Ian, this is a great post you have here, very educational. I am finally getting rid of my 20 year old amp and tuner and moving my Bose to another room. I have a difficult room layout. 18'x35' w/9' ceiling family room/kitchen split about 50/50. I would want to center my system on the back 18' wall, but of course that's where the fireplace is. So my only choices are to angle everything off of one corner or just split the long wall and face the fronts at a 90 angle from the kitchen. I think the second would be ok for ht, but not for music. Hope my explanation makes sense. I also don't think I'm interested in 7.1, so the receivers I have been looking at are - Denon 2802, Onkyo 696, Outlaw 1050 (might be out because no dpl II), and Marantz 7200. I have done a lot of research on speakers and am pretty convinced to go with Axioms. Questions - Which room layout would you recommend and which speaker package? I know you have the wizard, but I never like those.

Thanks,

Greg