New Hi-fi

I've been a little sidetracked lately trying to figure out what style of hi-fi equipment I want in the new house, as this impacted our cabinetry plans. Most people with the space tend to include home theatre room's and are only concerned with 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1, but I'm purely a 2 channel fan.
We had a small space 3m wide between the gas log fire and 2nd storey windows that I was debating whether to place floor-standing speakers with an entertainment unit or request built in cabinetry. On the plans we had 600mm depth to work with, but soon realised this was not the case. As we had sourced our own windows from Rylock and were trying to determine window size and placement ourselves, we didn't allow for the doubling up of studs between the 4 panels, thus reducing our cabinetry depth to 430mm. This isn't a lot of space for hi-fi equipment!

As I wasn't prepared to compromise on the sound quality (with a limited budget) I came to the conclusion that bookshelf speakers mounted on top of the cabinetry would be a better option both aesthetically, price for performance and practically with kids.
I've now settled on Usher BE 718 DMD speakers, Hypex NCore NC400 DIY power amplifier's and NAD M51 preamp DAC.

Whilst on the subject of entertainment cabinetry, make sure it's well vented for sufficient cooling of all your equipment, especially if your running Class A amps. In our case we've got 20mm clearance behind the base of each door and are having 2 vents mounted in the top surface, primarily for ventilation of the media centre PC. The Hypex NCore's are Class D and produce very little heat.