Newbie needs advice for upgrade.

If your place is smaller, I'd consider powered studio monitors with a matching sub. It can be set-up like nearfield monitors in a recording studio. This will provide a clean balanced sound to develop your ears. I'd recommend 2-way with 8 inch bass drivers, along with a matching powered sub. This is a very common nearfield monitor driver configuration.

Powered studio monitors and matching powered subs can work in many arrangements. They have separate volume controls and high and low passes for the best balance. You'll need "pre-outs" or you may connect directly to your player source, or possibly to your headphone jacks with a convertor plugs.

For HT, you can add a pair for surrounds and one for the front channel. In a smaller place, 5 excellent quality studio monitors with matching subs could really sound nice.

Component matching is probably the most important factor in a great sound reproduction system.

Good luck...enter the audiophile world with caution... there may be no turning back...

you should never feel embarrassed about the gear you have, it shows you are a music lover and no one on this forum will think otherwise. I would go to a hifi shop and see what they have in your budget. the right shop won't hard sell you and will help you get what you need now, and if they handle you properly you'll be back when you move up the food chain...your Rega stuff is a good foundation...when you buy speaker cables and interconnects I'd suggest Paul Speltz AntiCables...very inexpensive and their performance is off the charts...many on this forum use them. If you can, have a dedicated line for your gear and pay attention to treating your room acoustics and power source.

Ditto Larryken.Rega,anti-cables and some used KRK speakers or older JBL's.I had the Luna for years on Missions and Merlins and it was as good as 85% of all Ive heard.Keep on truckin,cheers,Bob

maybe some Rega speakers for system synergy ... some of their older models are very inexpensive but sound great ... their floorstanders are full sounding and maybe a tad forward but are always a pleasure to listen to ... try to find a used pair of Jura's or similar if you don't want to spend a fortune. Email me privately for more info on Rega speakers if you wish

I'll ring in too with "Don't feel embarrassed". Look at the Legendary Audio gear thread. I began by making a audiophile notebook. I listed the most highly regarded components first from different references. Component matching becomes more and more important.

When my "Best List" was missing any real personal experience matching components, my personal notebook kept my sights clearer and loose ideas better grounded while reading forums, reviews and learning technical expressions.

Keep an eye on EBay and CraigsList. With a list in hand, you can much better land those separates. Occassionally, rare pieces appear that are little known. I never heard of 25 year old custom Yamaha ST-1 cathedral monitors and had this burning feeling. I reluctantly took off on a 4 hour road trip and came home with my new front mains. I'm so happy following this happenstance, haphazardous impulse and enjoying music/HT more than ever. I'd say they weigh in at least 200 pounds each.

Look up "craigsublist" for some good info on subs rated by both music and HT reproduction. No lists are all-inclusive. Good Luck and let us know what you chose and how it sounds.

I have a pair of Mackie 824 and Beringer Truth B2031A studio monitors. The Truths are good knock-offs of the Mackies. Both are good near-field studio monitors. My AVP2 manual recommends possibly using near-field monitors as rear surrounds, placed behind the listeners, in addition to higher mounted ceiling surrounds. The Proceed manual stated adding near-fields may add to the surround channels SQ depending on the room set-up.

I also use them with Roland TD-12's and a Roland GT-10. Very versitile, especially with a matching sub.