Attention, attention, your audio setup sucks!

Did that grab your attention? Well, by "your", I meant "my", because my audio setup certainly is nothing to shout about. Actually, last year when I bought an entry-level Yamaha amp (RX-V359) and matching budget speakers, the purpose was not to reach for the stars, but to have external sound at all. Now that I have a projection setup, having speakers and an amp which are "better than nothing" grade do not cut it and in fact, can be quite frustrating when you're having to pick muffled dialogue out from unconvincing background clutter.

The more I read up on speaker terminology, the more I can easily indentify just what's wrong with that I have right now. So: I'm now looking at all-new stuff. The plan is to get a bargain on the outgoing Onkyo TX-SR875 (after investigating alleged lag issues) and pair it up with speakers from Monitor Audio's Silver series (for Left, Centre and Right) and use some step-down Bronze speakers for Surround Left and Right to save a little cash. I don't know who's sub I'm buying yet. Nor do I know if floorstanding left and right speakers are necessary (or perhaps even detrimental) for this room. All of this is looking to cost almost exactly 10 times more than what I bought before. The two things scaring me with audio right now (despite the learning experience) are how much your room and receiver/amp can colour the sound. I understand the room is inevitable (but knowing just how much it's enhancing/detracting from things seems to be difficult), but I'm still somewhat confused about hearing comments which state that one manufacturer's amp is better paired with another's speakers, and what combinations work well. Is this purely down to matching specifications, or do amps all alter the sound enough to make their output incompatible with certain speakers on the other end? It's going to take a while to get my head around, but at the moment I don't really have too long, because what I have is pretty much intolerable now I'm starting to identify the issues.