Mid to High End Home Theater System

I'm in the market for a good home theater / music system.

I plan on putting this system in to a large game room--roughly 20 x 40-- and I like to listen to music as much as watching movies.

Is there really such a thing as a speaker that plays movies as well as music well?

I currently have a B&W700 series system with a B&K ref 50 processor, Rotel Amps. I really like the system, but I do not think the B&W speakers do well with movies or Rock n Roll type music(I do think they are excellent with Jazz, Classical and soft rock, though).

Does anyone have any good recommendations on a system that plays movies very well but is also musical? Does such a thing even exist?

I have been saving for while and I am willing to pay for good speakers. I will probably stick with my current processor and amplifiers for the time being, but I am open to recommendations for these as well.

Well, I hate to be a constant promoter of PSB, but I am not the only person who really rallies them when it comes to music and movie playback. They are certainly one of the few companies (especially with a few price tiers) that can deliver on various levels. Do you have a budget in mind???

Are you planning to replace all of your speakers? More details please.

Thanks. I would love to hear some PSB speakers. I have certainly heard a lot of good things about them. It is tough to find a dealer that has some in its show room.

Yes. I plan on replacing all of my speakers including the subwoofer. I have $15k to speand and plan on keeping the speakers a long time. I want to make sure I make the right choice.

So far I have auditioned Dali, Paradigm, B&W, and Klipsch. All have their strengths and weaknesses. The Dali Helicon 800 seemed to handle movies and music pretty well overall. Very quick speakers.

For 15k you owe yourself a listen to Focal-JM Labs Profile series.They are very musical speakers,I have not heard them in a home theatre set but they should be excellent.Concentrate on musical speakers,if they excel at music they should do movie soundtracks well.

bill

I would listen to the high end Revels with your budget. I love B&W so maybe their higher line is worth another look. Revel uses the same National Research Council resources in Canada as PSB if that makes any difference to you. I would even give Revel the slight nod over PSB, but just slight.

Listen to some Logan's

Vista's---front's
Cinema---center
Scripts---rears
Depthi--sub

=smokin'

For your size of room and existing equipment. These will sound very nice...at least audition them!

Well,

For 15K you can probably do better than my first thought with PSB, but now you have opened yourself up to a whole new area of hi-fi. It's more likely that you are going to find some great 2-channel systems for 15K, but it's hard to find the while 5.1 package.

How about a set of these?

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Originally Posted by rshad0000

I have been saving for while and I am willing to pay for good speakers. I will probably stick with my current processor and amplifiers for the time being, but I am open to recommendations for these as well.

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I think you owe it to yourself to audition some Dynaudios as well. Everyone talks about mating B&Ws with Rotel but I listened to a Dane/Rotel combo in a large room that shamed any variation of the previous two--great soundstage, strong top without the sizzle, solid mids and enough bass. I truly felt that it would take a sizeable increase on the amp stage ($$$) to see any real improvement.

For 15K you could go top-of-the-line for the fronts and center with a couple of the Audience line as rears and still have enough for a quality sub and a few discs.

Peace

Thanks Guys!

These are all great options! I plan on hunting the internet this weekend for local dealers and see what I can find to audition. I will probably give B&W another try and check out the B&W803Ds--three 7 inch woofers has to add more bass and slam than my 703s have.

The only thing I did not see come up was Krell. Surprisly a lot of dealers in my area of dropped Krell. Any opinions on whether or not these are worth checking out?

One of the best speakers in the high end market. But usually very expensive.

[QUOTE=rshad0000]Thanks Guys!

These are all great options! I plan on hunting the internet this weekend for local dealers and see what I can find to audition. I will probably give B&W another try and check out the B&W803Ds--three 7 inch woofers has to add more bass and slam than my 703s have.

What do you use for a sub?Is bass response your only issue with your current set up?Have you looked into speaker placement or room treatments?Perhaps a second sub is what is needed,you do have a big room there.

bill

Here is a price breakdown of what a PSB 5.1 setup would be ...

