Can you help or do I have to get divorced?

I think the problem began a long time ago when we first started living together. I had a pair of Klipsch Forte's. You know the one's that looked like small refrigerators. She would mildly complain about them. We got married and within a few months my brother had a nice pair of Klipsch Forte's - free of charge. Now she's got me by the balls.
If I wasn't such a nice guy. Does anyone have any input on the Spendor S3/5's? Can they do the job?

a) Find a room that is not the main room of the house that everyone can agree is 'yours' or 'the music room'.
-else -
b) Dunno about 1K, but if you can go a little higher, think about speakers with furniture quality finishes (Avalon, Amati) that will appeal aesthetically. Then work on layouts that hide the cables & gear.

Find a console (coffin style) stereo from the sixties. These are retro chic right now. Magnavox was a leading brand but was just mass market quality. The best was from H. H. Scott with their components built into a high class piece of furniture. I'm sure these were rare. Now that I think of it I would buy a scott for just the furniture if I could find one. You could always gut the coffin and put your own goodies in there.
Good Luck!
Stephen

You're gonna have to get a wall unit entertainment center. A big, expensive piece of furniture that most wives are willing to accept. Get one where you can put the TV in the middle section at waist height, with two other sections on either side of the TV for speakers. You might need to get a design that has cabinet doors to cover up the speakers and TV when not in use -- depends on her tastes. I recommend speakers with good upper bass through treble for the wings, like the B&W CDM 1NT for about $900 a pair. It's a 2-way design with a front firing port. It would be real hard to get decent bass without spending a lot more money and getting pretty large in size. When you fill in your home theater, I recommend you buy a subwoofer. You could get a front firing subwoofer of relatively small size, e.g., a Sunfire True Sub Architectural, and hide it along side the wall unit or even put it in a cabinet cavity under one of the speakers. Until then, the B&W's will do a fairly good job on two channel music. Good luck; we would all like to have our cake and eat it too.

The divorce thing isn't necessarily as glamorous as it's made out to be. I hope I never go through it again.

There's an excellent little speaker that just might save your marriage. It's virtually unheard of because the designer is also a professional reviewer, and it would reflect negatively on him as a reviewer if he were to try to promote his own product (even though he avoids doing loudspeaker reviews). The designer is none other than Dick Olsher, and the speaker is the $675 a pair Samadhi Magic Cube. You can read about it at http://www.blackdahlia.com.

How about this blurb on the Magic Cube from the Samadi page, accessed from the BlackDahlia site:

"The perfect wife acceptance factor! Visual design is by an actual wife."

An ACTUAL WIFE, dude! What more could you ask for??

The driver layout is of the Magic Cube unorthodox and brilliant. The result is a correctly energized reverberant field, which is a significant contributor to natural timbre. The Magic Cube is very nicely balanced and is relaxing and enjoyable long-term, which is quite rare in this price range. This speaker was voiced using professional singer/actual wife Lesley Olsher as a live reference, so it excels on vocals.

I don't sell these speakers, but I do sell a nice little integrated amp you might consider driving them with. It's the little 30-watt JoLida hybrid, retail $350. Of course you might want to get something else, but with the JoLida you could quietly roll the input tubes and upgrade without ever being noticed.

If I had the constraints you do, this combo would be my choice.

Best of luck to you!

Duke