Murali, I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but for your requirements, please
also consider floor standing (FS) speakers with a separate low frequency driver which is at least 6.5 inches if not 8 inches. FS speakers will give you a larger sound stage and also handle your bass requirements better. They could also unnecessarily bloat the base in some songs. But you have to work out what you are ready to live with.
Let me give you an example.
I saw Varnam Ayiram twice in Inox. When I saw it the first time, there was something about the songs that hit me as being strange. So I went again and listened to the songs in the cinema hall with my eyes closed. Even then I could not pin point to myself what I was listening for.
In any case, i went and purchased a few copies of the music CDs, and familiarised myself with all the songs. I used the CD in many of my auditions, and I always found something missing. This was not the way they sounded in the cinema hall. The clarity was there, Hariharan's voice came across extremely well, the twang of the guitar was there, and the female chorus was subtle and sweet. But something was missing. After some thinking, I left it to my wild imagination.
Last weekend, I was in Coimbatore and I was auditioning Audire's massive Solaris amplifier for Cranky. Pumping out 600 watts per channel in A/AB class formation, this was a massive amplifier. Sharath Chandran of Audire had connected the amplifier to a pair of Performance 6 speakers from Mordaunt Short. These are difficult speakers to drive and can easily suck power. (
Specifications / Performance 6 / Performance / Products / Mordaunt Short). I went through my usual albums and was just getting ready to close the auditioning, when Sharath invited me to play a Tamil Film song. Very curious why he was doing that, I popped in a Varnam Ayiram CD, and was immediately shocked. This was not the music I was listening to in other systems. Wondering what was happening, I played the song again, and then it hit me. I was inside the Inox cinema again. This Amplifier/Speaker pair was recreating the exact sound stage that was missing amongst all other system I was hearing. Harris Jayaraj had recorded the songs with a large sound stage that is more reminiscent of Western Orchestra than Indian film songs. The fact that Sharath had placed the speakers some 15 feet from each other, and the massive power being pumped by the Solaris was adding to the sound stage.
Rushing back home, I played the album through both my bookshelves, and my FS speakers with the same amplifier and player. The difference was immediately apparent. The FS were beating the BS in presenting the sound stage in these particular numbers.
So I would request you to listen to both bookshelves and floor standers, and decide what you like.
Cheers