Going into the dark side.....please help

Butsy:

I'd suggest grandchildren are!

That's asking a lot of a three year old :)

For a situation like this, a pair of Mirage Omnisat v2 SATs and coordinating Omni S8 or S10 subwoofer would be about perfect. The satellites can mount on the wall, eliminating the danger of a crawling baby pulling a minimonitor off a stand and thunking her on her punky little head. The grilles are metal mesh, resistant to curious, poking fingers. The omnidirectional radiating pattern is great at filling larger living spaces from small sources. The Omnisat gets really close to being a point source. At the same time, the sound is very clear with excellent midrange.

Best of all, the parts and build quality and sound quality are great--way, way better than Bose, and generally better than similar-priced sub/sat systems. The sat enclosures are inert and shaped to avoid standing waves. Tweeter is a cloth surround titanium dome and mid/woofer is titanium vapor deposit on polypropylene with butyl surround. Handling capacity is 150 w.

Get a consumer-friendly combi player and receiver and you're there. I recommend using the high level (spkr) connections to the sub and from there out to the sats. Kimber TC-4 or TC-8 terminated in bananas should be a good match.

Separate disk player and receiver shouldn't really be more complicated than a single unit. It just requires one more AC outlet and one pair of interconnects.

I use a 2-channel Mirage Omnisat system in the music-only living room, and it's a very engaging and involving system. It energizes the room the way instruments and voices would, it's unobtrusive with good resolution. It excels on jazz and chamber music and acquits itself well with orchestral and big band music too. Voice is almost spooky-real and should work really well for TV/DVD sources.

I'd get an Arcam Solo and a couple of those small Gallos. The wife would be ecstatic, you have decent sound and minimal exposed cabling (the Gallos can be wall or high shelf mounted, and are waaaay better than anything Bose will ever make).

Lots of good advice. Rich, I don't know how much of a "simplification" you are planing on making but if cost and simplicity of operation are primary concerns I would recommend that you look at the Polk Audio I-Sonic, a sinle chasis all-in-one unit listing for $599. It has 4 speakers built into its chasis and is designed to give a semblance of stereo regardless of whether you are in front of, behind, or to the sides of the unit. It has a built in CD\DVD (decent video quality I can attest), AM/FM/XM and HD radio. Sound quality is more than acceptable, especially at its listed price. It will blow away the Pose units with their boomy one note bass. Just plop it in front of your TV, hook up the video cable ad you're ready to go. See the reviews at the TAS/TPV website (www.avguide.com).

I worried too much about getting a "child proof" system at first as I had a two year old when I started this hobby. It might just be my kid but I have always told him "not to touch my stereo!" and it has worked. I sometimes have to remind him when he is jumping and running around the rig but he is really pretty respectfull of "daddy's special stereo". YMMV but you can have it both ways with a little effort and a wife who is on the team. Let me tell you...it sure it nice to be able to listen to a nice system when everyone is asleap or gone. Believe me, you'll need the outlet.