Home Theatre Question

The speakers will be firing downward and although they will "work", they will lack placement and interaction with the room boundry to sound as real as could be. They will be out of the way and not affect appearance as much but I would have placed them in the walls around the room but check out some interior magazines like Home theater, etc.

I wouldn't give up on HT so quickly. Film and music video are starting to come into there own with HD and Blue Ray. I'm guessing your nice two channel system is providing you with sound staging, you have a working knowledge of your room, and this is the basis for your concern.

I have yet to hear what was once a high quality resolving and staging two channel system morf into an HT system, but that's me. If your considering all this in the same room I'd give up on using your S8e's as a part of the HT system. Your two channel ain't broke!

Start the HT from scratch. Keep the display well away from the Spendors, if it must go between them keep it well behind them. Consider a modern receiver with room correction and possibly some directional ceiling speakers (sorry I don't know the brand but there out there) or a set of small sensitive wall mounted speakers. I'm using Triangle Comets which are on the large size for the wall but their sensitivity works great with a receivers power, in my case it's a Pioneer SC-07.

There is very little in the way of 7.1 film audio right now and what there is seems to have been produced hastily, but its coming. For now music video, HD Comcast Paladia are great fun and worth the effort IMO.

Thanks for the advice. I'll use 4 ceiling speakers
for the sides and rears, but for fronts, I'll use my Totem
Forest floorstanders, and I'll use a Totem center channel speaker. The Arcam avr350 should do a fine job
with music and movies, and I can biamp the fronts
for 2 channel or add one of my integrated amps with
the HT passthrough feature, Thanks

The Arcam seems like a fine receiver (class D?) but if the list of features on their website is accurate I strongly suggest looking elsewhere. Does the Arcam have HDMI in's and out's, True HD audio, room correction? IMO these are must haves. I have seven identical speakers and room correction made a huge difference. You'll be using three different types of speakers. In HT if I have a choice between a high quality receiver without these features and a comparably priced receiver with the new features, the features win. It's HT not hi-fi, it's still going to sound real good.

Compared to component video Blue Jean HDMI cables are super cheap and come in one foot increments for a clean installation.

That is a good decision IMHO to only use 4 ceiling speakers for side and rear only. It would be nice if they could be from the same manufacturer to better voice them together.