I got married this month and I've started to look into building a middle-range home theater system that I think is just going to start with two front bookshelves/floor-standers and a receiver, and will grow into a full size 5.1 (or 7.1) system in the next 3-5 years. The reason I'm going to piece-meal the system is because there is not enough room for a full 5.1 setup in my condo without it causing problems with a newly-acquired variable - the Wife Acceptance Factor.
Keeping the WAF in mind, I want something that not only sounds nice but looks nice as well and doesn't have a "huge" footprint. The living room which I will be placing these in is approximately 14'(L) x 14'(W) x 11'(H). The width is actually closer to 25' but that extra area is where our kitchen table sits, and the speakers won't be needed to display towards that area of the room. We have a wooden console that's about 50" wide and 24" tall that holds my 40" LCD (future upgrade to a 50-54" Panasonic G25 possible) and houses my Xbox360, PS3, and TiVo HD. I may mount the TV once I get the receiver because the receiver will need the top part to receive enough air circulation.
Anyways, receiver-wise, I've been looking at the Denon 3311CI because it's current-generation, has all the updated connectivity options that I may or may not need, and it has pre-outs for a future amplifier hookup (otherwise I'd be looking at the Denon 991 possibly).
Speaker-wise, I'd like to keep it under $1.5k for a pair of bookshelves or $2.5k for a pair of floorstanders, although if there's something that's priced a little higher that sounds amazing I'm interested. So far, I've been looking at B&W, Definitive Technology, Paradigm, but am open to other recommendations if you guys have them.
Thanks for the help!
Keeping the WAF in mind, I want something that not only sounds nice but looks nice as well and doesn't have a "huge" footprint. The living room which I will be placing these in is approximately 14'(L) x 14'(W) x 11'(H). The width is actually closer to 25' but that extra area is where our kitchen table sits, and the speakers won't be needed to display towards that area of the room. We have a wooden console that's about 50" wide and 24" tall that holds my 40" LCD (future upgrade to a 50-54" Panasonic G25 possible) and houses my Xbox360, PS3, and TiVo HD. I may mount the TV once I get the receiver because the receiver will need the top part to receive enough air circulation.
Anyways, receiver-wise, I've been looking at the Denon 3311CI because it's current-generation, has all the updated connectivity options that I may or may not need, and it has pre-outs for a future amplifier hookup (otherwise I'd be looking at the Denon 991 possibly).
Speaker-wise, I'd like to keep it under $1.5k for a pair of bookshelves or $2.5k for a pair of floorstanders, although if there's something that's priced a little higher that sounds amazing I'm interested. So far, I've been looking at B&W, Definitive Technology, Paradigm, but am open to other recommendations if you guys have them.
Thanks for the help!