Heres my plan, input please.

Please be reminded how most of us have had the pleasure of engaging those high end dealers. Whoever follows this advise is a fool.There is less than one percent of dealers that have your best interest at hand. That is by design, as many manufactures produce product that is outdated right off the line. Looks good, and has some allies, but that is it. You will travel on the audio hamster cage. Many of us have good intention, like to be recognized by our trivial remarks, and to be honest need a life. Try getting together with some seasoned audiophiles in the nearest audio club, and put your ears on. Please be mindful of all the blowhearts out there. They can cost you a lot of money. Which by the way is becoming harder and harder to hold on too.

I wish to apologize to you, Tensnet, for the not so nice or helpful answers. Your associated equipment, now that it's listed, hasn't brought you any more specific answers. Sit back and enjoy is another way to of saying, "ignorance is bliss." And the assistance of a local dealer is very hit or miss.

The things you need to do are to read and listen. Read everything you can find about audio that isn't from a commercial source. Listen to lots of different equipment and systems. not to what anyone says about them.

Do your homework and you'll do okay.

I agree that an audio club, or one or two local audiophiles who have systems one likes can be good resources.

Sounds like a great plan. I'd say you really are on the right track. It is wise to think HT from the get go when starting out today. Secondly, using the same speaker manufacturer for all surround is extremely wise - many people ignore this, and mix and match everything. Typical manisfestation are many complaints that HT is vastly inferior to simple two channel stereo....well of course it is when you have a "dogs breakfast" of tonality in the same room!

I would add that you may not need the center channel if it is just yourself - try phantom and see how it sounds first. It may be better to get the center channel as the last item. I'd go subwoofer before center channel and then Cremona floorstanders next but that is just a personal preference...

welcome to the game-read all you can and demo everything--it seems you already decided to go ht route- that was my most diffcult decision as i use it 75% tv and hd tivo and 25% vinyl 50's jazz---i started with the cremonas, later added 4 auditors as the sides and rears( i think that was overkill in retrospect-only needed two but i got carried away), and then the cremona center channel and a dd15 sub--you don't necessarily need a center channel but if you use it a lot for tv you'll prob. want the center as ost of the dialog goes through that--i tried a lot of stuff but for my ear and needs ended up with mac 207/mx135 combo and a vpi scout----all bought used on agon-now a year later and in ht heaven i'm demo'ing higher end cables---you're starting out fine, just realize its the search for the holy grail and the more you know the more you want---have fun