Use THX Ultra2 Cinema to drive 7.1 channel from 5.1 source. My thought is 7.1 is necessary if you have 2 rows of seat. For single row, 5.1 should be good enough.

RM 30k is just nice for a good system.

Let's see the breakdown for a nice system.

Receiver - RM 5k
3 or 5 channels Power Amp - RM 3-5k
Powerful Subwoofer - RM 7k to 10k.
Good set of 5 speakers - RM 15k.
Cables - RM 2k - 3k.
BD player or NMT - RM 1k.

If you can do room treatment in your living room, add another 1.5k for DIY. Commercial bass trap and sound absorber like Auralex are more expensive. Min need to spend RM5k and above.

This post has been edited by pierreye: Jun 24 2010, 01:10 PM

Diff people diff priority. My priority is to get ref level without distortion. My recommendation as below:

1. Subwoofer - Submersive if you can get Mark to quote you the shipping. I give up on the slow communication and go for eD DIY A7s-650 kit - around RM 7k (including shipping and tax). Other choice is SVS PB-13 Subwoofer (get quote from HTKaki)

2. Amp - XPA-5 around RM 4.1k. HTKaki is selling his at RM 3.2k.

3. Receiver - Onkyo TX-876. Not sure what's the price now should be around RM 4k.

4. Speaker - JTR Triple 8 (3 units) + Slanted 8 (2 units). Around RM 18k including shipping & tax.

5. Wire - Cheaper choice is to buy Belden speaker cable. You can go for 12AWG speaker wire. Length depends on your room size. IC you can go for BJC-1 from Blue Jeans Cable. If you want branded wire, you can try to bid for Zu Cables from EBay for half the price selling here.

People spend money we sure support. Anyway, when are you getting your dream speaker, Catalyst speaker?