7.1 Home Theater for at most $2000

[mrswagbhinav]

Need a 7.1 Home Theater setup. Budget is $2000. Also would appreciate a projector recommendation. (Not part of the $2000 speaker budget)

 

[boju]

Denon, Yamaha, Marantz and Onkyo are all good brands.

I can't give you specific models, thats really upto you to decide but will give some tips what to look for, will depend on your needs/wants of course.

Some brands favor music more than cinema like Marantz and Yamaha/Onkyo are known for clarity but still offer great sound all round. Make sure it has plenty of HDMI inputs and at least one output for HD TV supporting at least 1080p pass through.

It has an audyssey balancer, a balancing mic to calibrate the distances all your speakers to a central point where you would be sitting. All decent AVRs will have an audyssey balancer included and the wire is very long.

Speakers, be best to listen to them first, Dali's are pretty good i have a 5 set of them. Centre speaker is quite large so i have the TV sitting on it

Subwoofer, go for a down firing sub as they fill the room better than forward firing. I have a forward firing Sub, its nice but i needed another one opposite of the room to complete the bass. I have a friend with a down firing sub and he only needs just the one.

Lastly, the best advise i was given when looking for an AVR is to lift it. The heavier it is, the better quality power supply it has along with the rest of it's guts.

As for projectors, i don't know much about them, i couldn't say.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Can't really speak to Home Theater Audio, but for my small apartment, my Onkyo HT-S3200 5.1 surround sound system is more than enough.

As for projectors, I'd recommend heading over to Projector Central and looking through their Top 10s (Over $1500 and Under $1500). I've owned two projectors over the last 10 years. My first was a BenQ MP610 and my current is the Optoma HD20. Both have been great for my usage (movies/live sports).

-Wolf sends

 

[ien2222]

I can help out on the audio portion but a few questions first:

1) How large is the space that it's being played in? Not only listening distance and room size, but also if it opens up to other rooms. For instance it may be an open concept space where it's open to a kitchen or whatnot.

2) How important is the low end. Are you looking for that deep low end rumble?

3) How loud are you expecting this to be? Do you want as close to movie theater volumes as you can get?

4) Is there size limitations for the speakers and subs?

5) Are you willing to build over time, say start with a 5.1 system and then expand to 7.1 later (so you have a larger budget to work with, $2000 now and an extra $400 later for instance) and if so, what would the extended budget look like?

6) Are you open to internet direct eq or does it need to be brick & mortar stores?

7) What features to you need to have on the AVR such as number and kinds of inputs, does it need to support 4k? Would you consider refurbished AVR's?

8) Are interconnects and speaker wire included in that $2000? If so, you'll need to give a rough guess at the length of the runs.