Page 1 of Best setup for my equipment?

I have a Samsung 32" TV (Virtual Dolby Surround), VCR and a Samsung DVD-S224 DVD player. I also have an Aiwa NSX-S505 mini hifi system, and now I want to get a receiver supporting at least Dolby Digital, DTS and Dolby Pro-Logic. Baring in mind I am on quite a low budget, I was wondering if there was a way I could use the speakers on the Aiwa as the front speakers (with them still connected to the stereo) and then I would only have to buy the rear and centre speakers, which could be satellite (?), and a subwoofer, although the Aiwa is quite good for playing DVDs through - I have tried it.

Would this be a possible solution if I were to purchase an amplifier/receiver (whatever you want to call it) that only costs about £180, plus speakers?

Just 2 more things - I have some speakers left over from an old micro system made by Amstrad. They are probably absolute rubbish for a surround setup, but I was wondering how useful they might be as rear (surround) speakers? I don`t want to end up blowing the speakers though! Also, the TV is actually positioned in the corner of the room, with a 3 seater sofa and a 2 seater at right angles to each other and the TV in the opposite corner (quite a biggish room) - how do I go about deciding where to put the speakers?

Information on the Aiwa mini system is at this page: http://www.electronics220volt.com/audio/aud013.htm

Sorry about the long post, but I`m extremely confused and would appreciate any help I can get!

GazW

Yes you can. Most AV amps (recievers aer merely an amp with a tuner built in - most have this freature nowadays, even if you don`t want it!) have "preouts" - outputs to run to another amplifier. You could connect the front channel preouts to one of your Aiwa`s Line In inputs. The only thing you`ll have to do is find a volume setting on the Aiwa to match the rest of the speakers. You will be able to control overall volume via the AV amp`s remote, so it will just be a matter of setting the volume on the Aiwa to the right level to balance the rear speakers (a test tone function on the AV amp will help with this).

The Amstrad speakers will be rubbish, but might be OK to try. You won`t be sending loads of high level stuff to them, so I doubt they`ll blow up.
If you really want to be a cheapskate, then you can avoid getting a centre channel speaker too - the av amp will have a setting for "no centre" - sometimes called a "phantom" centre - the centre channel info gets mixed in to the left and right front channel. This works pretty well - this is how I have my main system set up.

Satellite speakers only tend to be such when you have a full set of sats - front and centre as well as rears - plus a complementary sub. I would suggest you look out for an AV amp first, and try it with the Amstrad rears and no centre. Next step would be to get some reasonable rear speakers. A sub needs some cash spent on it - cheap ones aren`t really worth it. If your front speakers are reasonably chunky, then they should do OK, but I would think that a sub will give you a big boost to your aural pleasure, so make that the next on the list.

Hope this helps!