Home Theatre Question

Thanks for the advice. I'll use 4 ceiling speakers
for the sides and rears, but for fronts, I'll use my Totem
Forest floorstanders, and I'll use a Totem center channel speaker. The Arcam avr350 should do a fine job
with music and movies, and I can biamp the fronts
for 2 channel or add one of my integrated amps with
the HT passthrough feature, Thanks

The Arcam seems like a fine receiver (class D?) but if the list of features on their website is accurate I strongly suggest looking elsewhere. Does the Arcam have HDMI in's and out's, True HD audio, room correction? IMO these are must haves. I have seven identical speakers and room correction made a huge difference. You'll be using three different types of speakers. In HT if I have a choice between a high quality receiver without these features and a comparably priced receiver with the new features, the features win. It's HT not hi-fi, it's still going to sound real good.

Compared to component video Blue Jean HDMI cables are super cheap and come in one foot increments for a clean installation.

That is a good decision IMHO to only use 4 ceiling speakers for side and rear only. It would be nice if they could be from the same manufacturer to better voice them together.

Vic- I see that you have a pair of Avalon Eidolons in your two-channel system. Do you have seven Eidolons in your HT system? I’m thinking of using five or seven Vandy 1Cs or Eminent Technology LFT VIIIBs in my basement (under construction) music room / theater.

I agree with your assessment of the need for room correction. Kal, who I consider the ultimate last word in anything surround, using a setup with five identical speakers, could here a marked difference between the front and back speakers when using pink noise; until he switched Audyssey in and then all sounded identical!

Oh, and thanks for the HDMI cable case of beer.

Russ

No, just two Eidolons but they are simply outstanding. Hearing them in stores and shows they always seemed sleepy to me and they never changed or upgraded the design all that much over the years. After just a few weeks their presentation became clear to us. Thankfully, my wife gets Hi-Fi so the Avalons look and sound stunning out in the middle of the room.

I consider Vandersteen and Thiel at a similar level of accomplishment for dynamic speakers. I'm not a panel fan but in an HT they could be great. As I understand it the Audyssey system is parametric in nature and the Pioneer is a combination of parametric and graphic EQ.

My new HT sounds way better even using the same speakers (Triangle Comet). Playing music videos we crank the HT up and the class D receiver doesn't run out of gas the way the linear receiver did.