Long hiatus from audio, getting back into it, speaker/room help please


Hey all, thanks for offering this forum, I've been reading a lot, and as the subject says I'm coming back to audio from a long hiatus. Long story short, about 25 years ago I built a very nice home theater in my previous house in CA - it was a Martin Logan 5.1 system, Sunfire amps, Lexicon MC-1, Sunfire subs, etc. It was awesome at the time and I had a very good time with it. Then, after 20 years, I got a divorce - also at the same time as the divorce I lost my mom to cancer, and also at the same time I got my own cancer diagnosis. So I moved to Texas to treat my cancer, finalized the divorce (a 3 year process), and then if that wasn't enough, was involved in a very bad burn accident. I've now come out the other side, no cancer, burns recovered mostly, and I've been wanting to get back to my listening enjoyment.

I have a room (my office) that is going to be (mostly) dedicated to this listening for mostly me only. Its 17 feet by 30 feet in size, is solid wood surround (walnut), and has cathedral ceilings. Its rectangular and has a spiral staircase down to a garage below in the southeast corner of the room. On the south end it has a single window (5 feet wide, 3 feet tall), and on the west side are 3 smaller windows (each 2 feet wide by 6 feet tall). On the north end of the room is a window that is 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall. There is a door into the room on the east wall, sort of in the middle of the room but more towards the north corner.

I read about Magnepan LRS and that got me sparked to start this back up again. My ML's I had before sounded great for the type of music I like - accoustic and vocals, live music, light rock and roll. I love piano, strings, percussion but not so much horns. 

I'm thinking a good spot for the LRS' are at the south end of the room. There I can put them about 5 feet off the rear wall, and put my listening position about 15 feet back from them, centered between them. They'll have about 12 feet between them. I thought I'd drive them with a Schiit Vidar. I'm wide open in terms of preamp and source devices and would appreciate any recommendations there. What I really like about the LRS is that apparently they have great performance for not so much cash. Same with Vidar. So I'd like to keep that theme. I kind of like the analogy of the small block chevy to hot rods - a ton of parts available for a motor that virtually everyone uses, and its been used by everyone - i.e. everyone knows it. Similarly I think there's a wave of people using LRS+Vidar because its a relatively low cost entry into high performance. I think some of the Schiit preamps and DACs may find their way onto my list also perhaps. 

Anyhow, as far as budget goes, I'm lucky in that I'm not really limited there other than I'm not looking to dump $30k into this, rather I'd probably prefer to keep it under $5k to get the basics going. I *really* like the sound, transparency, stage, etc. of panels and since that's what I'm used to from the ML's I'd prefer to keep panels instead of cones.

I have a block diagram of the room but i'm not seeing a spot to upload it, perhaps I can link it in.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Jeff in Texas (DFW area)
n6gq
If you are interested in Schiit I can recommend the Ragnarok 2 integrated. Really good sound for their price. Can be had with dac built-in. Then pair with good speakers that are somewhat easy to drive. I am thinking about Fyne F501 or F502.
So glad your are through the fires and back to life. Congrats!

Not sure if you mentioned what db levels you listen in generally
but if it is 55-75db that may change your needs and save some $.

You live 2 hours from a listening experience you may enjoy a lot.
Open baffle is another exciting way to experience sound and is also
dipole so your room dimensions are perfect. I suggest you contact
Danny Ritchie of GR Research in Wichita Falls, TX. I was there again
last week picking up some enhancements he designed for me.

His product comes in a kit or can be bought in various stages of assembly. His servo woofers will fill your room. His listening room is 
similar in size to yours. 

Enjoy the hunt!
@chorus, thank you for your kind words!

My listening levels would not be high - I don't like "loud" music, just loud enough that I can "feel" it and experience it.  Partly for this reason I've bene considering moving to a headphone-based system rather than trying to fill the larger room I have. 

Thanks for the suggestion of GR Research, I visited his website this morning and didn't realize he was in my proverbial back yard - I'll see if I can get up there and visit, maybe that's a way to go...

Appreciate the feedback, thank you.
Magneplanars are nice.  I own a used W4S STI-1000 integrated that puts out over 1000w into 4 ohms and is dead, dead silent with a great preamp section and tape loop. Based on my experiences with Maggies, I think the very clear sound of the STI-1000 would match well with those speakers. Try before you buy, if you can, always.
A great speaker Thst would check all your boxes is the Spatial 
Audio x5 open baffle speakers for $7k  powered Bass below 90hz -23 hz  
the great world class Beyma AMT tweeter- midrange and -0 -Xover parts in the critical midrange region most do fail in thst respect ,with wave guide ,and 12 inch midBass a very coherent speaker and 97db efficient.