Best Complete HomeTheater USED for $5000.00

"...the 80HZ was set-up for a standard and was budget minded to keep theater owners happy, are you telling me that if you had say a Legacy center speaker wich can cycle down to near 20HZ it would be better to run it small and crossover at 80?" (Chadnliz)

Yes, I'm saying just that! Having not even heard that Legacy center, that same 20hz capable (maybe strong enough for music, but not for synthesized movie effects of high dynamic ranges!) center channel will indeed sound more dynamic when only asked to run as "small"!!! I'd do the very same on full range Wilson's or JM Lab's Utopia's, you bet!!!!!
20-80hz will sound much much more dynamic and potent on an ACTIVE POWERED SUBWOOFER system instead, yes!!!! I've seen this time and time again! Your passive crossover Legacy speaker is like any full range speaker, in that it has the dynamic limitations that other SIMILARLY DESIGNED passive home audio speakers posses. And that's limitations in the inherent "LIMITED EFFICIENCY PASSIVE DESIGN!" The amps driving the bass in these systems is limited in the control of the drivers by the passive crossover in the speakers, not to mention the amps have to usually driver the midrange and tweeters, further limiting efficiency!!! This is why taking the same speaker, and letting the amps drive the upper bass info on up, and diverting the much too demanding bass to a MUCH MORE CAPPABLE POWERED SETUP, is the better dynamic option!...and THX knows this from experience...I happen to as well. (again, I've sold Wilson MAXX's, Dunlavy SCVI's, Thiel 7.2's, Etc). Of course, the subs have to be up to the task, and proper for room size. Basically, sure, the Legacy will likely have good bass for music, but will be behind by a lot with competing powered 15" active powered subs! They're just much more dynamically capable!
Ok, lets review...the Legacy 20hz center with dual 15" drivers vs. even the lowely paradigm Servo 15" sub!!!! The Servo 15 active sub stomps the dual 15"'s in the Legacy!..garanteed!...GARANTEED! I've heard/seen all this before. Been there, done that!
I've been to all the shows, sold it all at 6 stores, installed it all, and have heard it all at way to many audiophiles homes to know different! Passive speakers doing bass vs. active speakers doing the same deep bass...victory goes to the "quality" active sub setup, every time! Now of course we're talking about power output and dynamic range/ability...not musical speed, "Q", and accuracy. But for movies, the fact that the audiophile speaker is bottoming out and distorting from too much dynamic bass info down low, negates all that "accuracy" anway! The stuff mixed into movies is just too powerful and demanding for typical speakers. That's the way it is.
So, you bet ya!..I'd take that same full range speaker, and have it sounding SUPER POWERFUL and dynamic in no time, crossing it over right, and setting it up well. Playing it"FULL RANGE" WOULND'T BE IT, I garantee it!
But hey, try for yourself.
As for Michael Jackson and THX, millions, maybe billions regard them as authorities on what they do. I guess the same can't be said for us! . The difference between us however, is that I do High end home theater/audio/video systems for a living, and have worked on several six figure systems, and am a respected expert in this stuff. Still, what ever floats your boat....it's all good. Some's just better than others if you ask me.
I've done this far too long to be persuaded by an audiophile with an oppion. I've meet too many of them for the last 20 years. And I can still put together better systems than most any I've met.

