Speakers:
   The speakers I chose for my whole home audio were from Niles Audio.  I had done a bit of surfing on the 'net and found Niles Audio was a reputable speaker maker and they had speakers priced from low to very high.  Upon further surfing, I found an online retailer called Worthington Distribution that had a super price on the Niles Audio speakers.  As it turns out, Worthington has great prices on just about everything anyone would need to do Home Audio/Automation.
   The models of speakers I chose were the CM650MP and the CM76.  The CM650MP are what Niles Audio calls "Multi-Purpose" speakers.  The main driver is 6.5" across.  I have found them to be a very nice sounding speaker and the quality of construction is outstanding.  They are mid-priced in the Niles line.  The CM76 are the lowest priced in the Niles line.  They have a 5.25" main driver.  I have actually found them to sound just as good as the more expensive CM650MP and require less power to get decent volume.
    I chose ceiling mount speakers instead of wall-mount because I wanted the least obtrusive speaker possible.  With the ceiling mount speaker, you hardly know they're there until you look for them.  As well, ceiling mount speakers provide more "zoned" audio.  The sound is restricted to the area that they are in.  Wall mount speakers may offer better overall sound, but they also transmit sound further than ceiling mount.  My house has a very open floorplan (no walls to stop sound on the main floor) so containing the sound to a specific region was a necessity.

Volume controls:
    The volume controls I chose were from Xantech.  I got three VCIR which have built-in IR receivers, and three 760 volume controls.  All of the volume controls are designed to be flush mounted to the wall.  Installing the volume controls after the drywall was done with a retrofit low-voltage drywall ring was made even more difficult by the fact that the ring had to be installed behind the drywall to allow the volume control and plate to mount flush to the drywall.
    Note to new home builders:  Get the volume controls roughed in with drywall rings (and vapour barrier pockets where applicable) before the drywall goes up.  It makes hooking up things a million times easier.
    I seem to have a problem with the volume controls with the built-in IR receivers.  One of them (I haven't tracked it down yet) is locking up the IR emitter at the source stereo.  This means that no IR signals can make it through to the stereo which defeats the purpose of distributed IR control.  Actually, I have it narrowed down to either the VCIR in the great room or the VCIR in the rec room.  Also, it may not be the fault of the volume control.  Apparently, sunlight and/or flourescent light creates havoc with IR systems.

Music source:
    I am using an old Sharp mini stereo system to power the whole home audio speakers.  It is not an audiophile piece of equipment by any means, but the price was right (free) and it actually does an admirable job of power 5 sets of speakers.  The home theatre place that the builder recommended wanted to sell me a new amp and a speaker distribution panel, but I said no to increased spending.  The volume controls are impedance matching, meaning that you can set the so that you stereo doesn't blow up when you plug in 5 or more sets of speakers.  The distribution panel would have provided protection for the amp in case something went wrong with the wiring, but it also eats up half of your amp's power without producing any more sound.