Best HT system for movies under $50k?

You seem to be omitting "pro" gear such as Meyer, Genelec among others. Another alternative is looking at "pro" designers that specialize on such speakers such as Mark Seaton. Contact Mark or if you rather speak to one of his customers, Art seems to be a happy owner.

PS There is a subjective element to speakers, which means you really should try and listen to the speakers you are considering. People can provide guidance, but you should make sure the advise coincides with your taste before you pursue it.

If you like the JBL sound, the JBL Synthesis may be in your range.

CJ

The speaker choices you have listed all have very different sounds so you should certainly audition each of them as much as possible to make the proper decision.

Tell us about your room.... Acoustically treated? Dimensions?, etc..

Mark Seaton can produce things that make for a hell of a performance. Being a videophile myself however we need to talk video projection.I agree with Jeff also start with the room.

Art

Mark Seaton can produce things that make for a hell of a performance. Being a videophile myself however we need to talk video projection.I agree with Jeff also ,start with the room.

Art

Alzheimer's setting in a bit early there Art?

Also to the OP..... is 5.1 or 7.1 the target? as that will impact the speaker choice quite a bit. I would absolutely advise 7.1, if your room can take it.

Do you know how old I am, what's early about it ?

Art

In terms of accuracy, precision, coherency, resolution, I think that's probably the best system out there. It has the best center channel I can imagine and has idealized matching, huge power output capability
I haven't heard them, but have heard good things.
A safe choice for reasonable money
Okay for movies, i suppose, but I wasn't impressed at all.
Not a B&W fan, but these are okay. Smooth, almost warm, nice tweeter finally. Not as detailed, accurate or powerful as the Revels, but they won't offend.
I thought these were just plain awful sounding every time I've heard them. They sound like someone just slapped 50 drivers on a board and plugged them in.
This is another safe choice by all accounts, but i haven't heard them. Just seen their giganticness!

One of the most important things is speaker matching - having identically voiced speakers with identical drivers (at least mid/treble) and, IMO, wide dispersion in a well treated room.

Do you mean its the best for the price or are you saying you feel its better than anything available?

Best i can imagine, short of a DEQXed version. If there's something better, I don't know what it might be. When I say better or best, I mean in terms of design/measurements, rather than subjective preference. I'm saying I can't think of anything that would top it off hand, not that it doesn't exist. It's impressive machinery.

Though, it may make sense to do Studios with that center since they're the same speaker and would match better in dispersion, phase, tonality.

With respect to #7 and with a $50k budget as a parameter, I suspect he meant Triad Platinum speakers (not Gold). The line has quite a center channel as well.

Microperf screen?

DO you like (or does your room allow for) listening at reference level?

One thing I would suggest is asking yourself whether a reasonably consistent FR is needed over a group of seats, or just one. If the former, I suggest considering the dispersion characteristics of various speaker choices.

For instance:


Revel Ultima Studio2, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off axis.

...exceptional out to 8-9khz


Revel Ultima Studio2, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 15–5° above axis, reference response, differences in response 5–15° below axis.

versus, not so great imo:


B&W 802D, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response, differences in response 5–90° off axis.


B&W 802D, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis, from back to front: differences in response 15–5° above axis, reference response, differences in response 5–15° below axis.

The above are all from Stereophile. The below is from Soundstage of a mini-monitor (still waiting to see measurements of their floorstanding v.2 speakers):


[right-click and select "show picture" if necessary, or hit F5/refresh]
Paradigm Reference Signature S1 v.2
Top curve: on-axis response
Middle curve: 15 degrees off-axis response
Bottom curve: 30 degrees off-axis response

I've been "Intheindustry" for just under 10 years now and have heard A LOT of systems both of the "closed" & the separately selected component variety. In my opinion, the Phase Technology dARTS (Digital Audio Reference Theatre System) is not only one of the finest theatre systems available, but an absolute bargain to be had starting at $10K and climbing to $20Kish.

http://www.phasetech.com/darts-new.html

Click on the "Product Downloads" Link at the top of the page and there are 6 different reviews to be downloaded.

Which system & price point you "need" depends solely on cubic footage & what "type" of speaker you want: in-wall, in-room, or behind-wall. If you have an absolutely ENORMUS room (& I mean huge), Phase Tech will design the speakers with enough drivers to function properly in your space.

This system doesn't get talked about a whole lot on here, but I assure you it's at least worth reading about and auditioning if you can find a dealer in your area. It’s extremely unique.

You can spend more, but for a movie system, I've not found anything that can actually give you more. I've been a dealer of Genelec, (still do) Klipsch Ultra2, did a 30 day in home audition of both Synthesis & Meridian systems, and lots of others. I feel that dARTS came away as the best over all system. My advice: Buy the dARTS that fits your room then take the rest of your speaker budget & go for an incredible projection system, screen, lighting control, etc.

$50K is a fabulous budget & regardless of which system you go with, I’m sure it will be killer!

Best of luck!

EDIT: In response to the post above mine, which brings up a great point (essentially: in-room frequency change(s) or "sweet spot(s)"), the dARTS was specifically designed to eliminate this problem and does so without fail.

I would suggest that your question tends to limit answers to one of your 7 pre-selections.

Do you want peoples thoughts on the best speaker systems under $50K or the best under $50K out of your group of 7?

Do room correction/treatments exist within your $50K budget or is that already taken care of?

It really sounds like the OP wants us to help him choose from those. It does seem that the cart is ahead of the horse.

