Help me find a good match for my new receiver!

Well it would be helpful to know what your budget is, but in lieu of that, my favorite high value brands are: Monitor Audio, Energy, Paradigm, and Boston Acoustics. I don't much care for the Def Techs I've listened to, and I feel they are a marketing brand (they spend more money on marketing than they do R&D). You should probably check out www.audiogon.com and ebay for some used speakers. Your money goes a lot farther that way. The only problem with that is that you have to know what you want (having heard the speakers you want somewhere else first), because you don't want to buy speakers just off of reviews or other peoples opinions. You need to listen to them for yourself.

Good luck and let us know what your budget is.

I'm with you
that the wright way to buy speakers

For the most part, yes, it is overblown.

As long as your receiver can drive your speakers without clipping/distorting, you'll be fine. The Pioneer should have no problem with most speakers in your price range.

The speakers and the room they're in will big the two biggest factors in sound quality.

My advice would be to audition as many speakers as you can in your price range. In addition to the speakers mentioned, I would put Revel, Kef and Aperion Audio on your auditioning list.

There isn't a strong character to the sound of most modern mass-market receivers. As dfktell said the speakers and the room they are placed in will have the greatest influence on the overall sound quality.

Well, that's the thing. There are two camps. One that feels there are noticable differences in sound quality between amps / AVRs / pre-pros (though most of them even say that it is slight), and the other who hear no appreciable difference. Only you can be the judge as to which camp you fall into. I would get the speakers that you like the most first and then see if you can audition another AVR with those speakers.

What sort of sound are you looking for? Bright, lively and detailed? Or laid-back, dark and easy on the ears?

The Def Tech's and the Aperions are going to be brighter than the BA's or the KEF's, but all of them lean towards bright. I still recommend the Monitor Audio Silver series. They are not quite as technically balanced as the BA's but they they have a wonderfully detailed treble that is still pretty smooth, complemented by a warmish bass that is also well defined. The Revels are fairly nuetral, though they too can sound bright in a room with a lot of bare hard surfaces.

The only speakers I can think of that are more warm and laid back are the Vienna Acoustics and Dali's, but I think both of those lines may be out of your budget range. You may be able to get some bookshelf speakers for $1200 though. Vienna and Monitor Audio can be found at Magnolia AV, if you have one of those in your area.

Practically any speaker will sound bright in a bare room with a lot of reflective surfaces. This is not particular to Revel which is an exceptionally engineered speaker.

I also don't think that KEF's lean towards being "bright" or having a tipped up treble.

Proving again that you have to hear them for yourself. Two people can hear the same speaker and walk away with different opinions. A lot of this has to do with prior listening experiences and what they're used to hearing.

Audition as many speakers as possible. And pay particular attention to your room. If it is bare and very reflective whatever you buy will not perform up to it's potential.

I heard some B&W this weekend being played off a THX certified Pioneer Elite and they sounded very warm. Great high but really nice mids are well. I don't know the specific model B&W but they were just bookshelf speakers with a matching center channel.

Try the Polk Lsi's.

Yes, you're right, in a bare, reflective room most speakers on the market will sound bright. My wording wasn't the best, but I wasn't talking about a bare room but rather a typically furnished room with a fair amount of exposed drywall.

I completely agree that revel makes some exceptionally well engineered speakers. You would be hard pressed to find one that has flatter on-axis FR than their higher-end lines, but they do have a bit of an off-axis flare in the dispersion in the lower to mid-treble, which tilts the power response towards being forward / bright in rooms that aren't moderately damped.

In regards to KEF, and Revel for that matter I suppose it depends on the model, but I owned the KEF Reference 203's a couple of years ago and even though they sounded very clean and detailed, I sold them off a few months after I bought them because they sounded much too bright for me. And my room is not particularly reflective.

In the end though, none of this really matters, because like you said, he really needs to listen to the speakers he is interested in, in his room with his recordings.