Amp/Speaker selection help.

I agree with Ultraviolet. Smallish floorstanders take up no more room than monitors on proper stands. If, however, you intend to place the speakers in a home entertainment cabinet on a shelf, in my opinion you might as well resign yourself to the fact that you will not achieve great sound for music only. At least make sure that you get a front ported design. There are alot of these out there from Monitor Audio, B&W, Paradigm etc... Given your price range for processing, amplification and speakers, I do not disagree with the AVR suggestion. Just do yourself a favor and assume future upgrades will come. If you get a receiver, make sure it has pre outs for at least amplifiers. After all, if you know of this website, you're already doomed to a course of constant upgrades and changes.

That is sound advice. There is a thread on Audiogon with members opining that 2 channel is best for movies, which is a load of excrement in my opinion. These same people will tell you that the idea of 2 channel music is to recreate the live event (even if it was a studio recording). Why then, I must ask, would you not want the sound for movies to recreate the theater experience????