Klipsch Home Theater Setup

Great! I hope that works good for you.

Thanks all for the advice. This makes a lot of sense. Digging around a bit I decided to start with a pair of Klipsch RP-600M paired with a  SVS SB12-NSD sub. Total came out to $900, so still under budget. I figure if I ever get the home theater itch I can look to add a center and satellites piecemeal that match the system well.

Ha Ha! "Wastland of awful sound" More often than not! I liken the ever expanding number of surround channels (what are we up to now 10, 12?)As "brute force imaging". It’s like when HT came along they threw out the lessons learned by the hi-fi community over the last 50 whatever years and started over. I think the problem was they were trying to duplicate the sound of movie theaters in the home. In theaters you can not have a sweet spot. It has to sound roughly the same (mediocrity spread equally) for every person in every position wall to wall in a large room or lots of folks would not be happy. However in our homes we don’t have that limitation most of the time. We can have a sweet spot and that is where good old stereo shines!
I know some will argue this point but I have found that with a center channel it locks the dialog dead center but with plain old stereo the sound is free to follow the action as it moves from side to side much better. Now of course that is as long as we are sitting at least between the speakers. If someone is sitting outboard of the speakers then a center channel is helpful. In my case it's just the wife and I and we have a love seat centered on the speakers and so are always between them. YMMV.

Sure it is possible to have a truly kick ass surround system but it takes a lot of effort and money to get there. Hell it’s hard enough just to get 2 channel dialed in just right.

^^^^^^^^^THIS!!!!!^^^^^^^^

Three things you will never find:
Five $200 speakers that sound as good as two $500 speakers.
Five $200 amps that sound as good as one $1k stereo integrated amp.
Five great big long $200 interconnects that sound as good as one meter of $1k interconnect.

Yes stopping at 3 is totally arbitrary. You get the idea. Sure hope so anyway.

The one exception is subs. Four or five $200 subs will provide much better bass than just one for $1k. But the Home Theater guys will never tell you about that. Because HT is a wasteland of awful sound. Don't go there. Just don't.

Hi chariq. Personally if I had a budget of only $1000 for a whole speaker system I would look for a nice stereo pair of full range speakers. You will get much better sound than trying to buy a full 5.1.2.whatever channel system for that price. Good stereo is the foundation of surround sound. If you are sure you really want surround sound then look for speakers that have matching center and surrounds and you can buy them later as funds allow. My system is two channel only and is also a home theater as well. I have a projector with a motorized screen so when I’m listening to music I can get the theater out of the way. The system is optimized for two channel performance. But it still sounds wonderful for TV and movies. I do not miss surround sound at all (been there done that). But I’m using $10,000. open baffle speakers that have incredible imaging that makes for a very 3 dimensional sound with only 2 speakers.
Keep in mind that speakers designed for great audio will work fine for home theater on the other hand many "home theater" speakers are not great for music. They are more about special effects explosions etc.

Regarding subs. You will not be happy with a cheap sub like that for music. Deep articulate bass is the foundation of good sounding music. Get that wrong and you will not like it.

Don’t be afraid to shop the second hand market. Your money will go farther. One speaker I can highly recommend at your price it the ZU Audio Dirty Weekend. http://www.zuaudio.com/loudspeakers/omen-dirty-weekend-2 (search the reviews) I just set up a system for a guy (non audiophile) He was bragging to me about his "state of the art" Bose Acousimass surround system in his media room (those tiny cube speakers with a one note bass sub). Anyway I put together a great system for him with the Dirty weekends, a Emerald Physics 100.2se amp and a Jolida tube preamp/DAC/Bluetooth (all second hand for about $2,000.)Yes a stereo system for his theater. He is so thrilled with it, he could not believe how good it sounds and it does! In his small room it has plenty of deep bass. (The Bose went in the trash.) We though about a sub but both agreed after hearing it that it wasn’t needed. Music sounds wonderful and so do movies.

Bottom line you will get better sound focusing your money on two good speakers rather than spreading it out over 5,6,7? crappy ones. Plus you still need amplifier channels and cables for all those speakers, even more money.
Good luck!