PSB Platinum T8 towers: $6,000
PSB Platinum C4 center: $1500
PSB Platinum M2 surrounds: $1500
PSB Subseries 10 subwoofer $2000

This would put you at $11,000 given that you can get these at this price, I marked these at around $500 less than MSRP. If you were paying premium price for these than you are looking at around $13,500, which is not really much less than what you had in mind for an entire system.

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Originally Posted by PeruvianSkies

Here is a price breakdown of what a PSB 5.1 setup would be ...

PSB Platinum T8 towers: $6,000
PSB Platinum C4 center: $1500
PSB Platinum M2 surrounds: $1500
PSB Subseries 10 subwoofer $2000

This would put you at $11,000 given that you can get these at this price, I marked these at around $500 less than MSRP. If you were paying premium price for these than you are looking at around $13,500, which is not really much less than what you had in mind for an entire system.

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:thumbsup: and a few pesos left over for cables and room treatments. :cornut:

For what you want, listening to both movies and music, you need neutral speakers. Dynaudio are the apitomy of neutral. Actually, it sounds like you have the room for most any Dynaudio but they did carry a Contour t2.5 & matching t2.1 center that was especially made for your purpose. Yours truly just happens to own those and I have been very happy with them. I use a pair of Audience 52's in the rear. A pair of 52se's would probably be better if I wanted to spend the money. Dynaudio has a center channel for whatever level you like. I've used my t2.5's with Krell, Conrad Johnson, Linn & Arcam, they have been exceptional with them all. It's because Dyn's are neutral, if you have good electronics to push them, you get good sound.

I have heard the Krell speakers compared to Dynaudio and my opinion the Dynaudio costing much less, sounded better. I could say the same of many comparisons to Dynaudio with other brands though. Our Krell dealer does not carry their speakers. In my opinion they are over priced for what the are. The pair I heard the most was Krell's $10k bookshelf with Krell gear. I thought it was extremely bright on the high end which gave it an unnatural presentation and overall unbalanced. These are characteristics I don't think should exist in a speaker costing $10k. For this money you could get into the Dynaudio Confidence series which would kill the Krell without a fight. Our dealer almost lost Krell over the decision not to carry their speakers but they knew they wouldn't sell any as long as they kept Dynaudio and they weren't about to lose Dyn. Even if you did enjoy the Krell speakers, they are certainly a mismatch with the Rotel amps.

If you want to hang on to your amp for awhile I'd think Rotel would be fine for correctly matched Dynaudio speakers.

[QUOTE=musicman1999]

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Originally Posted by rshad0000

Thanks Guys!

These are all great options! I plan on hunting the internet this weekend for local dealers and see what I can find to audition. I will probably give B&W another try and check out the B&W803Ds--three 7 inch woofers has to add more bass and slam than my 703s have.

What do you use for a sub?Is bass response your only issue with your current set up?Have you looked into speaker placement or room treatments?Perhaps a second sub is what is needed,you do have a big room there.

bill

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I have a ASW750 that seems to do a pretty good job. I have heard that two subs are always better than one. Things seem a litte bit muddy so placement and room treatments would help. I just think that B&W is not what I am looking for in a HT, though. I plan on listening to some the 800 series, though.

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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

For what you want, listening to both movies and music, you need neutral speakers. Dynaudio are the apitomy of neutral. Actually, it sounds like you have the room for most any Dynaudio but they did carry a Contour t2.5 & matching t2.1 center that was especially made for your purpose. Yours truly just happens to own those and I have been very happy with them. I use a pair of Audience 52's in the rear. A pair of 52se's would probably be better if I wanted to spend the money. Dynaudio has a center channel for whatever level you like. I've used my t2.5's with Krell, Conrad Johnson, Linn & Arcam, they have been exceptional with them all. It's because Dyn's are neutral, if you have good electronics to push them, you get good sound.

I have heard the Krell speakers compared to Dynaudio and my opinion the Dynaudio costing much less, sounded better. I could say the same of many comparisons to Dynaudio with other brands though. Our Krell dealer does not carry their speakers. In my opinion they are over priced for what the are. The pair I heard the most was Krell's $10k bookshelf with Krell gear. I thought it was extremely bright on the high end which gave it an unnatural presentation and overall unbalanced. These are characteristics I don't think should exist in a speaker costing $10k. For this money you could get into the Dynaudio Confidence series which would kill the Krell without a fight. Our dealer almost lost Krell over the decision not to carry their speakers but they knew they wouldn't sell any as long as they kept Dynaudio and they weren't about to lose Dyn. Even if you did enjoy the Krell speakers, they are certainly a mismatch with the Rotel amps.

