Newbie with $1500 and a wife pushing for Bose

Sean's question will help us a lot.

Check out Ascend Acoustics should be in your price range. Also look for the Panasonic SA-XR25 receiver it has a digital amp and receives a lot of praise for the price. You should be able to find it around $230 on-line(jandr.com) If you get this receiver be sure to use digital connections that is how it performs how it does in that the signal stays digital.

I would agree with above statements about Bose speakers - you can do a lot better for about the same investment.

I would take a look at a used Denon Receiver, they consistently get great reviews.
I found a little known speaker company called Source Technologies that have home theater packages - the 1.5HT should be one to look at as it includes a subwoofer. www.sourcetechspeakers.com
I would also strongly recommend Paradigm, and Axiom at www.axiomaudio.com

If part of the compromise you're looking for is the simplicity of one-stop-shopping you can get many of the advantages your wife might be looking for and better sound by going with one of the package set-ups from Cambridge Soundworks

You undoubtedly could put together a better system choosing components piece by piece and buying used but that's a long, involved process and, unless you've got some experience with the gear, has the possibility of unpleasant surprises, not something I'd think you want in your situation.

They're a good company with exceptional customer service, another thing that's really important if you're new to this.

I agree with the Paradigm / Yamaha suggestion. Sounds better and is a much better value.

My advices is this...

Definitive Technology Procinema 60 (649.00)
Includes Center, 4 sattelites speakers, and subwoofer
A little bigger than the bose cubes but not very small, a hell of alot better sounding, good wife acceptance factor. I have yet to meet anyone who had actually heared these and didnt think it was a killer deal. They sound fantastic. Look up Definitive technology on the web, better yet audition them somewhere if you can, they will really suprise the hell outta you.

Denon AVR-1804 surround reciever, about about $500.00 i think. This reciever mates perfectly with the deftech speakers. In my humble opinion Denon makes some of the best recievers in thier respective price ranges.

this leaves you with about 350 bucks for either a DVD player or some good cable.