I would start by taking stock of the room this gear is going to go in. Seriously, this plays an important role in getting good sound from your prospective system.

It might help to take some tape and mark the floor and begin to visualize the speaker placement and size. In general, smaller roooms (14' x 16' and smaller) need less amplifier power to achieve high sound levels while larger rooms will need considerably more power to fill the room with sound.

Along those same lines, smaller rooms aren't the ideal situation for floor model speakers and often benefit from stand mount speakers. If your room is larger than those dimensions (approximations here, there is no magic figure) mentioned above, you might be better off getting the T55 speakers to begin with. The B25 would be great for rear channels in a larger room, but they might be a bit large for rear channel speakers in a small room, though superb for front channels and perfectly competent as main speakers augmented by a subwoofer in a more ambitious system.

Think ahead on these things and try to organize your thoughts toward the final system before you begin putting it together. I can appreciate that this can be somewhat paralyizing in trying to make decisions, but it's much easier and more cost effective after you have determined what the final product is going to look like and where it's going to be placed.

There are a lot of variables that can alter the order of your purchases. However, take into account the room first and any future plans to move. It would be a bummer to assemble a system based on a small room and then move in 6 months to a large house with a grand room, but not nearly as big a bummer as assemblying a system based on a large room and trying to make it work in a small one.

Thinking back to when I was your age and all the frequent moving around that I did, I'm relatively confident in suggesting that you consider your current situation as well as the likelihood that this will change quite a bit for the next few years. Apartment living, for example. A large system with lots of power and big ol honkin' speakers may not be the best use of your limited funds and certainly doesn't always equate to the best sound.

Check out Outlaw Audio and the various gear they have to offer. It's high value and high performance with flexibility being the key. If I were in your shoes, they would be a lot of help in assisting my decision making. Linkarooney

Keep bouncing your thoughts on what you are considering off of us and we'll try to help you avoid any disappointments. You are obviously serious about getting good sound.

If you were to ask 10 of us what we would do in your shoes, you'll get 10 different answers and be no better off. However, we can help you think about things that you probably haven't thought of and that can help whittle things down in a sea of choices.

Talk about an easy spot to post in! Just take Monty's advice, it's money, baby!

Monty, that post was so good you could sell it.

Given that movies are of equal importance to you, an AV receiver would be the most cost effective. You could go with a regular receiver or integrated amplifier and simply run your movies in stereo, but that really doesn't take advantage of the multi channel capabilities of movies. The 2150 receiver might make sense if you wanted to build the system piece by piece over time. It can serve as a stereo amp for you front speakers should you eventually go with a surround processor. You would still need center channel and rear channel amps to complete the surround and that adds to the ultimate cost.

If it were me, I would aquire whatever speakers I was going to be using and then audition the 1070 AV receiver. If the receiver proved satisfying in stereo then the choice would be easy. The rear speakers, center speaker and subwoofer can be added as funds permit. By the way, I don't think you need to spend a lot of money on the rear channel speakers, and decent subs can be had for under $500.

I would look for easy to drive 8 ohm speakers for the rear channels. The 1070 should have plenty of power for moderate size rooms, but you might as well make it easy for the amp considering the fronts will be a bit more of a load on it.

The good thing about the Outlaw stuff is that you can try it in your home for 30 days and be out only the costs of shipping should it not work for you.

It just depends on whether you want to go slowly and more expensive for the eventual quality or get something that works well sooner at a lower cost and possibly not quite as good. Either route would make perfect sense and the difference in quality is not a matter of bad vs good, but rather real good vs damn good.

Hey Buddha, given the high post count, the law of averages starts working in my favor and I'm bound to post something decent every now and then. Even Dup makes sense once in a while.