walbert said:
I have been in the industry for 20 years now. Started out in Car audio and them moved into yachts and custom homes.
In my own home I have a Lexicon Reciever, Marantz mono block amps, but went with 8 inch Speakercraft in walls. My biggest recomendation is GO LISTEN to different combinations.
It is a matter of preference for sure, and money second. If you can't afford a high-dollar front to back system, don't go listed to the good stuff. You'll never know what you're missing. You'll think Bose was sent by the gods for your listening pleasure. Unfortunately, I was ruined by years of sales and installation of nice gear (KEF Reference, Hafler, Apogee, Cello (Mark Levinson), Classe', Krell, Wilson Audio, etc.). I settled for pretty good in my theater, but keep a two-channel setup in another room (Krell monoblock amps, Apogee Scintillas, Classe') when I really want to hear the accuracy and detail that a recording has to offer.
Being a Speakercraft dealer, I got in on the factory disco'd Starlet series. These are pretty nice in-wall speaks. Full-height ribbons (5' in the front three LCR's, 3' in the rear surrounds) with a bank of 6" woven fiber mid/woofs behind them (about 12k at retail, paid less than a quarter of that). I run a Velodyne ULD-18 sub (running the outboard room compensation box) that's hidden under the stairs, and vents through a flush-mounted speaker grill. For extra effect, I have two Ass Kickers bolted to the sub-floor below the main seating position. Side fills are Speakercraft LCR's mounted in the soffits. I run a Denon receiver, but don't bother with the built-in amps. They're not enough to drive the ribbons, so I have an ADA 6 x 200 and a Parasound 5 x 200 amp to drive the room. All the gear is hidden in the under-stair closet, and the air is fan ducted into the crawl space (controlled by a thermostat). Running the current Panasonic 1080p projector. Nice unit for a couple grand.
If sound matters and you can afford it, listen, listen, listen. Even if it isn't your room that it's in, you can still tell a great deal about the capability of the speakers. If you can afford decent speakers, buy separate amps. The power of even very good receivers are typically insufficient to drive a good speaker to high volumes without inducing listener fatigue. As far as speaker wire is concerned, just buy good OFC high-strand count wire of sufficient gauge to accommodate the power you'll be running. You'll likely never hear a difference in anything better. It takes some pretty accurate gear to start making speaker cabling matter. Then anything goes. Hell, the cables between my Krells and Apogees have their own power supplies.
Must stop typing and get back to work....
