If there are any suggestions or warnings, feel free.

Just a few generalized thoughts, here.

1) Make the subwoofer a high priority. A subwoofer isn't about booming; it's about hearing the music the way it was recorded. Find someone with a pickup truck and a good, high-end stereo installation, and listen to some of your music in it. Then, have him turn off the subwoofer and play the same music. I promise you, you will be convinced.

2) A subwoofer is 10" or larger. (Yes, I know there are some high-end 8" speakers in special boxes that are supposed to give good results. Maybe so, I haven't heard them so I can't endorse them.) My preference is a single 10" sub in a small box. A 10" is nice and crisp sounding and is responsive enough to cross over at higher frequencies which will add presence and warmth to the sound. 12" and (God forbid!) 15" speakers, unless you want to spend a lot of money (literally thousands of dollars) tend to be boomy and have limited frequency range. Again, just my experience, there may be stuff out there I don't know about.

3) Amplifiers are always a compromise between size, price, power, and quality, and striking the right balance is difficult. But in every case, all else being equal,more power is better. More power doesn't mean more volume. (Maximum volume is a function of your speakers, assuming you have at least the minimum amount of power to drive them to their safe limits). More power means you can play the system quieter and still have it sound good. When an amplifier isn't stressed to its limits, it can provide a cleaner sound without clipping. If you aren't a serious audiophile who uses an RTA meter to make sure there aren't deficiencies in the sound inaudible to the human ear, then I would compromise quality in favor of power -- up to a point. The tricky part is determining that point.

4) If you've spent much time on this bbs, you've read this before, but I'll tell you again, and you still won't believe me so I reserve the right to say "I told you so" about a year down the road. Spend a lot of time getting your tag information exactly, perfectly right when you're putting music in your player. The temptation will be to get as much music in as fast as you can, and fix the "small stuff" later. Take your time, spend about as much time on tagging as you do ripping and encoding and uploading. You will find it to be time very well spent.

tanstaafl.