Hmm ... did gain some very useful insights from this forum :licklips: thanks everybody for educating me ...
Basically I was never planning to get into the Onkyo-Denon leagues owing to budget constraint hence trying to pit Z906 + BD against the Sony/LG/Samsung BD HTiB's. However, the impression I get is that investing on Onkyo/Denon might be more worthwhile than getting a lowly Z906. Surely, would keep that in mind.
This weekend, I went to a store to hear out the Z906, but it seemed the dealer had no demo piece of that
. Instead he played out Z623 which is a 2.1, claiming that Z906 would sound better than it(His logic - Z623 is 200 watts RMS while Z906 is 500). I played out a couple of music tracks into it. Sounded quite good, vocals and high notes like flutes were quite clear from ~12 feet in a pretty noisy place. Honestly, not as good as 3500 (however, the tracks I heard on 3500 was different, the speakers were nearer, the place was quiet, while this was a pretty noisy place ...). Didn't help me though as Z623 was not something I am looking at. And I don't believe I can get an idea of Z906 by hearing some other speaker even it is of same brand and similar specs.
Regarding my source of media - thanks for bringing this point up. Must admit that I don't plan to play a lot of BD-s with it (I might just play a couple of them just to get the wow feeling out, franky, in next 2-3 years). I am looking at something which would play audio/video from my PC, Pen drives, Hard disks, iPods, and all my VCD-s/DVD-s/Mp3-s disks. At the same time, as BD-s would become more commonplace and cheaper in next couple of years, I won't have to add another equipment as well ...
Regarding why I narrowed down Z906:
No, it is not the THX, and certainly not because I have made up my mind :licklips: I am looking into it because it has 3 digital inputs and 500 watts rms. If it has a decent clarity (which I haven't found out yet) to supplement it, I don't see why it won't fare well as a versatile 5.1 home theatre sound system in the sub 30K range.
The multimedia store guy suggested me to visit ezone to hear this thing out. Would do that and post my feedback if I get a chance ...