Thanks all for the responses. To answer a few questions... I have Studio 40s v.3 and a CC470 v.3 with dinky low-end paradigm cinema 90s for surrounds. They are all in a living room that opens up to the front door entrance area on the right with the dining room/kitchen as a decent sized open area behind the living room. So there are only walls nearby on the left and behind the TV.
I'm thinking of saving up no more than $1000 and prefereable much less to ease the wife-ranting. Anything amazing out there for $500?
Thanks for all the comments about "trusting my ears" but I really am without much direction so far. It's like telling a just recently literate person to go read books to find what they like when the only books they know of are the phonebook and "See Jane Run" (read, Denon and Paradigm for me). Some direction and suggestions help weed through the sheer volume out there. So thank you for the direction: Rotel, tube amp with linestage (going to go look up what a linestage is :s), Odyssey monoblocks. See, now I have something to actually find and listen to!
At the same time I know that many people only have experience with a couple systems they have owned and they will claim those are the "best" simply because they like them and don't know of anything better. So yes, grains of salt are handy :)
I'm thinking of saving up no more than $1000 and prefereable much less to ease the wife-ranting. Anything amazing out there for $500?
Thanks for all the comments about "trusting my ears" but I really am without much direction so far. It's like telling a just recently literate person to go read books to find what they like when the only books they know of are the phonebook and "See Jane Run" (read, Denon and Paradigm for me). Some direction and suggestions help weed through the sheer volume out there. So thank you for the direction: Rotel, tube amp with linestage (going to go look up what a linestage is :s), Odyssey monoblocks. See, now I have something to actually find and listen to!
At the same time I know that many people only have experience with a couple systems they have owned and they will claim those are the "best" simply because they like them and don't know of anything better. So yes, grains of salt are handy :)