Thanks for all the advice and suggestions, I'm now the proud (and happy) owner of a Squeezebox 3 and the Accoustic Energy Aego M speaker system.

The Sonic T amp was very tempting, but the Aego's integrated sub/amplifier appealed more because it reduced the amount of hardware*. I was also concerned a little about the heat output. That said, now that I know about the Sonic T, I think it's only a matter of time before I find an excuse to buy one for one of the bedrooms!

One of the supermarkets was selling a £99 Sony CD/tuner "HiFi" system and I was tempted by that. In the end I decided that the included features that I didn't need (CD, tuner, shiny fascia and display) must surely be compromising the features I really wanted.

The comments about Bose (thanks especially to LBT here) were a bit of an eye opener. I'm unsure how, in my mind, Bose was such a great brand. I suspect it could have been from 20-25 years ago when I was really into HiFi's, maybe they were good back then (a bit like Bush was a great brand)? I regularly see Bose adverts on the back cover of my monthly Sky TV magazine, and it had always struck me as odd why they offer a monthly payment plan by default (with a free trial period) without actually printing a price!


* I did also spend a little more time looking into HiFi stuff that I really wanted, as opposed to what I knew would "just get the job done" and keep SWMBO happy at the same time!


We haven't had 'sounds' in the living room for some years and it has been great to be able to discuss an artist (or a song/derivative/cover version etc.) and then effortlessly call it up on the Squeezebox. I think there's a good chance that now we're (both) beginning to re-acquaint ourselves with living room "HiFi", on the next amp/speaker iteration we'll be prepared to invest more money and real estate on the solution. Unless someone introduces an affordable 'killer player' product, I think the Squeezebox will be with us for some time!

Once I've spent more time on it I'll probably come back here and comment further on the Aego speakers and Squeezebox (the speakers were out of stock and only arrived at the weekend).