nht vs cerwin vega

gmarcotte,
glad it worked out better. and having pre-outs on your receiver will help immensely. i typically would not recommend bi-ampimg until you have sufficient funds to have first tried a single good quality amp/cable - you'll have to spend more to get equivalent sound. the one exception is that you *might* be able to get a deal on a good-quality multi-channel amp, and use that to bi-amp.

new cords in place between cd and reciever. what a difference a few dollers can make. black sabbath, jimi hendrix, and rock and roll in general all sound better. they get loud. not like the vegas but every part of the nht seams to be superior so i hope with the right amp i can get close to the same spl.
u cant go wrong with nht if u live in an apartment, they sound so good at low levels. ideal speaker in my opinion would be similar to the infinity iris or what ever thoes giant speakers ar with a dozen 12s and more mids and tweets than the grateful dead had. couppled with nhts new xd crossover technology. a few thousand watts of power and your set.

i scraped the bi-amp set-up. made the hk avr20ii the pre amp, used a good cable to connect it to carver tfm15. sounds a lot better. seems to have more power. hearing highs at a level i am happy with.

cerwin vega are musical (forgiving of front end) you can listen to all day long and are inexpensive.

You can get a used HK Signature 2.1 110x5 amp for ~ $400 ---- use four channels to passively biamp the 2.5i mains (to get more juice and SPL) and the 5th channel to drive an NHT Audiocenter1 center.

You should still get a powered subwoofer for the dedicated LFE channel. Lots of good choices. For under $300 new, this 10inch Dayton (only $125) gets alot of praise:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=300-632&DID=7