Hi Clack,
If you think you might get serious about music in the future I'd strongly suggest you look at Axiom speakers. They will do nicely in an HT application, but they're also good enough that you could build a pretty serious music system around them as well. Go to their website for info. on their fairly extensive line(so you can mix & match to meet your price target), and they offer 30-day money-back guarantee. See reviews on Soundstage.com and Goodsound.com of the Axiom M3ti as well as a couple larger models.
As for the "amp," I'm not sure if you mean you need an A/V receiver or a 5-channel amp. Assuming the former, the Outlaw 1050? receiver(also available online direct) has gotten very nice reviews and is a great value at around $500(as long as it has all the features you want--I'm thinking mainly video connections/switching and number of channels). It should mate very well with the Axioms, and this system can easily fall within your budget(including a subwoofer).
Short of resorting to the used market this is about the highest performance-per-dollar system I can think of, and I bet you'll be shocked at how good it sounds. If you don't like the speakers or receiver you can always send'em back and you're only out the cost of shipping, but I seriously doubt you'd let them go after you hear them(as always, allow time for break-in). Best of luck.
Tim
If you think you might get serious about music in the future I'd strongly suggest you look at Axiom speakers. They will do nicely in an HT application, but they're also good enough that you could build a pretty serious music system around them as well. Go to their website for info. on their fairly extensive line(so you can mix & match to meet your price target), and they offer 30-day money-back guarantee. See reviews on Soundstage.com and Goodsound.com of the Axiom M3ti as well as a couple larger models.
As for the "amp," I'm not sure if you mean you need an A/V receiver or a 5-channel amp. Assuming the former, the Outlaw 1050? receiver(also available online direct) has gotten very nice reviews and is a great value at around $500(as long as it has all the features you want--I'm thinking mainly video connections/switching and number of channels). It should mate very well with the Axioms, and this system can easily fall within your budget(including a subwoofer).
Short of resorting to the used market this is about the highest performance-per-dollar system I can think of, and I bet you'll be shocked at how good it sounds. If you don't like the speakers or receiver you can always send'em back and you're only out the cost of shipping, but I seriously doubt you'd let them go after you hear them(as always, allow time for break-in). Best of luck.
Tim