Your guy is nuts, the Monitor Audio is only 88dB sensitivity.
Look, you are on a budget, you have to be smart. Anything low sensitivity is going to call for more power in other words more money. There's a million components, a thousand great ones, and one of the ways you narrow down the field to something manageable is by eliminating all the stuff that is only going to cost you money, and one of those filters is low speaker sensitivity. Even if all you do is ignore everything below 95dB that one thing alone will make your life so much easier.
You can now look for any amp 20 watts and up. There are a lot of very good very reasonably priced amps around 20 to 50 watts. You can find them cheap at 200 watts, but not good. So this one little 95dB thing both saves you money and gets you better sound.
Watch the guys who got sucked into buying low sensitivity speakers scream! Too late for them. But not for you. Listen and learn.
You don't mention a budget. Very important you have a budget. One more filter. The two speakers you mention are $600-800 so I assume that's your budget and so you want a good speaker 95dB sensitivity $600-800. Here you go: https://tektondesign.com/product/full-range-speakers/mid-towers/mini-lore/#color
Do a search, read the reviews and comments, you will find this is a very well regarded speaker. Huge improvement over the two you were looking at. A big part of this is they are direct from the manufacturer.
The cheap wire you are looking at is probably only barely better than lamp cord. I would skip it and search around for some used Synergistic Research speaker cable. Anything you find for around $100 will be light years better than XT40.
You still need an integrated amp, source, and interconnect. For starters. What's your budget?
Look, you are on a budget, you have to be smart. Anything low sensitivity is going to call for more power in other words more money. There's a million components, a thousand great ones, and one of the ways you narrow down the field to something manageable is by eliminating all the stuff that is only going to cost you money, and one of those filters is low speaker sensitivity. Even if all you do is ignore everything below 95dB that one thing alone will make your life so much easier.
You can now look for any amp 20 watts and up. There are a lot of very good very reasonably priced amps around 20 to 50 watts. You can find them cheap at 200 watts, but not good. So this one little 95dB thing both saves you money and gets you better sound.
Watch the guys who got sucked into buying low sensitivity speakers scream! Too late for them. But not for you. Listen and learn.
You don't mention a budget. Very important you have a budget. One more filter. The two speakers you mention are $600-800 so I assume that's your budget and so you want a good speaker 95dB sensitivity $600-800. Here you go: https://tektondesign.com/product/full-range-speakers/mid-towers/mini-lore/#color
Do a search, read the reviews and comments, you will find this is a very well regarded speaker. Huge improvement over the two you were looking at. A big part of this is they are direct from the manufacturer.
The cheap wire you are looking at is probably only barely better than lamp cord. I would skip it and search around for some used Synergistic Research speaker cable. Anything you find for around $100 will be light years better than XT40.
You still need an integrated amp, source, and interconnect. For starters. What's your budget?