Art

dARTS is pretty cool. Big and powerful, that's for sure. Oddly, i really loved the theater sound - incredible center channel voice realism, but not so much the music sound. Didn't image well in stereo for some reason and sounded a bit odd. Not sure i liked the tweeter. But there's a lot of technology in that that makes it better than it should be. Highly recommended for a movie only system. And it could be that it was just not set up as well for music when I heard it and it was an early pre production model.

I guess the question is if your impressions between them would differ if you used a processor with Audyssey's MultEQ XT with the other speakers. I have a feeling that this made a big difference with dARTS.

CJ

Actually, you are 100% spot on right about the stereo only performance!
Reason being: When your dealer sets the software up in the digital amp he/she sets up all 16 channels (7.2 system) for multichannel theatre. The system works together as one piece. Therefore, the speakers will not image well or sound "right" when played in two channel stereo.

16 channels you ask? There are no crossover components in the speakers. Only the drivers. To dARTS, each tweeter, mid, & woofer is essentially treated as it's own channel. I've always thought of the dARTS system as a "sum of it's parts" piece of equipment.

So, yes, definately not a system for the two channel music lover. But, with what the OP saves vs. his $50K budget, I'm sure there's a killer stereo setup that can be integrated into the theatre room!

As far as the tweeter goes: Different strokes for different folks, right? That being said, there are 4 different roll off points for the installer to choose from based on the measurments & harshness of the room. This could possibly have not been done properly durring set-up in the demo you heard.

As to the quality of the tweeter in dARTS (of just about 90% of Phase Tech's other speakers): dARTS uses a proprietary soft dome tweeter. Fact: Bill Hecht, founder of Phase Tech, invented the soft dome tweeter. Phase Tech OEM's this part for many many manufacturers & has for years. Ken Hecht, the company's President & creator of dARTS, said that the dARTS system along with their entire PC line & some in-ceiling/in-wall pieces uses the absolute FINEST tweeter the company has ever designed & produced, bar none. And, yes, that includes the tweeters Phase Tech made & sold to McIntosh for their Reference line!

The company has a lot of really great speaker products and has some cool history behind it as well.

Oh, without question it made all the difference in the world!

However....
I've set up many many systems using Audyssey software. I've actually stoped using it completely in the receiver based product & started back to the old fasioned way of calibration because I've hated the less than reliable results.

The trick is that the Audyssey software used in the digital amplifier was specially designed just for dARTS & is not a run-of-the-mill Audyssey set-up. Not even close. dARTS takes a fairly long time to set up & calibrate.

With the receivers & processors that have Audyssey built in, you take a mic to one location & press an automated button. With dARTS, there are 15 to 32 points the system measures in the room. It's a legitimate question, though, since the Audyssey name is attached to the processing. But the dARTS implementation is very different.

I don't think that's quite right. It depends on which version of the Audyssey software the processor uses. For instance, the Integra DTC-9.8 takes 8 points with the built-in MultEQ XT and can be used with the Audyssey MultEQ Pro for additional points. In either case, I haven't listened to any of the above speakers except the Triad (which I have), so I can't debate the sound!

CJ

I think you have mentioned some good speaker lines. These are all very capable speakers with the exception of the Mcintosh speakers. Assuming you are building a dedicated room I think you would be better off using an acoustically transparent screen like Screen Research and using an identical full-range center channel matched to your front left and rights. This will open up some new possibilities for you.

Heres are some options (in no particular order):

A) 3 Dynaudio Confidence C4s across the front, 2 pairs of Contour SR for rears

B) 3 Dali MS5s across the front, 2 pairs of Euphonia RS3s for rears

C) 3 Aerial Acoustics Model9/20Ts across the front, 2 pairs of SR3 for rears

D)3 Revel Salon/Studio2 across the front, 2 pairs of Gems for for rears

E) 3 B&W 800D across the front, 2 pairs of SCMS for rears

These are all very good speakers in their own rights. Stereophile measurements are a good getting started point, but they are not necessarily indicative of what a speaker will do with complex movie/music material.

First thing you need to do is go out and audition.

After hearing a dARTS demonstration at a local dealer, my wife and I were thrilled to return to our Aerial Acoustics 10t's, CC5, AR3's, LR3's and SW12. While the dARTS did make the walls go away, we found the system harsh and felt that it would definitely be tiring for us. The Aerials, on the other hand, provide us with a system we can listen to for hours without any fatigue.

Eh? I would think the off axis-responses, both vertically and horizontally, would be a very good indication of what you will get in a HT setting where everyone can't share the sweet spot...

Certainly it won't predict or compensate for room interactions, and you would still need to use correction of some sort, but I can't imagine having a consistent response off-axis is not very desirable.

Hi TM',

I only have a moment to post here, but a few quick comments that are critical in allowing anyone here to give you any sort of meaningful input...

1) What is the size of the room?
2) How many rows of seating?
3) If the room's purpose is for movies, please divert some of that $50k budget from the speakers and go for the AT screen or at minimum conceal the speakers behind a false wall or similar.
4) In what corner of the world might you be residing? Many here are quite welcoming, and an installed system will provide you with much greater insight than any demo room.

Answering the above questions will make for some more meaningful and interesting discussion.

Speaking of Aerial, my entire system is up for sale on Audiogon in case anyone is interested. A very sad day

i'm not so sure it would be wise to spend that much money and put speakers behind an acoustically 'transparent' screen. Aside from FR, I have a feeling they really screw with off axis dispersion, but would love to see them measure that. The center can sit right underneath a 2.35:1 screen pretty easily at a decent height. But that's just me.