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confused and don't know what to do

We would like to buy a nice audio system and also have this double as a surround sound but listening to music is the priority. We have listened to many speakers but have settled on the B&W 804's. Now the challenge is to select a receiver and all the other accompaniments we require. We have a little challenge in that our home is a condo and the outside wall is all glass. The space is combined kitchen, living room, and dining room all open with hardwood floors and hard tile on the walls of the kitchen and a lot of granite counter tops. It seems that every where we go, the recommendations are different depending on what the store is selling and of course, the sales people would like us to buy the most expensive. What would give great sound without going crazy. We are thinking about 2 tribe sub woofers and space is limited and an in wall center B&W speaker but we don't know what we are doing and don't want to throw our money away. Help! Too many choices and we don't have enough knowledge. Thank you so much.
raw33
soix
8,729 posts
 
Despite blabbing at length I realize I forgot a couple points.  Even though you have a tough room, the better AVRs have decent room correction built in that will help you deal with that.  I’d say Anthem has a leg up on others with their proprietary ARC room correction, but that needs to be reconciled with your budget.  

For your center channel, I’m not a fan of in-wall if you can accommodate an in-room center, but if ya gotta ya gotta.  I can’t speak to B&W in-wall speakers, and despite not being a huge B&W fan myself I do very much like their center speakers and would find it hard not to pair the 804s with the HTM2 D3 (I’d suggest going with cheaper surround speakers to get the best center you can as the center is absolutely critical to fully enjoying the HT experience IMHO).  The HTM71 S2 might be a workable alternative if the D3 isn’t in the budget, but I’d consider it a distant second.  Anyway, FWIW. 
raw33 OP
16 posts
 
 I continue to appreciate all the information. If you have more to say or someone else is willing to help, we are all ears!
Thank you so much.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,831 posts
 
And the budget and location???
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,598 posts
 
What Soix is saying is valid. You want to match the center channel if the room is large 7.1 providing you have the correct positioning. 

Anthem Mrx receivers are excellent.

Nad T758 or T777 have modular card upgrades, Dirac, and Blue Os.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
tony-t1
5 posts
 
You obviously have concerns about the "room" (perhaps better termed "environment") all this gear is going to work in. And rightly so, based on your description. So please don't spend all your budget on the gear just to put the best gear in a room which wont allow you to appreciate it. Spend some of your budget on room treatments (whether its specific audio products like reflection/absorption panels, bass traps, HFTs, whatever; or generic things like curtains, rugs, etc) and you will get a better result in a bad room from mid-level gear than from high-level gear. (The dealers will hate you for this of course).  Remember that its very unlikely that what you hear in the dealer's show room will be what you hear when you get everything set up in your own listening space, unless you take steps to make that listening space as conducive as possible to reproducing music well.
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