Two words. Elite Audio. Go for the "greater" set-up. Do they have 10.1 yet?

Seriously. You need Kal Rubinson -- he's the multichannel man of the year, in my book. Me? Never touch the stuff. Can't afford to quad, quint, sept, or dectuple my fiscal misery. From what I have heard, though, JBL is making a comeback. I have heard a couple of models (only in stereo, though...) that sounded very good for the money. Definitely not like the old Hartsfield and Paragon days, when everything JBL built sounded like an air-raid siren. Go see Kal. Cheers and good luck, Clifton

If nominated, I will not run.
If elected, I will not serve.

Whew! The first issues to address, after intent and budget, are use (music vs. movies) and context (room, users, rest of system). If music, including stereo, is a significant part of the application, then the same guidelines for speaker choice apply to the L/R speakers. After that is accomplished, fill out with compatible center, surrounds and sub. BTW, the sub need not come from the same stable as the others.

JMLabs is a good start but there are many others in that range and only your assessment of them counts.

Kal

Hi, Spec --

Ask and ye shall receive. Get those room dimensions to Kal on the double. They are important. When it comes to multichannel set-ups, Kal just might be the only sane person on the planet who has expertise on the subject, and he has heard a good two-thirds of everything out there. Does your receiver have enough juice to run the JMlabs? Heed Kal's comment on the subs -- you may be able to save some bucks there. Good luck. Kal, you gotta run -- you're the only chance for the music-lover's bloc in a world now run by Blockbusters and $9.95-a-month-unlimited-DVD's.

Considering your narrow wall where the TV and speakers are going to be and the close proximity to a room opening that will likely see a lot of traffic, I think floorstanders might be an eye-sore and in the way.

Most speakers need to be placed at least a couple of feet out from the wall and ideally, a few feet away from the side wall. Since you will not have the room to keep your speakers away from at least one of your walls, you might want to consider speakers that are ported in the front.

Also, since you are 80% into the movie thing, you might consider wall mount speakers for the front and add a sub to fill in the lower frequencies. This would allow you to keep from encroaching into your living and traffic space.

Dynaudio makes a nice wall mount speaker that would partner with one of their center channels and give you high quality sound for both music and movies. You could probably save some money by using a PSB sub with the Dynaudios. In fact, for someone that places a higher priority on quality AV playback, you might even consider going with PSB speakers for the whole lot and use the savings to upgrade your receiver/amp.

If you do opt for floor models, I would wait on getting a sub until you have your system up and running. The left speaker is going to end up very near the boundaries of the walls and will enhance the bass because of it.

As for rear speakers, I would place a very low priority on spending much money there. Your best bet for satisfying sound is in getting the front right.

I'm not against using Focal speakers, I'm merely suggesting you consider that placing speakers up against and near walls can destroy sound quality if the speakers weren't designed to be used that way...and most aren't.

Well, that's only part of the info. From what I see here, I would recommend rotating the setup 90deg to put the display on the short end wall. This would provide a similar acoustic situation for both sides. The current arrangement is inherently imbalanced with the left speakers having a closed boundary and the right speakers with none.

More info about use and room contents would be useful.

Kal

The chorus package you write about is good. I have previously owned a pair of 706s and the SW700S subwoofer and for the money they are good. The subwoofer is really good and packs a lot of power in a small package, very musical but doesn