Howdy Derik! One excellent, local source of advice would be the SoCal home theater group. It's a large, if somewhat loose affiliation of nice folks, from newbies to professional installers to folks in the film biz, all of whom are friendly sources for good A/V advice. They even get together for meets a couple of times a year (you just missed one!) to eat, drink and tell tall tales. I'm sure you'd be welcome and here's the link: