The knock against Bose is that most feel they are simply overpriced. Their speakers aren't bad, per se. You just pay out the nose for the Bose name, and most of us like to get the best bang for the buck.

If you really want small speakers, I'd look into either Gallo (roundsound.com) or Mirage Omnisats. They are both pretty inconspicuous and will offer better performance for far less than any Bose. Of the two, I'm partial more to the Gallos, if only because I found the imaging of the Omnisats to be a little fuzzy for my admittedly music-first bias. For HT, the diffuse soundfield is probably much more enjoyable.

The bigger the speaker, the better the performance, so let us know if you absolutely have to have micro thingies.

For a source and amp, any entry-level avr from Yammie, Denon, Onkyo, or Pioneer will do. Pair it with a Panny, Toshiba, or Oppo dvd player and you're good to go.

Hope this helps.