confused and don't know what to do


We would like to buy a nice audio system and also have this double as a surround sound but listening to music is the priority. We have listened to many speakers but have settled on the B&W 804's. Now the challenge is to select a receiver and all the other accompaniments we require. We have a little challenge in that our home is a condo and the outside wall is all glass. The space is combined kitchen, living room, and dining room all open with hardwood floors and hard tile on the walls of the kitchen and a lot of granite counter tops. It seems that every where we go, the recommendations are different depending on what the store is selling and of course, the sales people would like us to buy the most expensive. What would give great sound without going crazy. We are thinking about 2 tribe sub woofers and space is limited and an in wall center B&W speaker but we don't know what we are doing and don't want to throw our money away. Help! Too many choices and we don't have enough knowledge. Thank you so much.
raw33

Showing 2 responses by erik_squires

Oh, wait, I just read the room thing.

Have you heard those speakers in your home?

Can you add any room treatment on the ceilings?? For instance, if the ceiling is white, get white panels.

I would strongly caution you not to buy speakers without listening to them in the same acoustic environment.  If your dealer's room is well treated, and you are going to be suffering a lot of reflections you may be disappointed.  Room correction does help this though.

Otherwise, rather than wide radiating speakers you may be best served by something horn loaded, or an open baffle design which has highly controlled dispersion.

Best,

E
Depends on your budget.

Suggeste you start with an Anthem AVR. If you still feel 2 channel is lacking, add a Luxman 507/509 integrated.