I haven’t heard back from Dan about whether he ever took the plunge on a new stereo system, but I hope he got some use out of the information I passed along.
Now A.J. is looking for an HT setup to go with his huge Sony TV. He started out with a Bose system but never even took it out of the box, thank God. I encouraged him to shop around for some good sound at a reputable A/V dealer rather than throw money away on Bose.
I started out trying to point him towards an Axiom setup that looked really nice and got great reviews, but it was out of his price range. As luck would have it, Paradigm has just come out with a new Cinema CT Series HT kit that looks like exactly what A.J. wants. The high-end package comes in right at $800, and the speakers use the technology from Paradigm’s widely-acclaimed Monitor series. So I kicked A.J. some contact info for a shop near him that deals in Paradigm. Hopefully he’ll get out and give these things a listen; I’m certain he’ll be impressed if he does.
PS — If you’re spending $3,500 on a widescreen TV, you should really be prepared to spend at least half that on your speakers. You can always save up and get a bigger TV later, but a really nice, quality set of speakers will last you for a long, long time.