I looked up a short defenition of an audiophile. Included in the defenition was that a beginner system usually costs 10,000 and up as to where veteren systems cost over 100,000. I then gladly stopped considering myself an audiophile. I love everything about sound, but I don't wanna be known as the guy that has all the expensive stuff. I wanna always be known as the guy who took not so good components to good components and making them sound great. On that note I probably have the least impressive components out of everyone on this board. I have Paradigm Mini monitor v.2 as my fronts, and matching ADP surounds and center. My sub is a car audio Cerwin Vega Vega series 12 inch in a Q-logic box powered by a 300 watt custom home sub amp. My receiver is a Denon 2801 that doesn't even do Pro Logic 2. Through experimenting with speaker placement and proper distance and level calibration on the receiver, I put something together that does bring a tear to my eye or just makes me getty. Thats the most important part. People who come over and just sit in utter shock when they hear your stuff, thats just a bonus. I agree with everyone who posted on what makes a great speaker great. They are all correct. However you can buy a truely time tested great speaker and have it sound terrible when you get home. I have a pair of Monitor 9s sitting in the closet due to this fact. My 9s used to be my mains. I never could get them to sound right. I then found that the difference is that they're front ported and not rear like the mini's. My room has a serious problem front ported speakers due to wierd room dimensions. Anyway, the bottom is if you can help it, don't buy a speaker by what you hear in the store. Most places offer demo models to try over the weekend. Hear what they sound like in your room. Room acoustics can crush a fantastic speaker. In my experience, for strangely shaped rooms where speakers don't have equal distance from side walls or one wall opens up into a kitchen area, use rear ported. Either that or go find some acoustic panneling that will turn a nice room into an ugly geek cave.