I have recently settled into a new apartment and am looking to put together an audio system capable of accommodating my new, larger, living space.
I am very much at the beginning stages and am open to suggestions on just about anything. I originally assumed I'd be looking to create a 5.1 system. Somewhere i read that 7.1 might be more appropriate for "large rooms," which i believe I have. I have linked the floorplan below. it is very large and very open. There is a bar separating the dinning room to the kitchen. it is otherwise a big open room with the dimensions as marked. I have placed the intended location of major pieces of furniture. none of this is final or set in stone. if you see a way to improve things, by all means tell me what to fix!
I think that the "living room" could be accommodated with a nice quality 5.1 system. However there is soooo much space connected to this area via the dinning room/kitchen. I am not sure how to account for this open air space in planning my system. providing cinema sound for the television/living room area should probably be considered the main purpose of this system. at the same time, I would like the option of it playing music "apartment wide" without giving the sense I was listening to a radio in another room.
As far as budget goes, I am fairly flexible. I am willing to spend what it need to in order to make the system sound right. However, I don't realistically have anywhere near the ear or level of appreciation that might make a 15,000 dollar system desirable for someone. the most important consideration, for me, is probably value. If i am asked to pay a little more for a significant improvement in quality/craftsmanship I will happily do it. in that same vein, I am not looking for nor do I expect "best of the best" performance. In college I had a set of x-series bookshelf monitors from Av123 before they went belly up. I think I got about as much satisfaction from the way they sounded (pretty good) as i did from knowing they cost about 1/2 the price of comparable quality speakers (they were about 280/pair when i bought them in 2006ish). Having said all this, my top end today is probably in the 4-5 thousand dollar range. I have a preferences for staying as far below this as possible while still meeting all of my other requirements!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61935178/floorplan.jpg
one idea I had was to have 5 speakers and a sub setup around the primary living room space for movies. 3 along the tv wall and two on the back wall on either side of the sofa. a sub somewhere. I think this would meet the requirements for watching movies. would it be reasonable to have an additional 2 speakers along the far left dining room wall that I could get involved for "full room" 7.1? I assume this would require me to find a receiver that can switch between operating in 5.1 and 7.1 modes? I think this would be a pretty ideal setup - 3 in the front 2 in the back for movies confined to a smaller space and 4 in the front 3 in the back for apartment wide music. is such a thing possible?
I have recently settled into a new apartment and am looking to put together an audio system capable of accommodating my new, larger, living space.
I am very much at the beginning stages and am open to suggestions on just about anything. I originally assumed I'd be looking to create a 5.1 system. Somewhere i read that 7.1 might be more appropriate for "large rooms," which i believe I have. I have linked the floorplan below. it is very large and very open. There is a bar separating the dinning room to the kitchen. it is otherwise a big open room with the dimensions as marked. I have placed the intended location of major pieces of furniture. none of this is final or set in stone. if you see a way to improve things, by all means tell me what to fix!
I think that the "living room" could be accommodated with a nice quality 5.1 system. However there is soooo much space connected to this area via the dinning room/kitchen. I am not sure how to account for this open air space in planning my system. providing cinema sound for the television/living room area should probably be considered the main purpose of this system. at the same time, I would like the option of it playing music "apartment wide" without giving the sense I was listening to a radio in another room.
As far as budget goes, I am fairly flexible. I am willing to spend what it need to in order to make the system sound right. However, I don't realistically have anywhere near the ear or level of appreciation that might make a 15,000 dollar system desirable for someone. the most important consideration, for me, is probably value. If i am asked to pay a little more for a significant improvement in quality/craftsmanship I will happily do it. in that same vein, I am not looking for nor do I expect "best of the best" performance. In college I had a set of x-series bookshelf monitors from Av123 before they went belly up. I think I got about as much satisfaction from the way they sounded (pretty good) as i did from knowing they cost about 1/2 the price of comparable quality speakers (they were about 280/pair when i bought them in 2006ish). Having said all this, my top end today is probably in the 4-5 thousand dollar range. I have a preferences for staying as far below this as possible while still meeting all of my other requirements!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61935178/floorplan.jpg
one idea I had was to have 5 speakers and a sub setup around the primary living room space for movies. 3 along the tv wall and two on the back wall on either side of the sofa. a sub somewhere. I think this would meet the requirements for watching movies. would it be reasonable to have an additional 2 speakers along the far left dining room wall that I could get involved for "full room" 7.1? I assume this would require me to find a receiver that can switch between operating in 5.1 and 7.1 modes? I think this would be a pretty ideal setup - 3 in the front 2 in the back for movies confined to a smaller space and 4 in the front 3 in the back for apartment wide music. is such a thing possible?