First I want to say thank you for your service to our country!
Welcome to the Axiom family as well.
I think your speaker selection is fine. My only concern is if you reallllllly like to crank it up sometimes (music), you may want to consider M50's or 60's, especially for the larger room. However, the 22's are killer speakers. A lot depends on your budget.
The 2500 receiver is a great unit, especially at that price. It will be great for all purposes. You could go with larger mains, and hold off on a sub for a bit. You can use what is called Phantom mode, and use your mains to simulate the sub for starters.
I can't comment much on the sub. I used to own the EP350, which was a great sub. I ordered the Mansfield Beech color, so it was important to me that all my speakers matched in finish, your mileage may very. I do think there is a lot of subs out there that cost less that will give you great results, I'm sure some others will chime in with opinions. I currently own the EP500, oh man.
There is nothing wrong with starting with 5.1. You can always upgrade later to a 5.1 or 7.1 setup with that receiver. There are only a few movies that make use of the rear channels anyway. Most receivers have PLIIx or other surround modes that will simulate the rear speakers, which is cool.
You don't have to use connectors, just use bare wire to your terminals for the best connection. However, there is nothing wrong with using banana plugs if you like.
If you buy a DVD player with DVD outputs, but your TV has HDMI inputs, all you have to do is buy a DVDtoHDMI cable. I bough a 25ft one from
http://www.monoprice.com and it works great and the prices are great as well. Some of the newer DVD players have HDMI outputs, so you would just need an HDMI cable. Keep in mind that DVI cables only pass the video signal, whereas HDMI passes both video and audio.
Upconversion on receivers will allow you to combine cables into your receiver, and just have one going to the TV. Most receivers only convert composite/s-video/component into one component output to the tV. Some of the newer receivers will combine to HDMI out. Not sure about the 2500.
If you don't have a lot of equipment to combine (satelite/dvd/tivo/hd box), it might just be easier to connect directly to your tv and not through your receiver.
A lot of us buy from the Factory Outlet, the speakers are identical in every respect. The only difference is that the FO stuff may have minor minor flaws like nicks/scratches. It has been the norm that most people can't find a single thing wrong with them upon inspection.
Good Luck on your choices...Randy
