I am new to the Home Theater stuff and would like to ask you guys for opinions and questions. Here it goes:

I recently bought Onkyo 494 as my receiver and Bose 601 Series IV floorstanding speakers. I am looking for a nice center speaker and 2 surround speakers. I was thinking about getting Bose VCS-10 as my center and and Bose 161's as my surround since they are voice matched to the Bose 601's. Now is that a good combination or should I buy a different center and surrounds? Would they be voice matched to my Bose 601's? I am looking to spend close to $400. Could you guys help me out? Thanks!

Bose isn't too well regarded around these parts, and rather then start flogging that dead horse again, I will say that IMHO it is always better to buy voice-matched centers and surrounds rather then buying a different, 'better' center channel that may clash with your mains.
Of course, YMMV.

http://www.psbspeakers.com/

I woudl recommend getting some Alpha series. I have a pair of the Alpha B's and I'm going to pick up an Alpha center channel and then another set of Alpha B's for my rears here in the future. These are by far the best speakers I have found for the money.

http://www.soundcity.com/ has some Alpha A/V's (sorta like the B's, the B's are just newer models) for good prices.

Don't let the anti-Bose retoric bother you, it's primarily directed at their acoustimass products that are grossly overpriced--meaning you can either get similar sounding speakers for less or much better sounding speakers for the same money. Or at least that's the concensus around here. In fact, growing up, "the" speakers to have were typically Bose 301's. Their bookshelf and floorstanding speakers are often pretty good. I buy Boston Acoustics myself, though.

All that being said, I have listened to the VCS-10 and it is one aweful speaker. Especially for $199.

I'm not knowledgable on Bose speakers, but the 161's appear to be glamorized cubes with those 2" drivers. You may want to look at the 201 instead, not much more money and the more standard woofer and tweeter setup. I can't help but think that they'd HAVE to sound better. For a center, it depends on how much space you have. I'd been looking for one of the big Boston centers (vr-12 for example, about $300 used) until out of necessity I used a Boston A70 (a largeish speaker with 8" woofer) on a makeshift projector-based ht setup and LOVED it. It played very big at high volumes. It's now mounted on top of my tv cabinet, and my old AR that it replaced is now velcroed to the top of my pc monitor (not bad for a cheap center, btw). So if you have the space, you may consider looking for a used 301. Otherwise, just listen to a lot that might fit your budget and get the best sounding one.

So did you ever get the Bose VCS-10 and 161's? If so, how did they sound? I am thinking of buying the same setup.

Jammers,

You can find reviews on these speakers at www.audioreview.com by those that own them, normally. Some of the reviews are simply flaimbait though, so draw your own conclusions.