Which Home Theater speakers for under $28,000.

I have a friend who has a killer custom home theater setup in his townhouse basement. The L/R front speakers he is using are Revels, Ultima Salons as I recall. The subwoofer is also a Revel Ultima Sub 30. The center is also a Revel Voice I believe. I do not know what the surrounds are, they are hidden from. Actually, ALL the speakers are hidden from view. The system sounds *fabulous*, partly from the speakers and partly from having a pro room designer come in and do his magic. It's a *system*, act accordingly...

-RW-

Douglas_schroeder the room size is approximately 16'-5" wide by 18'-10" long (122.4 sq. ft.)with a champfered ceiling at 10'(3100 plus cu. ft.). The HT consultant recommended the JBL synthesis system for 28,000 plus dollars (this includes the systems equipment as well as speakers for 7.1 system).

Greetings,
I have a room about the size of yours, and have the system as described in the system section. As you apparently like stats, as you can see I wouldn't disagree that a stat makes for a nice HT set-up, although my system is home theater and music. As you say this is a dedicated theater, I think I would probably go with dynamic speakers.

I recently heard Revel and Aerial home theaters, and have to admit that dynamic drivers do have some serious benefits for a home theater. You can get a very nice set-up of either brand. As Douglas_schroeder suggests, the room is such an important part of the theater set-up, that you need to dedicate a reasonable amount of your budget to getting that straight. Try www.auralex.com for a tremendous number of great ideas for the room.

What would lead cinema systems to provide the "input" he did truly escapes me. As a dealer, he should not only feel limited in what he can say, but also feel that if he does feel a need to say something, there should be a hint of intelligence in it. That a dealer has the time to write such a long post that says nothing should give a fairly good indication of his success as a dealer - apparently about the same as it is as a poster.

I did vandersteens! 100% happy. I have tried a whole bunch of things in the past to many to list. This is the system if you have the room the 5a need a med to bigger room.

I'm not only a custom home theater guy, with over 6 retail stores and 15 years around this business, but am a long time two channel audiphile as well.
My recommendation for effective Home theater sound is still to consider more refined sounding, yet DEDICATED HOME THEATER SPEAKER SYSTEMS...that were designed as such...not music speakers doing "double dubty". That's my first recomomendation.
Let me say that, as someone who's sold everthing from Dunlavy's to Wilson's/Thiel's, B&W's, JM Labs, Meridian's, Logan's/Maggies, all the way down to more commercial Def Tech, Klipsch, NHT, M&K, Tannoy, Polk, etc, that you can indeed spend a lot on speakers, and not get the returns for your money for an effective home theater experience, just as with 2 channel! And this is very easy to do wrong, let me tell ya.
I would still strongly suggest you consider my recommendations I previously posted elsewere, and look at the KLipsch THX stuff, and Infinity Prelude MTS system if you want more refined/flexible audiophile music. Yes, the Def tech with powered subs has good dynamics for HT, and I've sold all that.
I can get anything I want at mostly cost, or close, and I like these systems for what they do, for what they cost. They're good for even larger rooms, and sound great.
For a dedicated HT system, for a passive setup, I'd recommend the Klipsh THX wholehartedly over most out there right now. It's very affordable, and very good sounding...especially potent on HT, and more refined than commercial theater speakers by far.
Anyway, I just can't recommend anything else I've come across for that money range, even more expensive audiophile speakers I've heard.
Other choices are to go Powered speakers, like M&K THX powered 150P's, active ATC mini-monitors(acoustics need to be spot on however with this design), and similarly active models.
YOu want "focus", dynamics,dialoge inteligibility, coherence, good detail and dynamic range, and PRESSENCE from a good HT system!...not laid back audiophile speaker sound. This yields a decidedly uninvolving sound that's not thrilling or effective for movie mixes in my experience.
The other, at least as equally as important part, is getting it all set up right, tweeking it, dealing with critical acoustics, and making it all work together, no matter what you get.
Invest in good experience, and it will be superb. If not, you end up with lots of mediocrity, and ill-spent money.