I'm not big at watching DVD movies, but I do enjoy watching DVD concerts. Right now I am using the Mcintosh C39 pre amp and the MC352 with Infinite Slope speakers. I have an Adcom GFA 555 that I could use for the surround amp, but I would need to invest in another amp as well as a center channel speaker and sub woofer to complete the 5.1 surround. Would I be better off investing in around 4K in great sounding speakers, or using the 4 K to complete the 5.1 surround system.

We just discussed it here:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=69750

(My vote was stereo).

I place a BIG vote for stereo. I listen mostly to music and in my opinion 2 great speakers are much better than 5 good ones.

My stereo does a pretty good job for movies. The voices, music and effects sound great but I am missing the big bass impacts (explosions).

You say you are not big at watching movies so this seems like a no brainer, get a great stereo and if you get a preamp with passthrough you could always add surround sound later.

Victor

I place a BIG vote for stereo. I listen mostly to music and in my opinion 2 great speakers are much better than 5 good ones. I couldn't agree more. You can always supplement the main stereo system with surrounds later. The explosions still sound like explosions whether you have excellent speakers or not but music is a different story.

Center is for mostly speech so 2 channel for your concert videos should sound fine. Go 2 channel and add your surround later.

JR