The Q900 is hard to beat for the price. Check out the Stereophile review on them.

There are very few speakers that will give you really good low bass for under $5000, and the Q900 is one of them.

Most people would end up buying a subwoofer to use with the R500 in order to get adequate bass, but it depends on what you like to listen to. Some people are indifferent about needing low bass.

If you definitely plan to go to 5 channel sound in the future sometome later, I suggest the Cambridge Audio 551R receiver, which is one of the few on the market that has an adequate power supply and decent-sounding amplifiers.

You can easily add smaller KEF speakers to the Q900 for the center and rear, and with the Q900 you will never need to add a subwoofer.

Wiesty wrote:

I was just wondering what people's opinions on the Q and Reference series were for KEF speakers. I'm considering buying a stereo pair with the possibility of building it into a surround system in the future. Room size won't be very large, just a basic living room. The Q900's have been well recieved and are in my price range, but from what I understand, the Reference series is a huge step up. That being said, the R900s are a bit out of my budget, so I would have to go with something like the R500s. Am I going to notice much of a difference between the Q900s and R500s aside from decibal levels?