Speaker upgrades from Polk Rti150

krahim786 said:

Hi all you geniuses...

I currently have a dedicated home theater room 18x22 since 2003 and I'm finally upgradin.

I'm upgrading my screen to a 146" 2.35:1 da-lite utb contour hd progressive 1.1 and I'm thinking of replacing the speakers too.

Currently I have 2x Polk Rti150, matching centers and surrounds, 4x Atmos Polk speakers, 1x PSW505 sub. I was thinking of going Klipsch. We use it mainly for movies. Any suggestions on speakers/subs that I should consider that will be a noticable upgrade? I'm open to other brands too. The Polks have been excellent but I feel like I deserve an upgrade.

I know this is subjective but I'd really like to hear if you guys were in my shoes, what you would do.

thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

18 x 22' room, if fully enclosed, a pair of 12" ported subs like Hsu VTF-2 or SVS PB1000 Pro will do fine and would make a big difference over your current PSW505.

Next thing to upgrade is the center speaker ... if you want to stick with Polk, their one good center speaker is this:

Upgrading the center will make a huge and immediate improvement since it's the center that actually does 60-80% of the HT output. Speaker salesmen will never admit this because they want you to buy five new speakers not one, lol

Best bang for the buck given your "mainly for movies" usage would be the Infinity Reference speakers when on sale from the Harman website for 60% off retail. Unfortunately you missed the last sale by about 2 weeks. If you can wait another month or two I'm sure another one will pop up again. JBL Studio or JBL Stage A speakers also offer unbeatable price to performance when on sale.

If you want to completely start over with all your speakers right now, I'd look at Emotiva (best year round overall value), Chane, Ascend, and Hsu. It's not necessary for the center to be from the same brand as the other speakers, contrary to popular folklore. And the subwoofer(s) most DEFINITELY do not need to be from the same brand at all, ever.

krahim786 said:

Hi all you geniuses...

I currently have a dedicated home theater room 18x22 since 2003 and I'm finally upgradin.

I'm upgrading my screen to a 146" 2.35:1 da-lite utb contour hd progressive 1.1 and I'm thinking of replacing the speakers too.

Currently I have 2x Polk Rti150, matching centers and surrounds, 4x Atmos Polk speakers, 1x PSW505 sub. I was thinking of going Klipsch. We use it mainly for movies. Any suggestions on speakers/subs that I should consider that will be a noticable upgrade? I'm open to other brands too. The Polks have been excellent but I feel like I deserve an upgrade.

I know this is subjective but I'd really like to hear if you guys were in my shoes, what you would do.

thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

The question is: What aspect of the sound do you feel needs an "upgrade"? My old system was Polk RTi70, CSi40, RTi28. When it came time to change, I wanted something with more detail on the high end, since the silk domes in those Polks are kinda' subdued (and get "honky" with horns in music). I ended up with SVS Primes all the way around, but if you're looking for a similar change in sound, going Klipsch would satisfy that. But which direction you go depends on what you aren't satisfied with on the Polks.

I do recommend, having come from the Polks, that whichever way you go, you should look at whichever path can get you to a 3-way center channel. That move greatly improved dialogue clarity for me, even though the speaker itself wasn't as large (CSi40 to a SVS Prime Center). The LSiM 706c MM that Zorba tossed out there would be a solid change, and the ring radiator tweeters are better than the old silk domes.

Having experience with Polk's subs, I don't think Polk has made a sub that can hit 20Hz with authority... ever. So I would agree with the others here that you could greatly benefit from a subwoofer upgrade, and it would make every other speaker sound better. MANY years ago, I went from a Polk PSW350 to a SVS 20-39CS-Plus, one of their early passive cylinders. Night and day difference.

But all of this depends on your budget. I would say if you're generally happy with the sound of the Polk speakers for now but want more "oomph", prioritize getting a pair of good quality subwoofers. SVS, Hsu, etc. would all be solid upgrades from your PSW505 even if you can only swing a single sub, but a pair of any of their options would absolutely walk all over that Polk. You would be very happy with that change.