If it was me, I would spend the $400 at Best Buy on speakers alone. And then save another $300 for the rest. I'd probably go with the Klipsch bookshelves, though you'd have to accept some lacking bottom end - you could always add a cheap sub later (Energy E:XLs go cheap on ebay for the 8" especially, and sound real nice).
I'd then save some dollars to complete the system. For less than $150 you can get a Toshiba 4960, which will play both DVD-A and SACD, as well as dvd-r. I haven't heard it, but the reviews say it sounds great. Then I'd hit up ebay for a decent two channel integrated amp or receiver, which would probably be another $150 (Best Buy has a 2 channel, 100wpc Sony for $150 if you want to go new, but you should be able to do better in the used market).
This puts your total at more like $700, but the difference between doing your whole system for $400 vs. $700 would be significant. For speaker wire, that's an easy DIY - you can get Canare Starquad speaker cable for like 60 cents a foot and solder on some bananas or spades. You can even get raw audio magic x-stream speaker cable for like $3 a foot (e.g. at moondance audio/second sound in denver). I'd DIY interconnects as well, though you'd just need the one pair to connect the dvd player to the receiver, so could buy some decent ones.
You could also reverse - spend the $400 on a receiver and dvda and save money for some used speakers.
-Dave
Topic: $400 at best buy...recommendations for playback? (Read 4363 times)