Peter, I am very glad you decided to weigh in on this topic and that you provided further insights about Oliver Stone's installation. Actually, I almost wrote basically what you said in your response about Oliver Stone receiving free components and speakers but I thought I was already being too verbose.

In any event, I knew generally that "comping" is what happens for famous people (it is ironic that the rich and famous with a lot of disposable income never have to pay for anything!), and in particular I knew Oliver Stone was comped for his NHT speakers because I spoke to Oliver Stone's installer (as I wanted to hire them to provide some limited "consultation" on my installation given that I didn't really know what I was doing) who readily admitted to me that everything was given to Oliver Stone for promotional/advertising good will.

Notwithstanding this, I still read that Oliver Stone and the other directors/producers were quite happy with their compenents and speakers. And, given that the directors/producers, as well as the installers who where catering to them (including the one I spoke to), had reputations to uphold, I thought that was good enough for me to hang my hat on. As I said in my initial post, I did not have the ability nor inclination, nor spousal patience, to effectively demo different speakers.

Given that NYGIANTS seemed to be in a similar position as me (i.e. he did not have an easy way to demo--and he did not seem inclined to demo several speaker sets), I thought that I would weigh in on what I did; although I am sure that some people are shaking their heads in frustration/confusion as to my admittedly flawed methodology. At least I am glad to hear that you believe my unusual methodology led to a decent choice: NHT.

Edward Christian aka edcrash1