Which came first, the chicken or the egg

Leafs points sould not be missed. When one attends a live performance of any type..the best seat in the house is centered a few rows back.(or something of the like). I was in what used to be a high-end audio shop over the weekend..that is now a HT shop. Well, the "salesperson" played a new DVD-A cd for me that he thought was quite good. It sounded very, very stupid. The sound was spread out with noise comming at me from behind..to the point where it sounded like a higher-tech version of early 70's Quad..or worse. The vast majority of movies are making noise..and seem to think that it should come from the side and back ala Disneyland.. but this has absolutely nothing to do with music, either live or recorded. So, use two rooms. Take ten thousand and do a home theater room based on the 36"
XBR450 Sony and the Martin Logan Home theater speakers..get it over. Then take the other 20 to 40 thousand and spend time learning what you like about music and high-end audio.

I will expand on my advice.
If the HT is for movie watching mostly you dont have to go bezerk/Its only bombs and special effects and dialog.You could do it quite nice with an Anthem MCA 5 AVM2 combwith a Camelot Roundtable DVD palyer.Speakrs are your next choice a nice 2 pair of monitors Triumph Coincident with a good Entec or Velodyne sub.And get Israel to do A triumph center channel your all set to watch movies.Coincident cable will finish this of and we have a nice system.For under 20K and 30 k left over to do 2Channel properly.
Point is how much HI- End do you need for bombs exploding.Its not the sound of a violin or acoustice guitar you are trying to reproduce.Its backround noise and dialog.

The best advice may be to use the search function of these fourms. Insert key words..and see what you can use from work that's been done on prior posts. That said..it is more difficult to do HT that is still also a high-end 2 channel system. My biggest suggestion is to be VERY, VERY carefull with cable/dish or DSL feeds. These can cause real problems with system grounds..and more, and can handicap the very high-end sound you may be seeking. Good luck.

If you went with the CasablancaII I would not walk out of the store without the DaViD II.(Progressive scan and anti jitter built in) talk about synergy. And The aerial acostics mentioned above. I have heard these pieces togeather at a local dealers show room. They were using a Theta dreadnaught to drive the system. But I here that was not enough juice.(Sounded good to me) Theta is comming out with a 400watt mono-block. Me tinkin dat do da trick. Oh and don't forget a couple of aerial subs while your out. Wouldn't want you to have to make two trips. Also If you don't want to shell out for a projector and screen you might slum it with a 50"ronco plasma. This should give you bragging rights in at least a 3 state radius.

Spend the $50,000 on a great two channel system. Then, get out of the house for dinner and a movie.

Thanks for your responses. I don't want it to get personal, just some "friendly advise". But where to start???? Do I buy speakers first, and then try to match electronics to them, or visa versa? I'm thinking of the Talon Khorus X for the mains,maybe the Roc sub, is there a good match for center, sides and rears?
I was told the EAD TheaterMaster Signature 8 would be a better value than the Casablanca II for about half the money ? I'm all over the place on a DVD/CD transport. How much do you have to spend to get a realy good one without getting crazy? And what model, definitly want progressive scan and jitter reduction built in. PLAY NICE BOYS! thanks

Just what everyone wants : a lose, lose, situation. Buy a magazine,criticise the author; it's less personal.

That's all you got for this guy Leafs? Why say anything at all? And have you heard of 2channel bypass ever? That might be something you could look into because I think it negates your comment. To answer your question, Blob7, you start by doin a little research and askin some questions. You can buy a whole lot of *great* sounding system for $50k, a whole lot.

I will at least try and point you in the direction I'd go if I had the dough. But first, there is a problem here. You don't say anything about video. Does that have to be squeezed into the budget too? If so, it could be tough. You could spend $50k in just the projection unit and a screen alone, not to mention video scalers and satellite receivers. It doesn't say anything about that, so I will assume you have that all figured out.

As far as electronics, I will just skim across some basics. To begin, I would suggest a Theta Casablanca II HT preamp/processor as the brains of the outfit. It does it all, sounds great and no one will laugh at you ever for having it. In addition, the thing can't be obsolete because of the way it's built; you can update the hardware and the software any time a new format comes down the pike. Proceed and Meridian make similar units that would also do the trick.

For power, get the amperage of your choice. Just about all the top amp manufacturers are making amps in multichannel configurations. Look at Ead, Proceed, Bryston, Theta, etc. there are a lot of others. Usually the maker will have a flagship 2ch. amp and also a 5 channel amp. The 2ch. runs the mains, the 5ch. for the surrounds. Proceed, for example, makes the HPA2 at 250 wpc, and the Amp5 at 125 wpc--there's your 7 channels. Bryston makes the 4Bst(2 ch.) and the 9Bst(5ch.) which are the same power output as the Proceed.

For speakers, I say go with Aerial Acoustics. They are among the best, and again, noone could ever laugh.

For digital, you got a decision to make. Try and go with an all in one DVD/CD player, or split the work and buy both a DVD and a CD player. I got the Camelot ($2500 used) that does double duty and am quite happy with it. The Camelot sounds great for both 2ch. and HT, has tons of gizmos on it, and comes in second only to the Ayre DVD player (loaded $12k). But if you bought the Ayre, you'd have to laugh at yourself to keep from crying--at least I would.

Don't forget cables, this will be a big part of the budget and if you skimp, you'll be sorry you did. You can get cables from many on line dealers--but it is a pain to figure out what you'll need and what quality is good enough.

There is a ton more that I am presently too tired to write about, maybe some other of our fine membership will pick up where I am admittedly slacking. Hope I've helped.

HT and Good stereo dont mix.