Advice needed on speaker purchase

People poo poo CV. I have not heard any since the late 80s. Great party speakers! Will you have a sub? If not, Polk Monitor 60s and a CS2 center would fit your budget. Check Newegg.

Have you considered the Pioneer FS-51 floor standers and the CS-21 center? These can be bought for less than $280 complete. Check out the Pioneer thread here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1278774

cerwin vega do not make a good home theater speaker because they are engineered to be loud and bass heavy, not necessarily accurate.

as far as polk speakers are concerned and if you decide not to use a sub,

monitor 60's do hold their own when it comes to bass and so does the CS2, the CS2 is one of the few center channels i have seen that is full range, depending on the room you may be able to get it down to 45hz (i am able to). for music a bass response to 50 hz will cover most all things well enough. for HT, i would recommend a minimum of 40-30hz to get good LFE. you may get decent LFE from the 60's but you could get better from the 70's. right now i'm running the 70's subless and i feel no need to add a sub for movies. i have owned quite a few decent subwoofers in my time and these perform excellently without a sub and have great dynamic range. there are also a few things that you need to consider when making a decision. the CS2 is BIG i mean very very big for a center channel. if you're planning on placing the center in front of the TV it will impose on the screen because of its height, you also can't place a TV on top of it because the back of the cabinet is sloped. if your tv is mounted on the wall....well this doesn't matter. whatever you do, do not slack on the three front channels and especially the center channel because about 80% of the sound including explosions, gunfire, cars etc etc come from the center i cannot stress this enough, large L/R towers are great but if you have a small wimpy center it will drag your entire systems performance down. if your tv is mounted on the wall i would actually recommend using a tower as a center. why? because the horizontal MTM design of most center channels causes serious nulls in the HF response for any viewer sitting off axis. the MTM design used on centers are more for aesthetic reasons then sound quality reasons. the only time an MTM design is useful is when it is vertical because it greatly increases the horizontal dispersion giving you a better stereo image and better off axis response while canceling higher frequencies vertically reducing floor and ceiling reflections which degrades imaging. another idea for a center channel (once again providing it will not be in the way of your tv) is a monitor 40, it would be around the same price as the CS2 (for two of them) and it can be set vertically, it has a much larger cabinet then the CS1 and can sit vertically without looking stupid (the CS centers cannot be set vertically due to the bevel on the rear of the cabinet, they are not very stable) and the other 40 could be used in the future in a 6.1 setup.

keep in mind this post is pertaining only to polk audio speakers because it seems it will fit your budget better, they often go for a steal on newegg. this post is also assuming you plan not to use a sub because at that budget i highly doubt you will be able to.

also, stay away from the $90 dollar PSW10 on newegg just because it looks nice and is cheap, polk makes awful subwoofers. i actually own a PSW10 and it sounds so terrible i don't even bother using it.

Save yourself some time and money and jsut get the CS2 for the 70s. I had the same question not long ago and decided that the Cs2 is the way to go. The CS2 is better "matched" to the 70s than the Cs1 and from reports I ahve heard the 70s might over power the CS1. What you are looking for is the best front field you can get, personally I thought it was worth the extra money to not have to upgrade at a later date ....Take a look at the Polk thread and club polk and I think youll find the same advice

I would step up to the yamaha budget onkyo's receivers always seem to be breaking

Get the cs2 center it will go on sale again. The cs1 will create a weak center stage and it will be over powered by the monitor 70's big time.

Since you are on a saw budget with a small not really power full receiver I would step down to lesser in the line... Remember with the floorstanders $180 for monitor 70 only buys you one tower. The Polk monitor bookshelves are sold and priced as pairs

Monitor 60s would do fine witht he Cs1 as well as the Monitor 50s


I agree here, no need to get the Monitor 70s if it is goign to push the budget to far. The Polks go on sale at New Egg all the time, so if you have your heat set on them, wait until you see the ones you want on sale.


You may also want to take a look at the Pioneers that are available at Best Buy, you may be able to get the full package within your budget minus the sub....

How about three Monitor 60s across the front. That would be a nice rig. And I second getting the Yamaha.

three fronts?!

people do that?

Yep and in fact that would create the the best front sound stage sonically

Go to the soundbar forum

thats how it should be done. an all vertical array is actually ideal. if you ever looked at the speakers used in the theater the same speakers used for the left and right are used for the center. rarely ever does a smaller horizontal center channel sound exactly the same tonally as good towers or bookshelves.

i don't think either of them will match up to polk.

if comparing them to m50's, they do. I replaced my polk m50's with dv-64's and am much happier. bass extension is lower, highs were clearer.

Also, are referring to the modell's deal on those bic speakers? Its a crazy deal, make sure to pick up a pair of dv-62si's while you are at it for about $70. 5.1 will make you much happier than 3.1....plus you can timber match your speakers while you can get in on the deal. I think that was one of the reasons I wasn't happy with my last system, none of the speakers matched.