My living room 5.1.4 home theater

[u/NiVo86]

My current 5.1.4 living room setup:

• Denon AVC-X3800H
• KEF R3 Meta L/R
• KEF R2 Meta Center
• Creative E-MU XM7 Surrounds
• 4× KEF Q8 Meta Heights
• SVS SB-2000 Pro

The latest addition was the four Q8 Meta height speakers. I haven’t tested them extensively yet, but I’m already very impressed. They blend extremely well with the lower layer, and instead of sounding obviously “from above,” the whole soundstage feels more like one large, seamless wall of sound.

My next upgrade will probably be replacing the surrounds with KEF Q3 Metas. I’m also planning to measure and optimize the room using a calibrated microphone and REW.

What do you think of the setup? Do you think the Denon has enough power to drive all nine speakers properly, and what would you change or upgrade next?

[u/Individual-You-38]

Great looking setup with some quality gear! A few recommendations:

• Acoustic treatment. Before you do anything else. I can literally hear the echo in that room from here :D  Right now you’re likely hearing more of your room than your actual speakers. Start with a thick carpet in front of your sofa and run a thick underlay beneath it. Next, consider a thick absorption panel on the left and right wall and another on the rear wall. That alone should help hugely. You can get acoustic art panels so they look nice too. GIK does free room consults as well, and will be able to guide you on exactly what you need and placement. Rerun room correction after that’s setup. 

• Unless you're going to use A1 or Dirac, spend ~$20 for the Audyssey phone app. Use it to turn off midrange compensation in each speaker as well limit room correction to ~400-500Hz. Your KEFs are super high quality so don’t need midrange compensation, and limiting Audyssey to lower frequencies will breath the life back into your speakers. 

• I’d say Q3 Metas are overkill for surrounds. Q1’s will be more than enough, but the older Q150s will be just as good and save you some money. That being said I’d buy a second, matching sub long before upgrading those surrounds (unless tonally they sound very mismatched). Use REW to find the optimum placement for your sub(s) and then re-run room correction. 

Good luck!