Which Home Theater speakers for under $28,000.

Electroman, I'm not familiar with the conversion from cu. feet to sq. feet. What's the sq. footage of your room? Am I way off thinking it may be about 30' x 15'? (My sq ft HT is 23'x13' with ceiling of roughly 8'. Multiply them together and I get 2,392 - is that right for cubic feet?)
Obviously, I'm not expert; would appreciate a post clarifying.
Anyway, if my calculations are correct/ballpark, then this room Electrostatman is discussing is not monstrously large, and Speakers such as Eminent Technology's, Magnepans, or Vandersteens could certainly work. Especially if supported by twin subs.

If I'm way off on the measurements, I'd have to reconsider.

Electro. maybe you would like to determine how much personal effort you want to put into assembing your system. $30k is a big chunk to spend on components assembled from Agon recommendations.
You obviously have deep enough pockets to afford spending a few dollars on consulting. Seek out the highest quality audio salon near you (or two). Be very up front; tell them you're paying them for an hour or two of their time for expertise. Not for their equipment. Ask them to put together the best possible system for the $, using both items they sell as well as ones they don't.
If they don't want to play that game, walk away.

But, if they are willing to consult and sell a combo of their pieces as well as other recommended components, you could end up with a significantly better system than finding things on your own. They may give you insights you'd never learn on your own.
Again, if it's made clear you're paying them for consulting, then you don't need to feel obligated to buy their systems. They should know that up front. If their equipment/recommendations has enough merit, then they'll profit from it.
I paid $70/hour for a HT consultant from a high end independent audio shop when I built my HT. VERY worth the money spent. I would suggest two consultations with different shops. Amazing what you can learn from competitors.
I also recommend a subscription to "Home Theater Builder" magazine, if you plan on rehabing the room. Even if not, it's a terrific read to give you ideas on what kind of equipment you could pursue. You can obtain back issues. When spending that kind of $, you want to get the room "tuned" well too.
The difficulty with all this is that it seems you won't get to hear the final system until it's up and running in your room. To do that, you'd likely have to support the local audio shop by purchasing from them, and they could loan components to you to demo. If you want to go it on your own, spend lots of time researching the components and thinking about compatability/integration, i.e. will all components be able to be controlled by universal remote.
If you get some esoteric equipment that doesn't have remotes, etc. you may be frustrated at having to mess with switches all the time, etc. Also, if this will be used by family members, you need to keep it simple enough operationally, or it'll collect dust.

One last thought; become intimately familiar with audioreview.com an excellent source to weigh in on used equipment being considered.

Greetings, Electrostatman, I can see a storm brewing...
Strong opinions here.
First, your room is generous, but by no means so huge you have to get monstrous speakers. Most sizeable floor standers will suit you well.
Also, you may be getting the cart ahead of the horse; first give some time to the size and placement of the screen. Are you doing projection? Where and what will be equipment placement, including amps? Will you have any other decorative furnishings in front? Any built in cabinetry up front? These considerations can effect speaker selection! Where will you be putting your center chanel speaker, etc? This is why I suggest you do some reading in "Home Theater Builder" mag. and the like. Failure to plan, and you'll have an expensive OOOPS!
Go stand in the room and visualize for an hour or more. Think through every contingency and possible problem. Might save you a TON of money. Oh, and you may want to get your wife to stand there with you; could save a bunch of hassle later.
Maybe you need to decide which is far more important to you, two chanel listening, or HT. I have put the bulk of $ into two chanel, and about 15% into surround. I have never felt the surround to suffer, but I haven't expected the world of it either. I built the room primarily for music and secondarily for HT.
If you want a superb two chanel system, put the bulk of $ there. If that's your goal, it will be difficult to achieve with JBL, Klipsch, Definitive Technology and the like. Without disrespect to vendors, they're distortion-makers.They may sound ok when a car is crashing on screen, but turn off the video and listen to them critically and it'll hurt. As I said, Vandersteen, Magnepan, Revel, etc. will more satisfactorily achieve the sound you're chasing (don't misread me, other posters, I'm not saying they're the ultimate). Especially if you've lived with quality two chanel! If you've lived for two chanel, ignore this at your own peril.
I believe that fantastic two chanel is the base for a wonderful surround system. In fact, I will go so far as to say that one can have slight disparity between the higher quality mains and lesser quality surrounds and still be quite content. Make that decision based on the proportion of movie viewing you WILL do, not what you THINK you'll do. Just spending $28k won't make you have time to watch more movies.
If you watch a movie about once a month like me, who cares as much about the surrounds? But if you're living for the DVD player and you'll watch movies four times more than you'll listen to music, then you should think differently and place more $ on the surrounds. Just don't go and get all identical speakers for the 5 chanels! Then you'll really suffer when you listen to two chanel! Unless, of course, you plan on setting up some serious two chanel gig elsewhere...

This advice is based on combo of common sense and practical economics, and having learned the hard way of upgrading from low-fi speakers to lower-level hifi speakers. Practically speaking, if you want good quality through out your HT, then you'll need likely $15k for projection, screen, cabling, and components. Leaves about 8K or nine for mains and a 3k-ish for surrounds.
Oh, and we haven't even touched on cost of projector/television! That will skew everything also.
So, back to sqare one: What's more important to you, the sound or picture? etc...

Not to argue; it seems Cenematic _systems has his stats down on decibels, etc. Just an observation; as an Eminent Technology LFT-8A owner (running them "stacked" or double pairs for mains, assisted in low end by dual Vandersteen 2W subs), it seems amazing to me to hear comments about them not having great dynamic range. Are we simply talking sheer loudness per watt here? Or, if it means they can't go lower, then stick a sub in with them!
I would appreciate hearing more about this; I plead ignorance on it. It seems counterintuitive to me that a speaker (LFT-8) which receives rave reviews from HiFi+ Magazine wouldn't be as suitable for HT applications as JBL or Klipsch. So, are we saying that a speaker that has more extreme range of decibels from whisper to BOOM is better? Hmmm, I'd rather have a speaker that reproduces voice and istruments in an uncannily natural way, then send them an audio signal from a video source...
Again, not to be cantankerous, but is "dynamic range" even a real world concern? To the average guy setting up his HT, is he going to lay awake at night thinking, "Man, I have to find some way to increase the dynamic range of my system..." An audiophile speaker is going to sound better regardless of what you have it play. So, if Definitive Tech or JBL has better dynamic range, I'm more inclined to use it for HT application? I don't think so. Maybe JBL or Klipsch has dynamic range on the Eminents. That's all they've got. You could't pay me enough to have me switch out for them.
I'm sure there's thousands of happy people out there with great sounding home theater and crappy two chanel, all in one system!
So, Electrostatman, which is it, primarily HT or two chanel? That will determine everything.

Electroman, sounds lovely! As they say, "this changes everything." I can hardly recommend larger main speakers when you're hiding them behind things. Doing more diminutive speakers behind the screen and in wall. That's out of my realm of knowledge. It sounds great! Very tidy/clean and aesthetically pleasing.
But, yeah, you'll have to do the two chanel again too. Man cannot live on HT alone...
You must post pics for us when finished!

haha! had to laugh at Albert's post! Funny!

I personally want my sound effects subtantial! When the celery breaks in the audio track of the special effects indicating a human bone has snapped, it had better sound, "KA-RACK"! Only Eminent Technology speakers can provide that Visceral 'you are there' bone snapping experience! It's the ONLY speaker endorsed by the Celery Growers for Special Effects Association! Need we say more!!!!!