At the moment I have no home theater equipment and little to no experience with it...right now I use my computer setup for almost all of my audio needs...but I would like to change that. Let me give you a run down on my situation and the direction I'm looking at the moment and maybe you could lend me some advice...as I don't want to lay down a bunch of money just to make a newbie mistake...

1. Situation: mid sized room, apartment, system geared more toward music, but eventually capable of HT surround

2. My thoughts: get a decent mid range reciver worth building a system around, get a decent pair of mid range floor or bookshelf speakers...enough to fill the room with a relatively full range of sound. In terms of the future....I tend not to like that cheap subwoofer sound (esp from the home theater in a box types), but I noticed that 300W Athena sub at BB (not sure of the model #) blended much better than most subs I've heard. So that could be a possibility as well as a passive sub, though i haven't had a chance to demo one.

3. Price range: Reciever $300-500, Speakers $300-500 (or a little more), want to keep my overall budget around $1000

4. Stuff I'm looking at:

a. Speakers

Infinity 40s - never listened to them, but they're about what i'm looking for (I think), infinity seems to be a good brand

Athena SF-2s - BB guy turned me on to them, have a nice full range, seem reasonably priced and blend well with other speakers in their product family

Klipsh S-2s - slightly more sensitive than the Athenas, but not quite as balanced across the sound spectrum, particularly in the upper midrange (from what I could hear at BB). I also like the fact that they are pretty small for floor speakers, yet still provide nice sound

JBL E80s - nice full sound but maybe a little too much distortion in the lower freqencies (could have just been the store setup though)

b. Recievers

Yamaha HTR-5650/HTR-5660 - decent power, the features i want, Yamaha seems to have a good rep

Sony STRDE895/STRDE995 - not so sure about sony receivers, but I like the features, esp AFD

Of course I can't really test the recievers, and I don't really have any experience with them...so this is where some input would come in handy. i'm basically looking for the best bang for the buck and enough power to run a decent set of floor speakers and eventually a full HT set up.

If i had to put my money down today I think I'd go with the Athena SF-2/Yamaha combo