Well, I guess I'm going to get flamed for my personal opinion (again), but yeah I do have a set of Bose here in the living room. They are a couple of generations old (circa 2000), hanging from their little wall/ceiling brackets in front of and behind me.

So here you go flamers, warm up your keyboards to get ready to slap me down for my blatant ignorance of audiophile-level quality...my opinion is: I still think they are OK. I think the sound they put out is fine. I very much like the fact that they are physically very, very small yet still fill the room with (in my opinion) enjoyable sound. [For the record, the room is NOT a dedicated home theater, just an open living room.]

On the minus side, I don't like the fact that my speaker system is not expandable and I can't for example, put in a newer center channel or subwoofer. That sucks.

So before the flaming begins, let me state that I am not an audiophile in any real sense. I could barely perceive subtle sound differences among the side-by-side speaker systems in the few demos I have carefully listened to, so I have trouble paying the big bucks for it. Maybe my hearing needs to be checked (go ahead flamers, more ammo).

The one audio feature I tend to be tickled by is to have good channel separation and the effect of sound "travelling" from one side of the room to the other while watching DVDs. Of course, I know this feature is not nearly as much of a function of speakers as it is of the receiver.

Since the wife and I are beginning to shop for our next house, let's say I have $1000 to $1500 to buy my next set of speakers (and maybe a few bucks more for a better receiver), but this time it WILL be in a dedicated home theater setting.

So here's the next question: What particular components would you guys recommend within a budget like that for a home theater audio system? (Existing system has a 7.1 receiver, 100-watts per channel by Sony and physical size is still an important consideration).