Home Theater Upgrade - Apartment

I'm by my own standard a total newbie to hi-fi with some cash to spend,

Am looking to get a home theater setup I can share with both my PC and my TV.

I figure HDMI from my PC to a receiver to a hdmi input on a monitor should work. I have yet to buy a receiver and that's still one of the things I'm debating.

I'm looking to spend upwards to 1000 dollars on the receiver / cabling, preferably for something adaptable, I'd like the options to add more speakers and have good EQ options for weird speaker placement, lots of HDMI inputs for gaming consoles, network support etc with the latest standards.

The room is about 20' x 18'

I'm not really looking for excessively high volume, I want quality bass and sound that's able to produce good highs / mids and lows in a rather small form factor and am ok spending a good amount of money for a quality system, but would like to make sure I'm not simply spending all my $$ on overpriced products.

I'd also like to be able to adjust settings for awkward speaker placement. (I'm not sure if some receivers have different settings for this. As I tend to sit in different spots depending if I want to watch TV or be on my computer.)

I am using some Energy EF-500 tower speakers I picked up for super cheap a while back and will probably look to replace down the line.
http://www.amazon.com/Energy-EF-500-Floorstanding-Loudspeakers-Black/dp/B006QB8K3G/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1358645305&sr=1-1&keywords=energy+ef-500

I want to go for a 5.1 setup and my thoughts are I'll just expand to 7.1 later once I have another batch of funds to dump into better speakers to begin with.

Hopefully this is enough about what I'm looking for, now for what I've done so far.
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I'm still on the wall about well.. everything to purchase really.

I was looking at Onkyo TX-NR717 or maybe Onkyo TX-NR818
http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-NR818-7-2-Channel-Network-Receiver/dp/B007JOO4XE/ref=sr_1_9?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1358645335&sr=1-9&keywords=Onkyo+TX
(there's a link on the page for the other model ^^)

I went ahead and already purchased a subwoofer which is in shipping since it seemed to me it was on a good sale, but after reading some reviews I'm not sure it was a good enough sale, or if I should stick with it or get my money back for something different, Klipsch SW-311 Reference Series Subwoofer I got on sale for $1200.
http://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-SW-311-Reference-Subwoofer-System/dp/B0046L8QHS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1358642459&sr=1-1&keywords=klipsch+311

While I'm quite aware these might not be the best choices for the $$, am hoping for some suggestions, any constructive feedback would be appreciated.

And lastly, I don't mind saving for a bit going outside any mentioned budget, simply what I have in mind to spend this given moment, expandability options are always attractive.

( I hope I posted this in the right section, I kind of want to do a bit of everything with my setup lol.. )
Edited by Phoenixkatera - 1/19/13 at 5:54pm

Thank you, this was exactly the kind of response I was looking for.

When I go to replace my fronts / rear speakers, I'll most likely be looking to spend somewhere along the range of 2500 range for a set.

Honestly this isn't something I can financially do right now, I'll hold onto my Energy speakers for a while, maybe after a 3-4 months I should have enough extra funds to drop on some higher quality speakers. Although I suppose this isn't really that far in the future.

You think it's worth keeping my Energy speakers as rears? I haven't thought of that, I suppose that'd give me room for better front ones and bump me to a 7.1 setup.
Edited by Phoenixkatera - 1/19/13 at 7:11pm

Hmm, do you recommend any retailers for audio products then? As the common place(s) I seen to go have this receiver listed at MSRP $1200.



Those lores do look like they'd be rockin'. Is the center channel a tower speaker too? For some reason I always imagine center channels as those wide horizontal speakers and I don't see them selling anything like that at $300 price point.

Should I be concerned with the 24p issue plauging the Onkyo 818 that seems people have been reporting but has yet to be addressed by the manufacturer?

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412714/onkyo-tx-nr818-official-owners-thread-discussion/4260

I'm at work right now and can't really look into the problem due to well, constraints placed upon me. -_-

I'm kind of wondering if this issue is even applicable to me and even if it is...is a single frame being duplicated every 41 seconds really that much of an issue? Does it require certain resolution input for this issue to occur or should I expect this on all video?

Seems the 818 is popping up for sale occasionally at different places, like one of Amazon's resellers atm. Kind of on the wall if I should purchase a receiver with known issues that Onkyo doesn't seem in the process of trying to resolve or not.
Edited by Phoenixkatera - 1/20/13 at 3:28pm