What I'm looking for is a 'second room' system I suppose. I recently moved house, and the new house has a movie room, which was pre-wired for 5.1. My BOSE system went in there (yes, I know, but we were all young once and seduced by brand names...), and when the budget is back in the black, a projector will follow (chap left the wiring, mount etc, plus details of suitable systems for distance/throw, good bloke!). The living room has no system at the moment, but as it is for casual listening I am not looking for 'proper' hi-fi quality, and whatever it is has to be easy to use for all the family. The kids would doubtless be happy with a system with an I-Pod dock, she who must be obeyed is as techno-illiterate as I am. Thus the feeling that an integrated hard drive might be easier, despite the time required to load it. Yes, I looked at Olive (O3HD), although by the time speakers/cables are added, it is more than I wished to spend. It would seem that the consensus is to buck up and download everything to an external system (presumably I Tunes/IOS based system, so it would be compatible with the kids) and feed into a recognised separates system with enough oomph to feed the room size. Certainly that would give a far better choice of readily available systems, perhaps the missus and I now need to get the kids to show us how to run them!
Thanks to all for your inputs, Isaneng.