i DO NOT want a HTIB. please help i have $1000 to spend.

You have probably heard read this before... Go listen to some things, see what you like. As long as it is a real brand and it sounds good to you it is the right speaker.

My advice is to start small with some bookshelves for a couple hundred dollars. Once you live with those for a bit you can decide to keep adding in the same brand or to try a new brand. I personnaly find home theater applications to be more forgiving than music reproduction.

It will probably take a while before you can truly figure out what kind of speakers you like and don't like and you probably won't get it right the firsttime

As Nick stated go listen to find out what you like. And start small. If your expecting 7 good/decent speakers and 1 or 2 good/decent subs and a good/decent receiver all for under $1k that will be hard to do unless you do HTiB.

So I would buy a good 7.2 networkable receiver with Audyssey and a set of bookshelf speakers. then as money becomes more handy add a center and a sub. Then add your surrounds and rear surrounds. Then lastly maybe add a 2nd identical sub.

If you like the bookshelf speakers you start with you can either keep them as Front L&R speakers OR buy matching towers for Front L&R and move the bookshelves to surrounds then you only need to get another pair of bookshelves for rear surrounds. No matter how you piece it together buy the center that best matches whichever speakers will be your Front L&R for the long haul. Try to have the same size mid/woofers and tweeters on your front 3 speakers.

Post your question in the Speakers or Receivers forums and you'll get way more responses...