Hi all,

First off - hi I'm newly registered here, although this site has been very useful to me in finding information about home theater setups.

Basically I'm having trouble selecting an affordable HT speaker setup.
I just replaced my (cheap) 5.1 CSW 'DTT 3500 digital' receiver with a 'real' receiver, the pioneer VSX-D814. My setup consists of a Sony TV, a DVD player, and a couple of consoles (ps2/xbox/gamecube). I mostly use this for watching DVDs and playing games. I do some casual incidental music-listening trough this, but focus should be on DVD sound.
Currently I'm using my DTT3500 speakers (small cambridge soundworks 5.1 speakers with a passive sub) on the Pioneer. Sound quality has improved dramatically by replacing the receiver, but still things are sub-optimal. Probably most people here already guessed when I mentioned using the CSW speakers+sub with the Pioneer .

Basically I'm looking for a set of (5.1) sattelites, and an active sub.
My living room is about 9x5 (meters), half of wich is used as a sitting/viewing/listening area.
It's pretty important for me not to have huge speakers standing around (not as much for the WAF, mostly for my own AF ).
My current dilemma has evolved around the selection of sattelite speakers. I've browsed quite a bit of the audioreview forums and review websites, and found the Orb audio ( http://www.orbaudio.com/ ) Mod1/Mod2's. I really *love* the design on them, and reviews seem pretty good. Here on the forums things seem a bit divided, considering the Orbs.
As I'm in Europe, I'm confronted with *huge* HT equipment prices (the Pioneer can be found in the USA for $200-250, maybe even less; I had to do quite some searching to get it for EUR 350 - which is around $400).
So I mailed Orb. They offered me a 5-speaker-combo (mod2's for front and center, mod1's for rear) for quite a good price, including shipping. Response was also great, and it seems the person who replied to my message had clue.
Nice.Tempting. The Orb woofer won't work here, so I'll have to get the woofer seperately.

Let's say I want to get a set of 5.1 speakers (again; forget about the sub for now) for Orb-like pricing. Orbs are cheap; similar-priced speakers will be more expensive when I get them in the EU. If I don't go for the Orb's, I'd rather buy from a shop here, and won't go trough the process of buying online, paying lots for shipping, and risking warranty issues. Again; the Orbs seem a good deal.
Is there any alternative ? I've seen two members here being pretty hyped-up on the Orbs, but I'd love to see a more independent opinion (although any input is welcome, ofcourse).
The most important features - which i do *not* want to part with - are:
- Small speakers (if possible nicely designed)
- Orb-like pricerange (as in ~$500 max, which will turn out to be around the $600-700 range when bought here)
- No woofer (yet).

I hope this is enough information to get a sensible discussion. The general impressions I got from other threads were things like 'this looks like a HTIB', '3" drivers can never produce great sound' and (I didn't like this one) 'Orbs use cheap components and can never sound better than *insert popular non-great speaker-package*'.

So ? Orb as a web-only vague company that doesn't live up to its promises? Or Orb as a company that *does* produce great speakers at a nice price ?

Thanks,
Robert