Advice Needed - Good sub/sat budget combo?

Doing my 5.1 or 7.1 setup and looking for advice.

After reading many threads here, I pulled the trigger on a Denon AVR-1913 refurbished. Seemed like too good a deal to pass up at $379. Also grabbed a pair of the Polk RC60i in-ceiling speakers from Newegg. Those aren't going to set the world on fire, but at $69 for the pair, I thought they'd be a good start, and I can always upgrade later.

Now I need to make a decision on the rest of my speaker set up. Options I'm considering now are the following:

(1) Polk Blackstone TL3 front, center and right paired with either a Polk Psw111 ($499) or Psw125 sub ($550)
(2) Polk Blackstone TL2 5 pack (front, center, right and surrounds) paired with either a Polk Psw111 ($499) or Psw125 sub ($550)
(3) Energy Take Classic 5.1 package ($399)

I had originally thought about just doing 5.1, but, of course, now that I went with the 7.1 channel Denon, I'm tempted to go with a 7.1 set up. If I did that, the easiest set up for me would be to use the extra two channels as front height surrounds. I think that would mean I'd have front, center, right speakers mounted at the same elevation just under and to the sides of the TV and then "height" front and right speakers mounted on the same wall but near the ceiling. Does that make sense? Is that the right set up, and is it worth doing?

If so, I could swing that with the TL2s or the Energy Takes and still be within budget, which is about $1k for the whole system ($600 or so left for speakers after Denon and in-ceiling purchase).

If not, maybe it makes more sense to go with the more expensive TL3s and stick with 5.1.

Thoughts?

And thanks!

Just to clarify, the ceiling is already wired for rear surrounds, positioned about 6 feet apart and just behind the main viewing location. That's what I purchased the Polk RC60i set for. Now I'm looking to finish off the set up with either front L/C/R or front L/C/R plus height L and R.

But I take it from your comment that you think the front height speakers are the way to go.

Any thoughts on how significant the improvement would be from the Polk TL2s to the TL3s? Also, I'm not married to that Polk Bkackstone TL series. I need to go with a satellite system due to certain spousal approval requirements. I zoned in on the Polks because they seem to be well-reviewed and were more or less in my budget. Also, the Polks seemed like an obvious choice since I got the deal on the in ceiling Polk rears, but I understand that matching fronts and rears isn't really all that important. So I'm also open to other speaker recommendations, too.

Thanks again for the help!

Yep. Was planning on taking advantage of the Polk free sub offer. The PSW111 is the freebie, but I was thinking of applying the $300 they'll give me for it toward a PSW125. That would move me from an 8" to a 12" woofer. Do you think I should upgrade the sub further than that? Would I be better off with the DSWpro series? I could get the DSWpro440wi, but that's an additional $140 over the PSW111 (and it also has only an 8" woofer).

Because I'm on a budget, if I go with Polk, I'd like to take advantage of the subwoofer offer they're doing now. Would love to know your thoughts. Thanks!

Those are great questions, obviously, and information I should have included right at the start.

The room is an odd shape. It's on the third floor of a house we are heavily renovating. The ceilings are a little more than 9 feet and the rough square footage is approximately 224. I'm going to try to add a picture of the layout here.



I've annotated to show the placement of the media built-in, the wired fronts (at ceiling height but on wall just above media center), the wired rears (in-ceiling) and the planned seating. If you take a look, you'll see that the main viewing/listening area is a roughly 14X10 space extending from the built-in to the stairs (there's a knee-wall between the media room and the stairs down, and that whole area is open down to the second floor, which I know will have an impact on the acoustics of the room). The space is also open to an additional 8X10 space going back to the rear wall of the house.

As far as my expectations regarding performance, I know I'm on a budget, so I'm not expecting miracles. I'm mainly looking for something that will make watching movies up there a fun time for the kids and my wife and I. Also looking for something that will deliver decent performance playing music. To put this in perspective, my last set up was an Onkyo LS-V950 HTIB from 2002. I lived with that for quite some time and enjoyed it, despite really poor speaker placement. I'm hoping my next system is a significant (i.e., readily noticeable) performance upgrade for listening to both movies and music.

I really appreciate your time in offering up suggestions/advise. With limited funds, I'd like to get the most bang for my buck, but there are a ton of options and choices out there.

Thanks!

I found an open box deal on the Polk TL350 set for $529 (buy it now on eBay). If I went that route, I wouldn't get the $300 credit from Crutchfield (applied to Polk sub purchase when you spend $499 or more on Polk speakers), but the TL350 set new from Crutchfield is $750 anyway. So, if I went the TL350 route, my options would be:

(1) Crutchfield: New TL350s for plus PSW125 sub for $808.
(2) eBay: Open box (but new) TL350s ($525) plus ??? sub for ???

IF I go option (2), what would you suggest for the sub that would get me most bang for the buck? I'd be looking for the cheapest possible quality sub that would work well with the Polk TL350 set up.

Here's a pic of the space right now.



Still under construction, but it's taking shape!

As far as speaker placement, this photo gives a better view of what I'm thinking of doing. The main L/C/R would go on the shelf just under where the TV will be mounted. The height L/R would go up above where the columns of the built-in are (if you look carefully, you can see the speaker wires that have already been run up there). You can't see the in-ceiling rears in this shot, but their just out of the frame of the picture. As for the sub, think I could get away with putting it inside one of the cabinets to the left or right of the built-in? Would that work, or is it better to have it located in the space itself. If not, could I go so far as to put the sub beind the knee-wall to the left?

Thanks for all the help with this. This forum is such a huge resource.

Edit to add one final thought:

My old system was an Onkyo Envision LSV-950. As I may have mentioned, the sound there was decent but nothing to write home about. But the sub always seemed to pack a decent punch. Here are its specs:


I'm skeptical this is worth considering, but should I consider just keeping that sub for the time being and upgrading down the road? Between this sub and the Polk PSW111, the PSW125 or the DSWPro440wi, should I expect much of an upgrade? If it's nominal, maybe I should just save a bit of cash.
Edited by Kurth01 - 1/24/13 at 12:59pm

(1) Can definitely move front L/R out to the areas between the windows and the walls. Should be an easy speaker wire run through the cabinet beneath.
(2) I didn't even think about what the sub would do to the doors on the cabinets! Good point. That would be a mess.
(3) The "sub cave" is already there. I have all the space and access I need behind the knee wall to the left of the built-in. That should also be a really easy wire run with the sub cable.

Any thought about the difference between my current Onkyo HTIB sub and the Polk options I'm considering or the Klipsch RW-12d crasyrob pointed me to?

Nuts. Looks like the Klipsh RW-12d is back to $349 at newegg. I'm sure that's still a pretty good deal, but I'm already over budget. On the other hand, the Polk PSW505 is down to $189.

I'm going to head over to the Budget subwoofer thread later on tonight and do a bit more digging around. Thanks again for all the help.

Done. Just placed my order. Should be moving into my new place in a couple weeks. Will be sure to come back and post a review (and some finished pics) once I'm settled in.

Thanks agains for all the help. Great forum!!!