I've got a 7.1 Pioneer Reciever kickin out the power to a 7.1 setup that consists of a Yamaha 5.1 box system with a 150w sub and small surrounds, with a set of large KLH floor speakers up front (yeah not the best frequency response, but their bass response is pretty good). I ran this setup for a long time with a 27 Inch Sanyo HDTV and it was still quite immersiver - recently upgraded to a 40" Sammy flat panel, which makes it all that more fun.
Anyways, long story short, we initially paid only around $500 for the reciever and speakers, but did end up getting nearly 50% off of retail prices as my wife was a Bestbuy employee at the time - I'd say retail on it all was around $900 - when we got it, we had only paid $200 for our Sanyo TV on clearance @ walmart - but it was still a great system that my buddies enjoyed coming over and playing games/watching movies.
Sound changes everything - along with a good CALIBRATION of that sound - invest in a sound meter and it will astound you at how much better everything sounds when you have the channels correctly adjusted.
Now granted, my setup doesn't sound nearly as good as my brother-in-laws Dennon/Deffinative setup, but in contrast, he did spend at least $3000 more than me
This post has been edited by Rustmonkey: Apr 12 2008, 06:32 PM