Hi All, Ok after a lot of explanation,screaming & begging ()I finally was able to influence my wife to let me set up our basement with a projector and sound system.
I want to setup audio first.....and I have a restricted budget...about $3K for audio part. I need advice on a decent Home Theater setup.
Primary use: Movies. Secondary use: Music.
I am looking for Tower speakers for the front and rest of the setup to match them.
bean, do some research on room treatments and layout management first. You will save a lot of hassles if you understand the room first, and you will maximize your choices.
Spend money on the space the speakers work into. Good speakers in a crappy space still sound crappy. Most basements are not ideal for audio. Concrete floors and walls are hyper-reflective though they have few problems with lossy bass problems.
Player: Sony Playstation 3 for Blu-ray and DVD playback. If you really don't want a games console, look at Panasonic's BD30 or Pioneer's new BD player. Don't bother with anything that doesn't do Blu-ray. You'd be mad to do so. The Playstation 3 is my favourite because it is constantly being updated automatically and for free. That said, it does have certain limitations. For example, it cannot stream TrueHD or DTS-HD/MA to an appropriately equipped AV receiver (see below). However, it can stream the uncompressed PCM instead. This is the same quality, just an unpacked version. There may also be other hardware limitations I'm not aware of. Who knows? Me? I bought one recently since it had a comparable picture to the best DVD players (I compared to players up to £2000). If you really want to stream TrueHD or DTS-HD/MA, then look at a 'proper' BD player.
AV Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR605 or preferably the 705. The 705 is the value for money item here because it has the same DSP chipset of the next 4 units up the range. The Onkyos support all the capabilities of Blu-ray and sound great. If you can go for better, then go further up the range. Also consider the Denon AVR2808 or better. Must be that high in the Denon range in order to take advantage of all the goodies available from Blu-ray particularly high resolution audio.
Speakers: Unless your basement is huge you don't need full size speakers. Consider Focal's Sib & Cub sub/sat system. If you want a special centre then consider the Sib XL for centre speaker duties. My sister has the PS3/TX-SR605/Focals and the system sounds very enjoyable. Better electronics is reflected by the speakers.
If you insist on full range speakers, consider Focal's 700V series. They're very easy to drive so they don't stress amplifiers. Also consider B&W's 68x series. They're not as easy to drive as the Focals but many people like their warm presentation (I don't). There are loads of other brands such as Ascend, Axiom, Paradigm. Don't mix speaker brands. You need the acoustic to be homogeneous and the easiest way to achieve this is to keep within the same brand.
Subs: The exception is the subwoofer. B&W's and Focal's subs are OK but no great shakes. Look at a sub specialist such as Velodyne, HSU, REL for best results. I particularly like the Velodynes for their characterless fast presentation.
Projectors: here's where I break your budget. Go for the best projector you can. Currently the cream of the value-for-money crop is the Panasonic PT-AE2000E. This full 1080p LCD projector gives some of the absolute best results I have ever seen anywhere, including the cinema, and that's with a PS3! It's amazing, with a superbly sharp, crisp, stable image.
If you have a really flat wall, paint it white and use that, but if you don't you need to add a sensibly priced screen to get the results you need. Do not go for a screen with particularly high gain. This can work against you as much as with you, particularly if you have light coloured walls. In this situation, light bounces around the room, raising black levels on the screen. Better to go with a medium gain screen in most situations.
Final suggestion, and my cheapest yet, and possibly one you may wish to ignore if the hollering with the wife has reached breakpoint...after deciding where the screen will be, paint the ceiling above the screen in a very dark colour, preferably black, in a large semi-circle the width of the screen at the screen wall. This stops light bouncing off the ceiling and improves contrast levels (and your picture) dramatically. But as I said - only if you think the marriage will survive it...
Thank you very much for such a detailed post. appreciate it. I am going to go listen to the ones you recommended...B&W 683's and Paradigm monitor series. will see what I like in them.
Generally speaking, the bigger more expensive the speaker, the more difficult a load it presents to the amplifier. There are exceptions of course, but I say this to warn you. For example, I would only match the 683s with a very capable amp such as the Onkyo 875 or Denon 3808 as a minimum.
Good speakers will only give you as good a sound as the electronics tell them to do. They can only react so it's important for an amplifier to be able to control them easily.
I also note that a system based on 683s (and the associated HTM61) which has an appropriate amp will blow your budget to smithereens...
I went to the local dealer to listen to B&W's and WOW they sounded great... was so excited to get them untill it came to price.... well they were $1400/pair...I guess with Center and surround speakers it comes to 2400(or more)+tax....
onto paradigms and klipsch's... Paradigm sounded OK too but I was impressed with Klipsch RF-82's placed right next to Paradigm Monitor 11's.
RF 82's are priced @ 1000/Pair retail...but the dealer is willing to work on price if I package it all together...
Any suggestions on Klipsch's ??
and as Frank said I for sure need a good receiver...and no matter which speakers I get, I will for sure spend on a good receiver... I currently have, Onkyo TX-NR801..this is 2~3 year old model....with RJ45 jack on back, for living room...so something in that range would be Ideal.
Next steps goto a Focal dealer..... Tweeter has some older model Focals on clearance..hopefully i can listen to them...
)I finally was able to influence my wife to let me set up our basement with a projector and sound system. 
