I've had exactly the same issues few years ago and I wanted to go all out with surround speakers, center,
rears and all that jazz.
My room is ~3,5 meters wide and 4,5m long, so my motor screen is 3m..the entire front wall.
I wanted to buy a centre, but an honest cinema specialist told me he wouldn't sell me one as it simply makes no sense in a space that tight...my Yamaha front speakers would do that perfectly and a different brand speaker
(or not dedicated to work with the front speakers would rather ruin it all)
As my Yamahas are non negociable, that was the topic 'center speaker' off from the list.
I have an Oppo Bluray player with the audiophile extention, dedicated power supply for audio,
doubled up it's price from the normal version but compared now..were it not for the outstanding sq, all of the hassle going surround would not make much sense...and THIS is the point where I agree with the naysayers
regarding surround.
Have the surround done right..and rather reduced in quantity, but not quality.
Or, if not rather do it stereo.
My Oppo does the 5.1 room correction location in meters from where you sit and all.
I have NS1000 in the front & NS 1000 in the rear fireing to the ceiling in a 30° angle
so the way to the ceiling and back down to my ear ~equals my distance to the front speakers.
2 Scanspeak 26cm subwoofers & that's it.
Neither center noor surrounds would make any sense in my room I learned.
The main issue having a good sounding blu ray source was that I needed to have the pre amp do the
volume in stereo, but I surely want to put the surround volume up by my Oppo remote
without jumping up and about to my preamp to correct manually all the time.
The solution is something that rarely ever exists.
A source entry into the preamp, that is neither affected by the volume knob noor by anything else.
So, just into the preamp to the source selector...and out to the power amps as all other sources.
As such solution is not yet to be had or rather I did not find one, a Khosmo passive pre with stepped attenuator
is perfect forthis as you can have it made bespoke and one input, 'cinema' is not going via the volume knob but straight out again.
Hence in stereo mode you have absolutely no compromise (stereo the most important to me)
and in cinema you use your front speakers precious value for another task.
I somewhat doubt that truely excellent hifi speakers can be easily topped by a surround solution in the front.
Realy great stereo speakers hardly ever have a dedicated center match, and without being really dedicated to work together...forget about the centre, trust me in this.
Saves you lots of money and trouble.
The Yamahas and many other great stereo speakers create a stage for you with ease,
so put a hook to it & move on..there's plenty of space to shovel money into with cinema..
Beamer..I have a Mitsubishi HC9000, which was their former top model & can be had refurbed to 0 hours by our importer for around 900€..which is what I did.
(New lamp, cleaning and readjustment exctly to factory spec again, i.e. used, but as new)
I only recenty had a look around and checked out how far I would need to go to seriously better this
meaning w/o a light taste of a sidestep, so being better in ALL areas
and realized I'd need to put about 3K € in a new JVC to achieve this.
I'll do this in a while for sure, but for now it's great as it is.
I beamed to a white wall with the 9000 for a while until I got a screen.
That sounds a no-go...and I can hear the 'uuuh----aaargh' noise of the surround fraction,
but..due the quality of the 9000 it's actually not bad.
It's a 3 meter wide picture with already great resolution..I wouldn't have swapped for any LCD whichever size in that state already.
Next significant step up was the screen..I took the Italian made relatively new 'Black Horizon'
The texture consisting of micro triangles simply swallowes away any light coming from the side,
and only 'accepts' light directly from the front...ie the beamer ..which makes daylight from windows much less of an issue.
The contrast enhancing of the black horizon really bombs you away.
This screen is a blast, I simply love it.
I had the cine grey for testing a while before...also a great screen for sure.
But if you can go the extra mile, head for the black horizon w/o any doubt.
That is the bigger step before a new beamer from the Mitsu 9000 (and alike) stage of quality.
From todays beamers I'd go for a JVC...tested a few,,but - as I said...
around the 2000€ region in the JVC there was still things in the picture where I liked better what my HC9000 did,
so ultimately did not prefer the JVC, would have been a sidestep costing 2K..not the best idea.
The JVC that costs around 3K was better then my Mitsubishi in all aspects, which is in some way a tribute to how good the Mitsubishi was by then..and still is.
Ahh, and I need blu ray resolution...my tip is don't get cought up in that 4K bs too much just yet,
I'm not buying media for 30€ or even 60€ bc 4K..that is simply nuts.
Blu ray resolution is absolutely fine to me, I'm not paying a premium for any 4K tags on items,
in a while you'll get all the 4K for free ..the prices come down as always and until then I just sit content.
(the 3000€ JVC will be capable of 4K, not that I need it but the beamer simply is considerably better with blu rays the same.)
But there's no hurry for a new beamer..with the HC9000 and a great screen it's an absolute pleasure to watch movies..and particularly restored old material. (The older the movie the better it is often. Don't tell anyone.)
I hope that helps.