The bookshelf vs. towers issue partly depends on how loud you like your music/home theater. I recently upgraded my living room stereo for "cosmetic" reasons - bookshelf (with a subwoofer) Mirage M260s to Axiom M22s - and I also have some Polk RTi8 towers that I use for home theater in another room. The M260s and M22s are excellent speakers that work well in a big room for "It sounds like a string quartet is playing in the living room" type volumes. I suspect the M3s would do very well with this also. But the bookshelf speakers just don't push enough air to give you "The Who is playing in the living room" or the volume I like to hear in action/adventure movies - although my Polk towers will do that in the family room. Off the top of my head, it occurred to me that you might want to try 2 M3s on each side - I'm curious what some of the smarter (i.e. virtually everybody here) folks around here would think of that. Or, you could just tell the wife that everybody here thinks that bookshelf speakers (especially that small) would be a big step down audio-wise so you don't want to do it.
