Need bookshelf speaker recommendation

I'm selling my pj to my brother-in-law and now he's building his HT around it and needs speakers.


Here's the deal. He's in a small apartment in an old house, so he's not going to be able to do a sub right now. He also doesn't need huge volumes. He thinks he's decided on the Harmon Kardon AVR230 receiver, I recommended the Panny X45 and the Kenwood VR7080, but he wants the HK, that's fine.


So I figured that since a sub was going to be too much, that the best suggestion was for him to get bookshelf size main speakers that would give enough midrange and a touch of bass to get by until he gets a house. If he got a small sat/sub setup, he'd never be able to use the sub and then his midrange would suffer.


He's on a budget so I was thinking around a $500-$600 limit for 5 speakers (no sub) would be optimal.


My first recommendation for him was the Energy Take 5.2 system, but I don't think those small Take 5's would give him enough midrange/bass.


Can anyone recommend some decent bookshelf speakers that go down to maybe 40-50hz that he could build his system around (meaning there are some decent matching center and surrounds as well) with the plan to add a sub when he moved into a house?


Thanks, Brent