[au350hp]

I am nearly 50 and besides V8 Fords, music is my next biggest passion. I play a bunch of instruments & have a home studio which is Les Pauls, Vox amps, high end keyboards, laptops & JBL monitors with Sennheiser 'phones. My audio gear in the living room consists of a high end Japanese Onkyo amp with every capability known paired with a Japanese Onkyo DVD player. Here is where I differ from most others though. I only use 3ch & a sub with TV (55'' Loewe Plasma) & DVD where as with the CD player, I use left & right and a sub only. With a great amp and sound stage, you really don't need rear speakers. Learn how to place speakers & sub properly in relation to the size of room and seating position. I don't like multi speaker set ups & surround sound also I don't rate digital recording compared to analog. I rely on my ears for playing instruments, so purity of sound & warmth of tone is crucial to me. I grew up on analog & stereo recordings which I still own on vinyl and they get much more use than my CD collection. My current set up which I have had for around 8-10 years is: CD player is Japanese Pioneer, Turntable is Japanese Technics, centre speaker & sub are Chinese made Wharfedale and front L&R are English made Wharfedale loudspeakers. Never underestimate the warmth of Japanese Amps & the awesomeness of English loud speakers. I specify where my gear is made as most people know the difference in quality of materials, finish and build of Japan made compared to Chinese is night and day. There is a lot of really good value when you look around, and remember to buy with your ears, don't be misled with big output numbers & big speakers. Learn what the numbers mean. It is not unlike rear wheel HP vs flywheel HP. Big difference in the real world. Also, check where everything is really made. Big brands often have budget priced stuff for a few grand which is made in china under licence and its not until you start spending maybe double that, that the country of origin changes to EU, USA or Japan and the sound starts to really liven up.