Dream Systems

This is what I would buy if I were building a system within each category.  No effort has been made to appear unbiased by varying brands.

Budget:

Panasonic TC-P42S1 plasma $1000

Pioneer VSX- 819H-K receiver $300

Mirage Nanosat 5.1 speaker system $800

Panasonic DMP-BD655K Blu Ray player $180

Bang for the buck :

LG 55LH90 LED LCD $3000 (for bright room) or Panasonic TC-P58V10 plasma $2700 (for dark room)

Pioneer VSX-21TXH receiver $800

Mirage OS3 speakers (qty 7) $1750

HSU VTF-3 MK3 subwoofer $700

Sony PS3 slim Blu Ray player $300

Entry level high end :

LG 55LHX LED LCD $4900 (for brighter room) or Panasonic TC-P65V10 plasma $4000 (for dark room)

Integra DTR-70.1 receiver $2000

KEF speaker system consisting of two HTS9001 front speakers and one HTC9001 center, and three pair HTS3001SE surround speakers for side, rear, and height $5250

HSU ULS-15 DualDrive subwoofer system $2200

Oppo BDP-83 Blu Ray player $500

High end:

Runco Q-750i DLP front projector $15000

Screen Research ClearPix2 screen

Integra DHC-80.1 pre/pro $2300

Bryston PowerPac 300 power amplifiers (three for front stage), PowerPac 120 power amplifiers (six for surrounds) $9600

Sound Lab R-3 electrostatic speakers L/C/R $10500

Mirage OS3 surround speakers for side, rear, and height $1500

HSU ULS-15 QuadDrive subwoofer system $4000

Oppo BDP-83 Blu Ray player $500

Ridiculous:

Barco (Cineversum) Cine9 or Electrohome Marquee 9500LC 9" CRT front projectors (qty 2, blended, with Moome HDMI inputs): nothing has more "wow" factor than a top CRT projector

Lumagen RadianceXD video processor/scaler $4495: dual independant HDMI outputs, vital calibration features

TV One C2-7100 video processor provides blending feature for CRTs

Digital Projection TITAN Reference 1080p 3 chip DLP projector with anamorphic lens: for when you don't want to deal with finiky CRTs; mounted above or below the CRT PJs and projecting on the same screen

Screen Research ClearPix2 Supreme 2.35:1 TheaterCurve 12' wide curved screen

Theta Digital Casablanca III pre/pro: HDMI 1.3, all digital in and out

TacT Audio s-2150 XDM 2 channel digital power amplifiers with built in crossover and EQ, one for each audio channel (qty 7): fed from the Casablanca's multichannel digital out

Dali Megaline linesource speakers (qty 7): line source ribbon hybrid, incredible dynamics

Martin Logan Descent i subwoofers, one run in parallel with each Megaline via speaker level output of TacT amplifiers to make each channel truly full range (qty 7)

JL Audio Gotham G213 subwoofers (qty 4): for LFE

Oppo BDP-83 Blu Ray player (alternate Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD)

Let me know what you think!