Sound for my new theater?

You're going to get so many opinions on this that you better start to narrow the parameters. First, what is your budget? Second, is your first priority HT or music?

First priority is music but this is a full blown custom built theater with 12 seats and a fairly large volume. I've been an audiophile junkie for most of my adult life. I cleared out all my high end stuff (Roland Research pre and mono amps with B&W 801s, Sota vacuum table with EMT air bearing arm and numerous cartridges) in the mid 90s due to a lack of usability at the time. The kids were young and the only room was the main living area. They made noise during the day and I couldn't make noise at night. I've had Maggies in the 70s, Acoustats, Vandersteens and B&Ws in the 80s and 90s. Got into the Linn stuff a few years ago but really didn't have a very good room until now. Almost anyway, it should be finished in about a month.

As for budget, I really don't want to spend more than $5k or so on the main speakers plus whatever additional $$ for the center and surrounds. Would like to stay around $5k for a pre-pro although I'm intrigued by the Anthem. Maybe $5k or so on amps. I'm concerned about committing to deeply to the Linn approach especially considering that the Unidisk SC doesn't support HDMI and lossless codecs. The system would be somewhat obsolete from the start.

I'm willing to start from scratch but I haven't really kept up with the audiophile equipment for a long time and would like a very musical combined HT system. And as we all know, there aren't as many Audiophile shops around as there used to be.

I think the Linn 5140 is a great speaker (I owned two pairs active with 5105's powering them and a 5120 center, also active) but they do not output the volume needed for larger rooms,especially for HT. They were great in my condo, but not enough for my home so I would look elsewhere.

Next week the Oppo digital BluRay player comes out that will, eventually, do all discs including SACD and DVD-Audio, so wait and buy that. Then since you have a nice budget, I would go all Maggie speakers with Bryston amps, a Rel B1 sub, and Cary 11a and 11v home theater processor.

Thanks, that was fun to spend your money!!

I would also add a Scoutmaster Sig turntable with and ARC 5 phono preamp.

Man, that's a nice system. Can I come over and watch/listen????

All Magggie 7.1 systems sounds interesting. You are going to need some bass reinforcement and big amps to pull it off. I would consult the maggie crowd for amp recommendations.

Soundstage liked them.

http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/magnepan_mmgw_mmgc.htm

I got my dad into the Anthem AVM50 and he loves it. It has HDMI switching, and he felt that was the future standard. They provide some upgrade paths in the design as well to avoid obsolescence.