"Using big cinema horns is certainly an option. That's what's used exclusively in evensmall commercial cinemas, because you can get very high SPLs, great dynamics, and you can do it without having to use monster amplifiers. BUT, you have to use careful equalization or the horns will take your ears off. Big EQ'd horn systems can sound really good if the person setting it up knows anything about good sound quality. And that's a big IF."
Well, I don't even know how to set up "proper equalization," so that, as they say, appears to be that. Also, whereas I should probably know what "SPLs" are, in fact I do not. ;-))
"Most in-wall speakers that are flush to the wall are quite inferior to well designed tower speakers if you're after neutral, uncolored sound. And they are not efficient (sensitive) so you have to use really huge amplifiers."
Except for th Axiom variety, right? Still, you cannot direct these up-down left-right with something like a FULL METRAL BRACKET, right? Well, without listening to speakers first and deciding on which types to get later, there may not be a purchase answer/solution here at all.
"I don't understand your resistance to using floorstanding main speakers up front."
Well, to be honest with you, I have never seen any speakers sitting, laying, or standing on a theater/screening room floor, except for in smaller home theaters. I believe in a cinema setting, even the subs are elevated. But there is one posibility for placement that I just of thought of, Alan, and wanted to run it by you!
And that would be to have the screen a short distance mounted, and then the front edges of the (curved) screen would be extended vertically from side to side and top to bottom by speaker cloth fabric. This way, there could be "floorstanding" speakers mounted on a podium, but this would not be visible from the room, hidden behind the speaker cloth "wall." Similarly, the center speker(s) would alos be hidden from sight, mounted to the wall just behind this black speaker fabric that would stretch basically from the four edges of the screen to the four edges of the front wall of the room.
Do you follow me here, or should I try to give it another jab?
