Plasma/Front Projection HT & Audio Room

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Due to reasons beyond my control, the home and home theater that I will be building is being pushed to late this year or early next.

After I close off the family room and make some modifications, the Home Theater and Listening Room will be 19' 4" X 14' 7" in size. It is a little smaller than I would have liked, but I will work with what is available.

I need some guidance on some specific questions and for equipment placement:

1) Place the equipment on the 14' 7" wall or the 19' 4" wall? Placing the equipment on the 14' 7" wall could afford up to 2 seating rows.

2) Use both my 50" Plasma Pioneer TV and/or a Projector?

3) For those of you that have only a Projector in your HT do you also use it to watch TV or just movies?

4) What size Projection Screen to purchase since you need to sit about 1.5X the screen width back from the screen?

5) Place the TV on the special 31" high granite/mdf platform rack system? Have a drop down Projection Screen?

6) Wall mount the Plasma TV or move it to the Master Bedroom?

7) Wall mount or have a drop down Projection Screen?

8) If I have a drop down screen where to put it in the room since I should sit 1.5X the screen width back from the screen?

9) How big a Projection Screen?

10) 1 or 2 rows of seats?

I am providing the following as background information that will better assist you in understanding my difficulties in this set-up. My racks (I have 2, one double shelf wide and one single shelf) wide are usually 31" high and there will be 1 or 2 more made. These are racks are bulky and are for optimum audio and video performance and the equipment, racks, amps and amp stands (I have 2 pair to stack 4 amps total) will need to be moved around. Ultimately there may be 3 or 4 racks in the system and possibly 2 pair of stacks of amps (they sit about 24" off of the floor; if I stack the 5th amp, the height will be about 40" high) in the system. I will need to position the equipment and racks around the front of the room and may be forced to pull the main speakers fairly far out into the room. Many here may not think that this will look "pretty" but it will sound great.

Also depending on the equipment rack they could possibly block the projection on to the screen. In particular, the turntable is about 43" above the floor. The screen will need to be mounted so that it is at least 31" off of the floor.

You will get a better idea as to the problems of equipment placement because the following is the list of components:

1) 4 monoblock Aragon Palladium 1K Amps
2) 1 3 channel Krell KAV-250a/3 amp
3) 1 Power Box
4) 3 Power units
5) 1 Onkyo PR-SC885 Pre/Pro amp
6) 1 Denon DVD 5910 CD/SACD/DVD player
7) 1 Lavry DA10 DAC
8) 1 Denon DVD 3800 BDCI Blu-ray player
9) 1 PS Audio Digital Lens (when they become available)
10) 1 Sansui TU9900 AM/FM Tuner
11) 1 Teres Audio Certus 450 Turntable
12) 1 Soundsmith Strain Gauge 410 Phono Preamp
13) 1 shelf for the Teres Certus Turntable control Box and the Soundsmith Power Box
14) 1 Pioneer Kuro Elite 111-FD Plasma TV
15) 1 DirecTV HD Receiver

To add to the constraints on the space, I will be having up to 9 speakers in the system which will include 2 large mirror imaged Line Stage main speakers that are each 26" wide and about 6' tall. We are in the process of designing a center channel speaker, possibly unlike anything seen before that will probably be placed on the floor. There may be a pair of mirror imaged pair of side channel speakers used for both the L & R surrounds and the Dahlquist DQ-10 speaker cabinets will probably be used for the rear channels. At present, there is only 1 subwoofer, the Epik Conquest, an 18" sub which is going to need to be placed in the limited space as well.

The Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers will be pedestal mounted and pulled away from the wall. They are a semi Dipole design that is about 30" wide by 30" high and about 9" deep. They should have at least 1 or 2 feet breathing room from the rear wall.

Thanks for your assistance.

Rich