Best HT speaker system

This is a little outside the box but here goes. Pick for yourself your favorite a/v pre/proc with balanced outs to all channels. Then buy as many GENELEC ACTIVE monitors as you want!(this company is based in Finland and have been around for 20 yrs.) As much as i love audiophile speakers driven by great amps, the above setup will pummel all comers. These speakers are of extremely high resolution(in a good way), and they Will Not Bottom out ever! The Genelec model HT 208 is a two way w/ a 1" twtr and 8" mid/woof--they play ~45hz to 22khz. Capable of 120+db without compression for sustained periods of time. Cost is $2300ea. Bear in mind that includes the built in amps. Also active crossovers feeding bandwidth specific amplfiers(120watts per driver!). Add the subs of your choice, spec the right balanced interconnects and you have a HT that is most impressive. Your room is pretty large, so its gonna take some serious gear to pressurize it without blowing up, this scenario will do it for you with ease.

used linn speakers are hard to beat and there are quite a few around...you always have the option of going active with linn cards and amps, too, and that materially improves the already excellent sound

fwiw
carl

SINCE you didn't put in a price, I'll tell you that the "greatest system in the world, at any price" (Quoted from Stereophile Guide to Home Theater). This system won the 2001 Stereophile system of the year.

5 ATC Active 100's plus 2 of the 01/15 1000 Watt Subs will run you around $58,000. For your sized room, you'll need a much more dynamic speaker. Go check them out in Stereophile GTHT and check out their new website at www.atc.gb.net!

Each Active 100 is internally Tri-Amped with 50Watt Tweeter, 100Watt Mid, and 200Watt Bass. Active Crossovers always make for a better speaker sound than internal Passive crossovers w/ external amps.

I guarantee you that this system will blow the living doors off of anything else in the market place... I have never before seen people coming out of the CEDIA demo room that actually broke a sweat before. Nothing short of awesome.

Lower budget lines are available from ATC which are just as astounding as almost all of their products use the same drivers w/ different sized cabinets.

Lastly, this is the system that I own....

Try the VR3.5's, LCR35, TS350's and the S/3 sub. See at www.vonschweikert. Revealing, quick, acurate, slam,,, this speaker grouping really does it all!

I have a Lexicon DC-1 with (7.1channel) M&K's set up. front is s-125's sides and rears are s-85's and two MX-150THX subs. For strictly home theater you can't beat M&K.