waskydiver

I'm looking to upgrade my sound system and I figured I would start with the speakers. My current receiver is pretty low end, but has inputs for front, rear and center. I currently have a left, right and center speaker (again low end).

I figure that I would upgrade the speakers first, since that would give me the most noticable difference right away. (If I upgrade the receiver, I'll still only have 3 speakers).

The price range I am looking at is around $500. I was thinking about the Energy 5.2 system, but that's just a little too rich for my wallet and probably my needs.

The application for the speakers is primarily going to be (eventaually) DTS home theater in a medium sized room.

Thanks for any advice.

bfrank

Take some time to search on this site and you will see that many speakers are recommendations over and over again. That might be a good place to start

There are some many brands at this price and many are more alike then people think.

I would take a weekend and drive to a couple different shops and listen to what they have. Take a cd you know real well that has good material (low bass, women’s vocals, acoustic instruments, and such)

Then read what people recommend. In the end you have to like the sound first and the brand second.

skar

I recommend the PSB Alpha line:

http://yawaonline.com/packagespecial.html

Listen before you buy is always great advice for speakers.

Your price range puts you at the low end of quality speakers. Remember that 10-15 years from now when today's TV's, receivers, DVD players, etc. are out of date, a quality set of speakers will still be a quality set of speakers. If your budget is limiting consider upgrading your speakers piecemeal.

bfrank

This is a great point!

skar you rock in this forum

tommyp007

consider the Polk RM6200 set, about 500 or so at CC, but you'll need a sub since these are satellites. I've owned them, and they sound great for the size & price

waskydiver

Thanks for all the help so far.

I do see the point in investing more in the speakers. What about a piecemeal upgrade?

Perhaps drop $300 - $400 in a decent set of mains and demote my current L/R speakers (These radio shack Optima thingys) to rear speakers?

Or maybe put $300 - $400 into a sub?

Any recommendations on this front? (Including what to plan to upgrade in the future as well).

Also, to be perfectly honest, I don't have a car, so running around to audition speakers would be inpractical. I'm also so freaking impulsive and my current system is probably comaritively so poor that I'd probably end up dropping MSRP when I'm blown away by the first audition I hear.

Thanks again.

powaking

I recommend the JBL Studio Series. I picked up 2 S38ii, 2 S26ii (for rears) and S-Centerii for $625 shipped from etronics.com (purchased on Monday, received them on Wednesday). They have a real strong bass punch. If you want to audition them then you can head over to Best Buy (the one near my house had them on display and you can listen to them). The speakers are very crisp and detailed.

They even get a good WAF rating (Wife Acceptance Factor).

If anything atleast go listen to them if you can.

Powaking