Need a new setup - Polk Audio R30's suck

I purchased a pair of Polk Audio RT25 speakers many years ago, and after treating them poorly (by mounting them, and unmounting them, drilling holes in them, having them accidentally fall off the speaker stands many times) they eventually started sounding crappy.

During owning them I also purchased a Polk Audio center speaker. I don't remember the model number, but there were only 2 at The Good Guys and I bought the cheaper 2 speaker one instead of the 4 speaker one. I think it's an old CS1.

Anyway, the quality of the center speaker was great, and after the RT25's died, I decided to go for some floorstanding speakers. Polk Audio had been good to me, so I went with a pair of cheap R30s. They were Circuit City's floor models and only cost me $170 for the pair.

At first they sounded okay, but I'm not satisfied with them. There's not enough thump, not enough sound, and the sound isn't as clear as the center speaker. I have a Yamaha RX-V650 feeding them with Blue Jeans Cable 10ga. speaker cable and compression banana plugs, which did make them sound better, but they still have no bang. I doubt a subwoofer would help much because these speakers are not very powerful to begin with.

I've been looking around for good replacement floorstanders, and came across Streem Audio speakers. The price is right for my budget, but the reviews I've seen on this site suggest otherwise.

Should I just go with an MTM Polk Audio floorstanding design? Anyone have any luck or experience with the dual midrange setup? I'm not looking for a bunch of low-end bass. I'm looking for kick from the woofers and nice clarity from the midrange and tweeters without ear-piercing hiss. I'm looking for power. Polk Audio seems to be the only manufacturer that lives up to this, but their R30s fell very short with me. Sadly, they didn't come with a warranty so I couldn't take them back. Now I'm stuck with them.

Actually, the center speaker wasn't a CS1, it was more like a CS300 or 400. CS1's are their newer models.

I usually like purchasing each piece one at a time over the course of several months. The highest I'll go for any pair of speakers, a center speaker, rear speakers, or a subwoofer is $400. The pair of front speakers would have to be $400 together 'cause nobody sells them seperately.

I wouldn't consider it champagne taste. More like wine cooler taste.

The problem with the design of the R30s is that they're floor standing speakers with a 6 inch woofer and a port tube on the bottom. The port tube was supposed to offer more bass, but instead they lose bass due to this design. I'm thinking the MTM floor standing or bookshelf speakers would provide better thump with the dual mid designs.

A subwoofer might help, but like I said I'm not that interested in low-end. I'm interested in getting a good bang rather than a loud boom.

These R30s were probably just abused and the woofers got damaged.

I have no wood-working tools. The boxes would have to be built by someone else. I did try the Dayton BR-1 kit, and they did sound okay, but the speakers themselves were too bulky and the high-end was hissy.

I'd still have to replace my R30s with new front speakers. And my center speaker needs to be replaced with a Polk CS1 or CS2.

Polk's Monitor 50s look good. A possible candidate for replacements. However, the woofers are even smaller than what I have now, and would almost require a subwoofer to fill in the gaps.

Perhaps. I'll have to do some homework on subs, then. I still need a new center speaker due to damage. I don't want to explain the damage here, 'cause you guys would think I'm nuts. :P

With the front and center speakers aside, I still need 4 surround speakers for 7.1 surround. I'm torn between bipole and direct speakers. And with Polk's bipole prices, it would seem strange spending twice as much on the surround speakers than I did on the fronts.

Are you sure a 10" is all I need? The only Polk 10" is 50 watts. My PC sub is stronger than that at 100 watts. It's only 8" though. The Polk 12" might be better at 100 watts. I remember owning a klipsch 50 watt 10" sub that was horrible and distorted. I traded it in and upgraded to a Polk 10" downfiring sub with 150 watts of power (a $350 sub at the time, the enclosure was HUGE). That was way too much. So I'm thinking 100 watts would be a good middle point. Plus my Yamaha receiver is 100 watts per channel. So it would match.

All good ideas.

I don't think I'd sell of my Polk speakers unless someone's willing to pay me good for them, and pick them up themselves. I'm not gonna do ebay, and I ain't shipping them. For the price I paid for the front speakers, I wouldn't get enough return to buy another pair.

As far as other brands go.. I've yet to find a brand I like more than Polk. I've had experience with Yamaha, Sony, Pioneer, Polk, Klipsch, JBL, Dayton, and several cheap-o brands, and the only one I thought was decent and clear sounding was the Polk. The Dayton was pretty decent too, but the tweeter was a little hissy, and the speaker was bulky sitting on top of stands. It kept falling off of the stands, too. This is why I went with floorstanding speakers this time. Less chance of them falling over.

I've got a budget of $400 for a sub. I've got a budget of, uhm.. probably $2000 for all the speakers.

Washington has none of those kinds of stores. And I don't want to purchase them online. It's very expensive to ship something back. I have to go in the store and see and hear the speakers for myself. I live near Tacoma, Washington. The only stores here are Best Buy, CC, CompUSA, Target, Walmart, K-mart, Costco, etc. Very small selection of speaker brands.

Actually, I checked, and Tacoma Mall has Magnolia Hi-Fi. That's about as good as I can get. They carry Monitor Audio and most of those brands you mentioned. They might be too rich for my wallet, though.

Bellevue is pretty far away from where I live.

Parts Express has several Dayton speaker kits using their more expensive drivers. Are these worth looking into?