Yet another sub $500 kit thread

This Pioneer series is one of the best values right now:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/floorstanding/pioneer-sp-pk52fs

Get what you can in combination with an entry level receiver and add other components later.

You can learn more about them in the owners thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1278774/pioneers-speaker-genius-hits-low-price-point

You might just spend it all on some active speakers and skip the receiver altogether. Connect them directly to your TV if it has some audio output jacks. There are some very good powered speakers you can get for 500 shipped. They all have some beefy 8" woofers so they ought to be able to do a good job with bass. Here is the ones I would consider:

Behringer Truth B2031A
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/B2031A/

Behringer Truth B3031A
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/B3031A/

KRK Rokit 8
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Rokit8G2/

M-Audio BX8 D2
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BX8D2/

Mackie MR8 mk2
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MR8mk2/

Yamaha RX-V373 can be had around $200 or less.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882115373

or a Denon AVR 1612 refurb for $199 straight from manufacturer
http://usa.denon.com/us/product/pages/refurbishedproducts.aspx?catid=refurbishedprocat(denonna)&catalog=denonna_us#avreceiversref(denonna)

I'd rather have the Denon because of better room calibration software.

That Pioneer series has not been out that long. If you are buying the rest of the speakers over the next year, it's a reasonable guess that you shouldn't have any problems getting the other pieces.

Just keep in mind what the review says about the subwoofer. Audioholics recommends a much more expensive sub that would be a great match for those speakers. But even the BIC F12, a $200 entry level HT budget sub, would be better for most people than the matching Pioneer sub.

The Denon can drive the Pioneers fine. You don't want to run it so loud that the receiver amp is clipping (distorting) for it can damage the tweeters. But that's true of any amp.

The power will be plenty for those Pioneers unless you plan to play at ear splitting levels.

IF the AVR 1612 is not available on the Denon site you can also get it here.
http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/DENAVR1612/DENON-AVR-1612-5.1-Channel-A/V-Home-Theater-Receiver/1.html

The RCA is copper clad aluminum. Pure copper is a little better. Monoprice carries pure copper for a good price. Or you can buy lamp cord at your local Home Depot or Lowes.

I've used a different model of the Sewell, and they were very good. I would guess these are excellent for the price as well.

It depends on the source material and numerous other factors, but -15 dB on a Denon AVR for movies seems quite nominal to me.

Just turn up the volume (carefully), and as long as you don't hear distortion, you should be fine.

Even if you bought one, you'd still need to turn it up to see how loud it could get. Try this with your Denon first.

Yes, that would be a bad idea.

You should be able to get these speakers loud enough with your AVR, then. By the way, wearing ear plugs is a great idea under those conditions--by all means continue to do so, no matter what other people think.
Edited by Robert Cook - 3/16/13 at 12:54pm

I've run my SR5007 at -10 before it gets to be 'loud' in my ears. If a system is low distortion and clear you might be deceived to think it's not playing as loud as an inferior system. I've been scolded a few times having the system at reference and not realizing just how loud that is because of how good it sounds.

You said that you are reassured, but I want to make sure (now I need reassurance ). Different devices can define what the volume control means very differently indeed. In this case, 0 dB means that you're feeding the audio signal to the built-in amps at full loudness (actually a lot more processing takes place than this, but basically speaking that's what it means, at least notionally), where a certain gain will be applied to power the speakers (which can vary according to the individual channel level), while -15 dB on the volume control means that the signal is only about 3% of the original, which is a far cry from the 90% that it may appear to be on a linear scale.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that this is exactly, literally how Denon or any other AVR implements its volume control (depends on the engineers who designed them), but this does give a basic numerical idea of the scale involved.

Yes, their volume controls apparently work very differently in certain respects, at least in my experience as well as yours. Personally, I watch most movies on BD at -16 dB (Denon AVR), more or less for some, and since I don't hear the speakers distorting due to clipping or any other reason, I know that this is not too high for my equipment.

By the way, the regular DD 5.1 soundtracks of most movies on DVD have the default dialogue normalization setting that takes them down by 4 dB, and sure enough I watch most of those at -12 dB, give or take--exactly as expected. This is also perfectly fine even though it represents 2.5 times the energy because whether an amp clips or not depends on the actual signal it is playing (the actual audio source), which in this case is quieter on the average.

As described above, your AVR is not running at 90% or anywhere near that in your case, even though the volume control intuitively appears to be turned that high.

Distortion, particularly the kind that results from massive clipping, is a lot more painful to listen to than clean sound, so what you say is true in that sense.

By the way, this is why I, unlike most here, do not endorse the common wisdom that an underpowered amp is necessarily more dangerous to speakers than one with more than enough power. While it's true that turning the volume too high on underpowered amps can damage your speakers, the painful clipping distortion is an obvious warning that makes most people turn down the volume before something really bad happens. On the other hand, powerful amps that are turned too loud may not result in such obvious distortion, at least not as early, and could potentially pump too much clean power into speakers, eventually burning them up or blowing them out unless you're careful. I've seen and heard about both happening. Just listen to your speakers--they'll tell you whether they and/or the amp are being pushed too hard (well, not in English or Portuguese, but you know what I mean ).
Edited by Robert Cook - 3/16/13 at 6:32pm