I love stereos, I would cross the harman kardon off your list, they are nice, but low power and somewhat expensive. I have the Yamaha RXV620 it is great I wish pro logic II was around when I got mine. Right now you might want to consider Denon 2803 it just came out, my dad has the 3802 and It is excellent. I might get yelled at for this one, but honestly surround speaker quality isn't terribly important. I rarely even notice them, unless there is something huge like explosions, or maybe on DVD audio and that sort of thing. I think a receiver should probably come first.