best of both worlds? would this work?? stereo & HT


OK, trying to accomplish alot in a large, multipurpose room about 17 x 28 x 9. System will be on 17' wall, plenty of viewing/listening space behind.

Here are my goals:

1. maximum 2 channel fidelity. I like the old school tubey sound
2. minimize use of floor space as I have small kids and there's lots of horsing around where towers could get knocked over
3. decent/reasonable home theater performance. mostly drama, classic movies, not an effects freak. dialog clarity is paramount.

From what I have read, alot of 2 channel buffs like to keep two systems. I have only one room, so here is my approach:

1. used pair of Klipschorns, one in each corner - $2000
2. preamp w/DAC and theater pass thru for streaming, phono connect, etc - $2000
3. tube amp - used maybe $2000
4. 5 onwalls, maybe Goldenear Supersats, 3 identical arrayed along bottom of 120" screen, plus 2 surround $2500
5. decent AVR with pre outs $1000

I would connect the two sub outs from the AVR to the theater inputs on the pre. I'd probably set the crossovers to 80 on the fronts and 100 on the surrounds. The pre would interface between all two channel sources, the amp and then the Klipschs. When listening to music, I would only activate the pre and amp and source. In theater mode, I would switch the pre input to the passthrough (which goes to Klipschs, but takes input from AVR sub outs), activate the AVR and put in a blu-ray.

So in effect, in theater mode it would be a sub-sat system with Klipschorns as subs. They are rate to 35 Hz or so, which is plenty low for my type of movies, I think. In two channel mode, I would have the classic old school Klipsch experience. And all without using any critical floorspace. just the corners of the short wall which aren't to important to me anyway.

This would work, right?? Throw in a basic projector and screen and maybe be at $12K. And be killer/upgradeable for two channel??
tswei99
You could gain a little system simplicity without sacrificing sound quality by taking your $3000 preamp and AVR budget and allocating it to a used McIntosh MX-120 instead (they go for about $2600-2700 these days). This unit is great for those who don't want to give up 2-channel quality to get surround sound.

I'm very pleased with mine. It does a superb job in 2-channel mode and in surround mode. Since you're not an "effects freak" (me either). You're unlikely to miss any auto-setup functions in the newer AVRs.

You could run your Klipschorns off the zone 2 outs and set the listening mode to 2-channel/pure stereo mode. The 5.1 outs would run normally.

A possible downside to this approach could mean 2 different amps. A tube amp for the Klipsch, and a 5 channel amp for the wall mounts. And since you're running something like the SuperSats you could get away with not spending a ton on amplification for those. Emotiva UPA-500 perhaps?