Projector and Screen recommendations

Kirkus, thanks for your wealth of knowledge on screen choices. It will help. I will now have to research the apropriate projector to match a screen.

Drew, thanks for the info on directional lighting.

Most of the "high-def gray" screen I can find on the web are 0.8 gain. I also have a Mit 4900 and run it in low lamp mode 99% of the time, wondering if 0.8 gain is sufficient in a dark but not completely light control room?

where can one find a gray screen with 1.0 gain? I am torn between pull down and fixed frame right now... also torn between adding a solid state amp to do 2.1 or buy a better receiver for 5.1/7.1 in the future. I don't need surround sound, but kids love them. a decent solid state amp will easily cost more than a good receiver, but even a good receiver like Pioneer Elite can't drive my Sonus Faber Amati well.

The classic calculation for screen brightness is:

Projector Lumens / Screen area (sq. feet) * screen gain =
Brightness (in foot-Lamberts, or fL).

Target brightness is 12-15 fL in a darkened room, maybe around 20-ish with a little ambient light. But here's the catch -- projector "ANSI Lumens" specifications are so hyped and inaccurate, that a good rule of thumb is to take the projector's ANSI lumen specification, and use ONE QUARTER of this advertised value in your calculation. No kidding, those numbers are really that unrealistic.

Grey screens with gains above 1.0 are made by Stewart (the aforementioned "Firehawk"), and Da-Lite ("High-Contrast Cinema Vision") - I'm sure there are others, too.

Oh and I would personally prefer watching movies with a good two-channel "music" system than a typical receiver-based surround system. But that's definately a preference thing, some people feel the opposite.

Picked up an used Optoma 106" gray screen yesterday, it's listed as 1.8 gain. without tweaking the picture, I thought the image was a bit too bright for my taste and I already had the projector on low lamp mode and 15' from the screen. but it definitely adds some punch to the contrast and dynamic.

I think I will end up with 2.1 instead of 5.1/7.1 channels just because it's so much easier. I am a tube guy, can't afford to run my expensive tube pre & power to watch movies and that's why I got interested in a better receiver. will go check out some Pioneer Elite and Sony ES over the weekend, but I am sure they are no match to Einstein/Benchmark DAC/BAT 150SE.

Semi,
Interesting system!
I'm a tube guy too...with Oppo's 2 channel variable output into a 2 channel AES/Cary power amp. It has awesome sound on movies. I just need a projector/ screen system...now I'm thinking of one of Samsungs DLP projector HDTVs instead.
What does your system consist of?