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Here is my dilemma. I have a limited budget to purchase speakers for my new home theater room. My HT room has been professionally designed by an acoustician for balanced freq. response (no issues there). It is roughly 2100 cu ft. in size. My question is do I get the EP 350 with larger mains and center channel or do I sacrifice them for smaller ones and go for the EP 500 sub? Any thoughts or advice from owners would be greatly appreciated.

If you can give us an idea on your budget that might help. Also, keep in mind you can order from the Factory Outlet and save 10%. In addition, 5 or more items gets you another 5%. This may help. Are you planning on getting surrounds? How are you going to drive the speakers?

My budget is in the 2K range. I will be driving the speakers with a Denon 3806 receiver. I am looking to purchase a 5.1 setup for the time being and upgrade to a 7.1 down the road when the ole' budget permits. I am just trying to decide what to do. Sacrifice on the mains and center to get the EP 500 or downgrade to the ep 350 and get a better setup up front.

Well the EP500 sub from the Factory Outlet is $1,080 which is half your budget, so it might be hard to stay around 2K total when you throw in surrounds, center, and mains. Even if you purchased the m22 bookshelfs for your left/right, which are great combined with a sub, you would be over with the other speakers added. The EP350 is a good sub, and I owned one prior to the EP500, but my room is 8,000 cu ft.

What is your % of music versus movie watching? This may help decide. You could get the VP100 center versus the VP150 to save a little. Whatever you do, I highly recommend you get qs8's for your surrounds, they are unbelievable.

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My HT room has been professionally designed by an acoustician for balanced freq. response (no issues there).

It sounds like you're putting a lot of effort in to getting a great sounding theater. My impression from your post is that you want floorstanding speakers. So, I would not just buy a 5.1 system you can afford now and then upgrade to a 7.1 Rather, I would ensure I got the right speakers first (the ones you want) and possibly start of with just mains and surronds.

Skip on the center and sub for now and look at floorstanders which will give decent bass until you save up for the sub/center. You don't want to get something that will have you thinking about upgrading shortly.

Alternatively, look at the HSU subs as they are have some great prices on the STF-2 & STF-3 right now.

I will be watching 100% movies in my room. It is completely dedicated to movies and the xbox 360.

The two systems I have been eyeballing are the Epic Grand Master 350 (Bookshelf Speakers M22 Surrounds QS8 Center VP150 Subwoofer EP350) Which is right at the 2,000 price point and the Epic Midi (Bookshelf Speakers M3 Surrounds QS4 Center VP100 Subwoofer EP500) which is in the same price range. I plan on adding an extra pair of surrounds when budget permits for a 7.1 setup down the road.

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I will be watching 100% movies in my room. It is completely dedicated to movies and the xbox 360.

The two systems I have been eyeballing are the Epic Grand Master 350 (Bookshelf Speakers M22 Surrounds QS8 Center VP150 Subwoofer EP350) Which is right at the 2,000 price

This would be an excellent system and perfect for your use I think. (it was too late last night to punch up the prices for your budget)
I would personally lean towards the EP500 over the 350 for the sub. Due to the budget though look at a HSU or SVS to stay within it. If you don't get an Axiom sub you can still get the 5% discount as each speaker is 1 item.

Which SVS or HSU sub would you suggest?

If you go with the factory outlet you can get the following for an great system for that room size:

3 x M22 (R,L, and centre channel if you have room for a vertically standing centre)
2 x QS8 for surrounds
EP500

All this with the 15% included discount (10% off for factory, 5% for ordering 5 items) will run you at $2069.1 USD.

Not too shabby!

If you are wondering about the centre channel thing, there are some people on this board that swear by a verticaly standing centre channel.

That sounds like a good plan

I ended up going with 3 M22's (fronts and center) 2 qs 4's and bought the HSU STF3 sub. The deal on the HSU sub was too hard to pass up in my. My total nut for everything ended up being a tad under $1,500. Not a bad setup in my book for the price.

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I ended up going with 3 M22's (fronts and center) 2 qs 4's and bought the HSU STF3 sub. The deal on the HSU sub was too hard to pass up in my. My total nut for everything ended up being a tad under $1,500. Not a bad setup in my book for the price.

You can thank JohnK for brainwashing me into thinking a vertically standing speaker is superior to a horizontal centre channel.

I myself am getting 2 M2s for the centre channel, one above and one below the screen (92" screen) to make it sound like dialog is coming from the centre of the screen. Paired with M22 mains.

I question if the 2 x M2s will be enough for seating around 14 feet away, we shall see what happens. Thats whats great about Axioms 30-day policy.

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I myself am getting 2 M2s for the centre channel, one above and one below the screen (92" screen) to make it sound like dialog is coming from the centre of the screen. Paired with M22 mains.

Just be careful of the impedance factor when running two speakers off one channel.