so many choices, yet so little to demo

Mate it is vitally important you hear stuff before purchasing.

To hammer home the point I strongly urge you to read the following review:
http://www.stereomojo.com/LENEHAN%20ML1%20REFERENCE%20SPEAKER%20REVIEW/LenehandML1ReferenceSpeaker.htm

You very rarely if ever see reviews like that but to be blunt its the truth of the situation not the usual rubbish you see in reviews. The speakers in that review are mine I lent out for the review. I am not beholding to anyone so couldn't care a rats proverbial that one person went ga ga over them and another - well ho hum. Manufacturers would go off the deep end with a review like that, and being lucky enough to live near the the maker, and having a good relationship with him, I can tell you he was none too happy about the negative review, but of course loved the complementary one. The point is not every product is the bees knees for everyone and to avoid disappointment you must listen to gear - it's imperative.

There is no need to go to dealers - contact other Hi Fi enthusiasts on forums like this. In my experience they will be only too happy to have you on over to hear their stuff - I am always happy to do that.

Its the only way, and allocating money to do that, even if it means travel, it a very very important part of what needs to be set aside for any Hi Fi purchase.

Thanks
Bill

Pioneer 22 monitors with matching center and sub. Best Buy will occaisonally have 22s for $79 per pair. Sounded great at Newport Show.

I am somewhat in the same boat, although living in the Atlanta area, I have more choices closer than when I was in SW Florida. There are still many brands I hear about here, with 'nothing else comes close for ten times the price' endorsements from posters, that I can't find. I'm not completely opposed to internet direct, b-stock, or used, but would prefer to support local dealers. Ultimately though, even if a speaker of interest can be auditioned live, how it sounds 'there' versus how it will sound in my room is still little more than a guess. The dealers I've been too have setups that bear little or no resemblance to the room I'm using, or the equipment. Given that those factors are of great importance to the end result, isn't anything we buy little more than a shot in the dark until we get it home? Slightly educated shot in the dark, maybe, but still....
Much like any given item you could mention, us as individual buyers have differences in how we prefer to buy.

So you are buying FIVE speakers for 2500.00?

And you will be using Onkyo/Emotiva to drive said speakers?

First of all let's get this one out of the way. Any system combining HT and music duties must be configured to optimize one or the other. One or the other can sound very good, but whichever one is the "other" will sound only fair.

If HT is more important to you, buy five matching speakers and set them up in the room to enhance the video experience. The pre/pro/7 channel rig will be great for movies, and only marginal for music.

If music is more important and you are set on that budget, buy the best speakers you can for L+R and spend only a fraction on the other three. Then set up the main speakers where they sound best for two channel music (this will NOT be where they sound best for car crashes, off screen dialog, etc....). And ultimately you would want to delegate your signal processing to something other than the Onkyo/Emotiva combo.

So you have some choices to make, and along with those choices will come compromises.

Shakey

>> Any system combining HT and music duties must be configured to optimize one or the other...<<

I tend to disagree with this line of thinking. Good sound is good sound, period. If a system sounds good for either stereo or HT, it should sound good no matter what. It used to be that one could skimp on the surround and surround back channels because the information being reproduced was of the "ambience" type, crowd noises and such.

That is no longer true with well-mastered modern surround mixes for music. The single most important quality for a surround sound setup is that the speakers have the same or similar timbre or "voicing". This allows for a more coherent and seamless soundfield when the music is panned from left to right and front to back.

Having the same speakers at all positions, except for subwoofer of course, gives you this matching timbre.

And I can promise the original poster (OP) that the all-Gallo system recommended will meet this criteria perfectly. For the money invested it is a very good setup for both home theater and stereo.

I would recommend such an approach to start. If the OP wishes to maximize his stereo listening quality he could trade up to the larger Gallo Classico 3s or 4s later on as the budget allows. And this would still maintain the all-important matching timbre requirement...

-RW-