Let's review...as long as any monitor or full range passive speaker is coupling well down to 80hz and that critical bass reigion, and they are using strong capable powered subs(good/well placed/and enough of them for the job) that are in phase, properly placed in the room, matched in volume, and mated well up to 80hz in the room, you will have absolutely no problem in getting superb dynamic capabilities and range from that system! This setup will yield about as good of a dynamic result as is possible from your typical speaker.
Ok, maybe you could take some very efficient and capable speakers (ok, maybe a Legacy or big Klipsch/horn speaker), and cross em over at 60 hz or so, as a bit lower crossover, and still get very good results. And yet, the 80hz still works superbly, and probably better! It's just a good point to crossover. Granted, the speakers need to be set up well, and couple well at that frequency to avoid the "hole in the middle", along with proper PHASE and volume matching!!!!
Ok, some subs are not so tight and capable up that high musicaly, as better speakers with a tight damping factor, granted. But this is easily traded off with the dynamic output and efficiency increase by a properly crossed over setup for dynamic DD/DTS movie playback!!! Your otherwised looking at a dynamically challenged and enemic, easily distorted and strained home theater experience at normal (approaching THX, which is too loud, I'll conceed) levels. Ok, some low volume listeners will argue they'd rather stay with the full range from their audiophile speakers, than compromise with a bad subwoofer setup. I find differnt, and would never go back. The exception is when I'm running large speakers with powered subs/drivers built in, to properly control the speakers for movies! This is all good of course. Still, for the proper dynamic range of an all out home theater system, this IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT! But to each his own.
You know, back to THX, I still remember back in 1995 when DD/DTS was first being released on Laser Disc. In a store I was working in, Boston Acoustics came in and setup their new dedicated THX sup/sat system in our shop. The system was set up then for only DP Logic. We had DD/DTS Discs playing on our regular speaeker systems, and that was an obvious software improvement over analog recordings for movies, yes. Still, the THX setup was CLEARLY more dynamic, involving, coherent, imaged better, had a better envelopement of soundstage and cohession, that the other speaker sysetems in that same room couldn't match! There was just something (although the overall refinement and quality of the speaker was behind audiphile purity for certain) compelling and "right" about the THX setup that had GREAT POTENTIAL for movie playback...you couldn't deny!
I've since come to realize that DD/DTS through a WELL SETUP THX system is a formidable set of tools indeed!...and probably what most homes should use to do movies right if you ask me. But then, you can still screw all this up with "user error", like any multi-channel "ill-set up" system from an average consumer! Infact, regardless of speaker choices, most people get it all way wrong when it comes to setting up even 2 speakers, let alone 6 or more!...and you can take that to the bank!!!
ALL the THX speaker systems do is give a person a "fighting chance" at taming room relections from ceiling to floor, provide good horizontal dispersion, offer greater speed, impact, dialoge inteligibility, and involvment from the speakers! Dual mid/bass and multiple tweeter driver arrays are very effective at delivering all of the above for a movie soundtrack! Other stereo speaker designs mostly soften this experience, and sacrifice (inherently) what's important to a movie mix! YES, with the right speaker selections as tools, you can get just as effective, if not better results using "non-THX" stuff, sure. But this doesn't negate the potency of a good THX design in most applications for an effective home cinema system!
I don't care for THX bashing, even as an avid audiophile who's owned some expensive 2 channel gear. THX is good stuff, works well, and does what it should...giving consumers good tools as foundations.

Lamb are you done? I was just wondering if people can get back to helping the man who started this thread, build your soap box then talk all you want, but this is another persons thread and I was trying to help, you are just running off at the mouth now...simma down

>>a QUALITY 2 channel setup is much better than 5 or more channels of mediocrity, ANY DAY!!<<

Right on. Also, just want to reiterate -- if you go to a 5 or 7 channel system for movies, most of the sound, a lot of the time, will be coming from your center channel. This means that, for a significant amount of time, you actually go from two channels to one. And the voices don't image in the center, they locate right from the center channel speaker -- no imaging. I find that disconcerting. I don't like having the sound rooted to a speaker, I like my speakers to disappear. With a good two channel system, you still get ambient sounds all around the room. What you will miss is when lazers shoot around the gallaxy, you won't get that "bullets whizzing around your head" effect. You'll miss out on a few minutes worth of action from a select group of movies and movies being what they are -- only a few of those will be worth watching.

I do recommend a sub-woofer, though. Many films use the sub-woofer enough and there's no other way to get what a sub-woofer does from two channels without a sub-woofer.

I am confident Saffy can listen to both sides of this discussion and will have more information from which to make his decision. His final decision will be stronger for having heard all sides.

RSbeck, good point, everyone can come here with opinions and argue whatever side of the fence they are on, but the poster will surely have alot more info , and in the end everyone is trying to help.