Newbie with $1500 and a wife pushing for Bose

For a 3800 to 4200 cubic foot room those small bose speakers will not have the balls to fill your room with music (or noise).
IMOP the best value in speakers are those Candian speaker manufacturers ie. Energy, Mirage, Athena Technologies (all under Audio Products International), Paradigm, PSB and a few others.
For an A/V Receiver I would choose Denon, an AVR-1804 or an used AVR-2802. (both at 90w/ch) ($350 - $450)
In the classifieds on this site is a complete Athena Technologies system (4 matching bookshelves , a center and a 10 inch sub) all for $600.
Good Luck but please no bose.
Regards,
Rich

I didn't even think of the NAD "combo" unit. That would be both convenient and of good quality, but it doesn't do surround sound at all. My guess is that this was a big part of the equation since Eric stated "Almost 100% for movies/tv but want to move to music as well". With that in mind, i think that the NAD would be a great piece for a bedroom or any other secondary type of system. Sean
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I'm sure your Sony DVD-NS715P dvd player also plays cds. That would free up the cd player budget towards the A/V Receiver, Speakers, Cables and Stands.
One more thing you need to look at is do you need a receiver with componet video switching (dvd player and the HDTV box) or does your Sony TV have more than one of the componet inputs or you could use the s-video for one of your video sources.
Regards,
Rich

Sheesh. I overlooked that Eric already had a DVD/CD player. Maybe i need to read things a little better myself : )

Having said that, you can pocket the $80 that i recommended for the Panasonic DVD player or put that towards some new recordings to play on your new system. Either way, these are only my comments and they are worth exactly ( or slightly less than ) what you paid for them : ) Sean
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For my $1,500.00, here's what I would do:

Speaker System: Definitive Technology Pro Cinema 60 (everything's included, nothing extra to buy) -- $700.00.
Audio/Video Receiver: Denon AVR-2803 (D-PL, D-PLII, DTS, DTS-ES, 90W x 6, etc....) -- $800.00.
Cables: Monster Cable (all the way) -- No More Than $150.00.

Use your existing DVD Player. In the Definitive Technology Pro Cinema 60 System, everything's included (four satelites, center channel and powered subwoofer), and if you want to extract the maximum amount of weight and oomph from this system, I went with a Denon AVR-2803 because its warmer and more authoritive sound will get the best and the most out of the great but bright sounding Definitive Technology system. If the sound is too mushy and warm for you, and you prefer a more open and leaner sound, then you always substitute the Denon AVR-2803 in favor for a Yamaha RX-V740 (for $100.00 less). And for a little more than $1,500.00, you have can have a system that sounds great (to meet YOUR requirements) and can take up VERY little footprint (meaning space) at the same time (which meets the requirements of your spouse). And lastly, you'll end up with something sounds a lot better and is a lot more respectable than what you'll get from your wife's proposed Bose system.

In my humble opinion, this is high performance home theater simply done (it will definitely stomp the shit out of a HTIB system, that's for damn sure).

Good luck with that new home theater system!!!!!!!

--Charles--