Hi folks, my name is Mike, I'm a college student at UCLA and I'm putting together an audio system for my apartment. I am very new to this compared to you all, so I figured I'd post here and get a few opinions. Here is my question... and thanks ahead of time.

I am trying to put together a sound system that is excellent at being both a SOUND system and a home theater system. To best explain this, I want it to be able to play music for parties and when I just generally want to rock out. However, I also want it to work well for movies with surround sound and such. I don't know if such a thing is possible, but I'm going to at least try *laughs*.

Currently, I have a few components, all mixed and matched that I managed to aquire or purchased.

Speakers - 2 year old Bose Acoustimass 6 system. Single jewel cubes with an "accoutsitmass module," which is Bose speak for two 6 and a half inch woofers inside a ported box.

Receiver - Sony STRDE598 . It's a 6 channel $200 amp from best buy. That's probably enough said, lol.

DVD Player - None, looking for suggestions. I want to have the best sound quality for DVD movies, I don't own any DVD-A disks so that's not a priority.

Subwoofer - LFM-1. I love this baby, but she needs a good system so she doesn't sound so alone.


Ok, so these are obviously not components that will work together. The Bose system is meant to be stand alone, and certainly is horrid for playing music at parties. It relies so much on the "Accoustimass module" it's horrible. I'm not married, so size of the speakers doesn't bother me. But I inherited the jewel cubes *shrug*

Now, I would love to hear your suggestions, I understand everyone's ears hear differently, but I'd love to have some audiophile ideas.

I am keeping the LFM-1, for obvious reasons, I don't think I can do better.

Do I need a bigger receiver? The Sony is of course way over-rated in its specs, so I'm looking into getting another. I've seen some neat Yamahas that set up the audio in your room for you with an included mic. I thought that might not be such a bad idea.

New Speaker ideas? Once again, I'm a college student, I listen to rock and other types of heavy music, sometime classical. Linkin Park, Audioslave, Green Day, just to give you a clue what the system would need to handle.

Bottom line, I'm looking to build a system that has dual functionality. I'm MORE concerned about the movie quality being better. But I'd still like to have a very good system for blastin music at a party as well.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your advice and help. I'm off to scour some more sites for audio info!

-Mike