put the theater into). IMO, I think that that's a much more likely scenario to produce an enjoyable result.

Sorry if this is not what your brother-in-law wants to hear, but it's likely to be the best advice he could possibly get. A 50" screen from a distance of 20 feet (halfway from the front of the room to the back) will be pitifully small and uninvolving ... not what we think of when we think of a "theater" in the home at all. He needs to seriously re-consider here.

Hope this helped (a little)