Hey guys, I have been on here for a few years just lurking from time to time mostly in 2005 when I was researching for my own home theater system purchase. In 2005 I bought myself a Harmon Kardon AVR-635 and Klipsch Reference RF-35, RC-35, RS-35 and an RW-12 sub. I love my system in truth but it costed a huge chunk of change in comparison to this budget.
So this is for my buddy who is an Army Sergeant over in Afghanistan and he asked me to help him build as good of a system as we can for $2,000 , not I personally have read ALOT about SVS Subwoofers being the best out there, and was thinking it would be the best option for his subwoofer.
So please chime in on what you think would be a great combination in that pricerange. I'm sure if he needs to go a LITTLE over that budget he would, but lets try to keep it in that pricerange. No bookshelf speakers preferably. I think he wants to really see what he's buying standing tall like I did.
Thanks ahead of time guys. BTW, he has a 42inch plasma with HDMI so I'm sure that will be necessary.
My second choice would be SVS for that price range. First would be building an IB subwoofer for about $6-700 with a 1500w amp and 2 Fi 15" Q's being driven. Then I'd probably buy a Paradigm Center, surrounds, and mains for ~$600 I'd buy a Pioneer Elite HDMI out player for $300 and with what's left I'd get the $650 Pioneer Elite receiver. Now this is my personal choice on that budget.. opinions may differ. The subs would get to maybe 120-130dB around 20hz and maximum output would drop below that, but would be flat to ~10hz. The speakers would be able to keep up and the Dvd player and Receiver are no lie, I've seen and heard the Price/Performance ratio.
I generally agree with Berny on the back surround issue. However, the loss of information may or may not be considered significant depending on the material and listener. I would say the loss is most noticeable on high impact/action movies with a lot of special effects, much less so on drama or low effects material. I've done it both ways and my current configuration does not have the back surrounds. I can't honestly say that I really miss them.