I'm going to be using an optical cable from my ps3 to my receiver. I have two Bose bookshelf speakers and my new home has two "hidden" Bose speakers in the ceiling. Will I be fine with these four speakers?....and how should I connect them to my receiver? Thanks in advance.

You will probably find that Bose speakers are very poorly regarded around this forum, so what you are asking is a difficult question to answer. If you insist on using those speakers, you can probably hook them up to your receiver using speaker cable (although I think many Bose speakers have proprietary connectors that make require some cutting and splicing to make work) As for the question of whether those 4 speakers are sufficient...that's another difficult question. Most Bose speakers don't extend very low, so for games (and movies) you'd be missing out on quite a bit in the low end. Even with good, full-sized speakers, a subwoofer is often desirable, and with small speakers, it's almost a necessity. But if you are asking if you can get by with just 4 speakers, you certainly can--and many do. It really comes down to what you're looking for. If you're just looking to be able to hear sounds behind you, what you have will be sufficient--but most people are looking for more than that, they are looking for good, clean, accurate sound. And if that's what you're looking for, what you currently have probably isn't sufficient--Bose speakers just can't give you that. I don't mean to be a downer--just trying to answer your question as best I can. If you want to clarify your question further, I'd be happy to give whatever insight I can!

Thanks drrick. I'd rather you be honest with me. I figured it wouldn't be the best set-up but I definitely wanted something makeshift while I first moved into my house. Once the dust settles, (aka I build up some more money) I definitely want to get a 7.1 system. I'll be asking more questions then for sure. I had one more question related to the current speakers I have. Which outputs from my receiver should I hook to each speaker to make the best out of what I have? (ie connect the bookshelf speakers to 'front' and ceiling speakers to 'surround/surround back')

Connect your bookshelf speakers to the front L/R speaker jacks and the in-ceiling speakers to the surround connections. The surround-back connections are for when you go 7.1 and have an additional pair of surrounds behind you.

In the set-up menu of your receiver, make sure you set the centre and surround-back speakers to None, so that the receiver downmixes the sounds from those channels into your existing speakers and no information is lost.

Remember to calibrate speaker levels and distances carefully.

Sanjay

That's exactly what I needed...thanks sdurani.