system matching help

as a cj owner and lover, i'm a huge fan of the 11a and think that it is capable of delivering the current you would require to drive some of the speakers you mentioned (even the limited power 11xs drives ml's sl3's). that said, i agree that you should spend some time in a high quailty a/v showroom. and consider going with a solid state multichannel amp, around which you can build a really solid home theater set up. on this site i've seen some good deals on cj's solid state 5 channel amp, as well as some good deals on krell's (slightly more expensive) offering. there are quite a few good multichannels out there. with good front speakers, most will be capable of delivering excellent 2 channel sound as well. in my opinion, this makes sense given your 50/50 tv/audio split.

to follow-up a point sean made, my first audio purchase was a pair of klipsch's kg4 speakers in 1987 (i grew up in a k-horn household). to date, those could be my best purchase. great, versitile, fun, engaging speakers. within the last 5 or so years, (1) my father has begun using his k-horns in a solid/price efficent ht set-up (he added a klipsch center channel and in-wall klipsch rears), (2) a buddy has built his ht system around a pair of klipsch 4.2's, which he origionally purchased for pop music, and (3) my younger sister bought a used pair of forte's, at first almost exclusively for grunge rock, and now...part of her ht set-up. in short, they won't be the last word in imaging or detail, but they're great versitile products that are fun to listen to.