Help me figure out home theatre setup please

[nilessssh]

Hi All,

I’m new here and still learning, so please forgive the long post.

Right now I’m using a Bose soundbar at home, but I want to upgrade to a proper home theatre setup. I currently live in a rented house (14' × 40' open living, about 14' × 16' listening area), and in about two years I’ll be moving to my own place where I’ll have a dedicated 14' × 20' theatre room. Because of that, I’ve decided to start building a 7.x.x system slowly.

My current budget is ₹1.5 lakh. I’m planning to buy the AVR + subwoofer + front speakers for now. I don’t think I can include a centre speaker in this budget, but if I can squeeze one in, that would be great. Surround and Atmos speakers I will add in the next 6 months or so.

I visited one experience centre in Nagpur. They had the Polk TL1600, which felt very basic to me, and a KEF T-Series wall-mounted setup, which I really liked.

After more research online, I shortlisted a few options, but since I haven’t experienced most of these in person, I’d really appreciate expert advice.


Use case:

• I listen to music almost every day for a few hours
• Watch 4–5 movies a week
• Sometimes play games

AVR:

• Denon AVR-X1700H (7 channels)

Speaker options I’m considering:

• Polk T-Series or Signature ES Series
• Monitor Audio Bronze 6G
• ELAC Debut Reference
• Wharfedale Diamond 12
• KEF Q Series (may stretch my budget)
  

I’d really appreciate your suggestions or experiences with these speakers.
Thanks for reading this long post, and thanks in advance for your guidance.


Cheers!

 

[chander]

In my experience - (please do remember we all have SQ preference and how we perceive sound is unique & personal).

Polk & Wharfedale may have a mid forward, slightly rolled back treble kinda sound. Works great for most content, non-fatiguing sound. These are safe speakers, hard to go wrong.
Monitor Audio may have a slightly forward sound, which can be very exciting in movies & games. For long listening music hours however it can get a bit tiring. They can be harsh & require careful electronics pairing.
ELAC DBR62 (I am assuming given your budget) are pretty good speakers, sound good, very versatile, I find they work with most electronics but require a little power.
KEFs - they have a sound of their own and I like it. They fair well for most things - but they do prefer a bit of power.

The problem I see is, your AVR might become a bottleneck with most of the speakers you are considering. Specially with expansion in mind. If I was in your place - I would certainly look to buy an AVR with pre-outs so the AVR can remain for years to come and as you increase the number of speakers you get to add external power amps - atleast for the front 3. That is how I run my HT setup with Kef LS50 Metas as the LCR.

If I was in your place I would buy - An AVR with pre-outs (cheapest I can think of is Marantz Cinema 70) & perhaps get a pair of speakers that I like - with the remaining budget.
You can also buy used speakers - that allows you to get something a lot higher in price within your budget. You liked the KEF sound so that is an easy pick.

 

[nilessssh]

In my experience - (please do remember we all have SQ preference and how we perceive sound is unique & personal).

Polk & Wharfedale may have a mid forward, slightly rolled back treble kinda sound. Works great for most content, non-fatiguing sound. These are safe speakers, hard to go wrong.
Monitor Audio may have a slightly forward sound, which can be very exciting in movies & games. For long listening music hours however it can get a bit tiring. They can be harsh & require careful electronics pairing.
ELAC DBR62 (I am assuming given your budget) are pretty good speakers, sound good, very versatile, I find they work with most electronics but require a little power.
KEFs - they have a sound of their own and I like it. They fair well for most things - but they do prefer a bit of power.

The problem I see is, your AVR might become a bottleneck with most of the speakers you are considering. Specially with expansion in mind. If I was in your place - I would certainly look to buy an AVR with pre-outs so the AVR can remain for years to come and as you increase the number of speakers you get to add external power amps - atleast for the front 3. That is how I run my HT setup with Kef LS50 Metas as the LCR.

If I was in your place I would buy - An AVR with pre-outs (cheapest I can think of is Marantz Cinema 70) & perhaps get a pair of speakers that I like - with the remaining budget.
You can also buy used speakers - that allows you to get something a lot higher in price within your budget. You liked the KEF sound so that is an easy pick.

Hey


Thanks a lot for sharing your first-hand experience. This really helped me narrow down the brands, and I appreciate you pointing out the AVR/pre-out side of things....I honestly didn’t know much about that before, so this gives me something new to read .

If you can recommend a good sub, I’d really appreciate it. I was looking at the Polk XT10 and the SVS SB-1000, but the SVS would eat up most of what I have left in the budget.
I’m curious where do you usually buy your gear from? Do you prefer local stores, or is it safe to buy these things online? I generally avoid buying anything above 15k online because of duplicate products and warranty worries, so just wondering what your experience has been.


Thanks again for taking the time to guide me.

 

[therightwrong]

I like my kef.

 

[chander]

Hey

If you can recommend a good sub, I’d really appreciate it. I was looking at the Polk XT10 and the SVS SB-1000, but the SVS would eat up most of what I have left in the budget.
I’m curious where do you usually buy your gear from? Do you prefer local stores, or is it safe to buy these things online? I generally avoid buying anything above 15k online because of duplicate products and warranty worries, so just wondering what your experience has been.


Thanks again for taking the time to guide me.

I can't comment on the Polk sub, but the SVS SB1000 pro is great - I would say - it is a great sub for the price, the app is awesome, easy to setup but tricky to gel in the system. Takes a bit of work. I like them SVS.

I buy most of the stuff online and a lot of used stuff from various local connections and FB marketplace etc. HifiMart is great, The Audio co. is where I get a lot of stuff regularly from.