If you want to hang on to your amp for awhile I'd think Rotel would be fine for correctly matched Dynaudio speakers.

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Your comments on a neutral sounding speaker sound dead on for what I am looking for. The Dali Helicon 800s I listened to were very neutral sounding and sound good with music and excellent with movies. I don't really expect one speaker to do it all, but, if I am going to spend the money, I want one that will do everything well.

I will listen to the Dynas.

It sounds like you have a lot of experience with amps and Dyna. What amp do you think sounds the best with them? Krell? I like the looks of Bryston, but I have never heard one(although I did listen to a Lexicon and I think Bryston builds Lexicon.)

Thanks!

Most high quality amps will sound good with the Dyn's, it depends on what type of sound you like. Amps like Krell, Bryston or Arcam that have the current seem to do best if you want fast, dynamic and controlled sound. Krell and Dyn really are a knock out punch for good bass and dynamic transcients.

A set up I used to use is a Krell integrated which has a "theater through" feature to allow the power section to be used as a slave for the front 2 channels of a receiver or processor. This lets you have high quality stereo and not having to go as much for HT. This is just an alternative to having a HT processor and multi-channel amp.

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Originally Posted by GMichael

How about a set of these?

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You been smelling you're own far-er, fumes again?
No way is music and movies compatible, but beemers are the best compromise, after a year and a half of klipsch, which did movies really great I've gone back to B&W 600
series, they are just more musical.
Two things you can do, get a front pair of grt music speakers, and match em as good as you can with surrounds,
OR get a seperate music system, which you can do quite cheaply
KEX, one of the crazies on this site has a grt link, av123.com, all kinds of cheap crap
that looks really cool at a cheap price, dont know how they sound tho:1:

There's no reason why the same speaker can't be used for both music and movies unless it was colored to emphasize one area or the other of music or movie playback. A good speaker should be neutral anyway which should allow for good results with either.

I listened to the Dyna and Dalis this weekend on Krells amps. I must admit that I was very impressed with the Krell amps...very dynamic, clean, but also expensive.

The Dyna Countour S5.4. Sounded good and really seemed to rock. I was not too impressed with the tweeter being so low to the floor, though. I'm use to the B&W sound with the tweeter on top creating a large soundstage. Overall a very good speaker with movies and music.

The Dalis Helicon 800s were a tad bit more musical than the Dyna's but did not have quite as much punch. I listened to the Euphonia MS5 as well, but IMO the Helicon 800s sounded much better. The MS5 were almost harsh sounding. Plus the Helicon's were $5000 cheaper. Gotta love that! Very good with movies as well.

Next on my list is PSB, Focal, and Sonus Faber...If I can hunt down a showroom that has them.

Here is some general information on Harman International and Revel, if they are still in the running. The laser photo of cone deflection is a real eye opener.

Harman International Interview

Thanks...I love the looks of Revel; especially the new Ultima2. I can't afford those, but I do plan on listening to some of the mid price models.

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Originally Posted by Mr Peabody

There's no reason why the same speaker can't be used for both music and movies unless it was colored to emphasize one area or the other of music or movie playback. A good speaker should be neutral anyway which should allow for good results with either.

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In a perfect world.
But a lot of people are creating "home theater" systems that are geared towards
HT. And the demands of a HT are quite different from audio.
For instance in a HT system the center channel is the most important speaker, the left front and right are really just "effects" speakers, but they are the major players in an audio system

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Originally Posted by rshad0000

So far I have auditioned Dali, Paradigm, B&W, and Klipsch. All have their strengths and weaknesses. The Dali Helicon 800 seemed to handle movies and music pretty well overall. Very quick speakers.

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I liked the Helicon800s *plenty* when I heard them too and feel you can't go wrong with those... They are some of the better ones out there, IMO. You may want to also consider a brand like Legacy Audio (their Focus is a killer rock speaker, for example).

---Dave