A high end shop locally quotes $1000 for looking at a new home build plans and for their acoustic design for the HT room. Is this a "normal" price? They will spec out HVAC requirements, list necessary acoustic materials, diagram the layout of the room, design location of cables and services, and provide engineer specifications.

Is there any sites out there that provide general information on the best positioning for speakers, be it 5.1, 7.1, etc? And are there any professionals here that can do such work for a bit less?

Thanks in advance.

Since you have a whole room to play with you might try
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=3
one of these forums.

I build and designed my own dedicated home theater without issue. It performs really well. It took some time to sort everthing out but if you like learning and being hands on it isn't that hard.

As far a setup of audio goes there are plenty good reads. I would start at the top of the forum in the home theater setup 101 thead.

The dolby website has good reading about speaker placement.

Have Fun!

Is there any sites out there that provide general information on the best positioning for speakers, be it 5.1, 7.1, etc? And are there any professionals here that can do such work for a bit less?

Here you go, for free:

http://www.realtraps.com/art_room-setup.htm

There are many other self-help non-commercial articles on the site I'm sure you'll find useful.

--Ethan

Wow, thank you Ethan! JUST exactly what I was looking for. Always can count on the wise members of AVS!

kmannth: Thanks, those are some great articles, I have hours of reading ahead of me now. :)