I paired these with an ancient Pioneer VSX-D411 5.1 Amp. For those of you worried that you need a new amp to go with these speakers, the answer is not really. The speakers are still great. I'll eventually upgrade the amp to get a HDMI capable one for the losless/HD sound. But for now these speakers are wonderful.The center speaker is amazing, you really can hear the actors voices clearly over loud music or effects. The rear speakers are very pronounced, you can hear background noise very well and get a better sound stage. For $400 (at the time of this review) you can't beat these speakers. I went into a BOSE store this weekend and all of their speakers sounded just as good as these, except these speakers only cost $400.The only negative I'd say is the subwoofer is to me, huge. Others said it was small, I guess that is relative. While the sattelite speakers are definitely small, the subwoofer is not what I would call small and difficult to place.Also, others said the speakers are difficult to mount to a wall. I don't think so at all. They may have missed that there are several screw options on the back. (I actually bothered to read the instructions). I mounted my speakers to the wall with no problems.For a medium to small room, these speakers are perfect. If you have a very large room you may want to consider more powerful speakers and amp. 

Question: What strange speaker?
Answer: The speakers are still great eventually