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Remodeling Advice

My living room doubles as a Home Theatre. I also have a great two channel system in a separate bedroom and have created a second surround sound system in my basement so the living room system is now redundant. My wife is tired of seeing the AV equipment in the room and she spends a lot more time there than I do. We do watch TV and the occasional movie in the living room system.
We are going to do some remodeling for other reasons but have decided that this is the time to make the living room over. There is a 3 season porch next to
the living room that we want to insulate to use year round
I was interested in perhaps getting a projector and a screen for the living room and doing away with the television on the wall. I also am interested in removing the floor standing speakers and getting in walls ( the wall is going to be opened anyways to accomodate some ducts for the porch). The AV rack will be relocated out of site to the porch and placed in some built in shelves.
I don't know a thing about projectors. Are they ok for routine TV viewing? I also could use advice about in wall speakers. The sub will not be in wall, as I have what are perhaps unrealistic fears about in wall subs causing some structural problems
Budget--I'd like to keep the projector to about $2500K, and the speakers to about $1500 but would go higher. My current speakers cost about 4 times this but I now envision using these mainly for TV and movies, as I will listen to most of my music in my other two listening areas.
Any advice would be appreciated. I'm just starting to investigate this project.
richardfinegold
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
You might also consider on-wall speakers. I use Gallo Reference AV on-walls and they are terrific speakers. Your budget for the projector is reasonable and they are *plenty* good enough for TV and movies. If need be, reduce the cost of the projector to get a better screen, screens make a *big* difference in the picture quality...

-RW-
martykl
3,578 posts
 
My 6 year old Sony projector blew a lamp the other day and rather than replace the lamp (at $900!), I started to research a replacement projector. From my research so far, the Epsom 8150 looks to be about the most popular call in projectors in the under $2k class.

I agree with RW above that on-walls might be worth looking into. The Vienna Schoenbergs look great and sound very good, too. If your décor is contemporary, these guys might make the wife more agreeable to the idea of on-walls.

Good Luck

Marty
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
Projectors do not work real well when there is a lot of ambient light in the room. They just do not have the light output to compete with a LED. The people I have known who have put projectors in their main viewing areas have been disappointed, unless the area has few windows. It might work for you, just be aware of the light issue.

If you go to a projector, you might want to look at sound transparent screens, which means you could hide the speakers, although the screen may be more expensive. If you have the room, you can even use stand alone speakers behind the screen, which can probably give you better sound than in walls.
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