Need some help with a 5.1 system fronts

sheets

hey guys new to the forums. I have been slowly upgrading an "in box" home theater system I received about 5 years ago. I am currently using a Polk CS10 Center, a Dayton 12 inch sub, Pioneer VSX-820-K, and my old in box home theater as filler speakers for the front and surround.
I have been looking at buying the Monitor 30/40 or rti4 or the tsi100's. they are all very similar in price. I am not sure which to get to complement my setup. I watch a lot of movies and will use the speakers for mainly rock music for parties. My room is 20X18 if that helps. I would like to know what you guys think is a good choice for the front and surrounds. Thanks for the help guys.

EndersShadow

sheets wrote: »

hey guys new to the forums. I have been slowly upgrading an "in box" home theater system I received about 5 years ago. I am currently using a Polk CS10 Center, a Dayton 12 inch sub, Pioneer VSX-820-K, and my old in box home theater as filler speakers for the front and surround.
I have been looking at buying the Monitor 30/40 or rti4 or the tsi100's. they are all very similar in price. I am not sure which to get to complement my setup. I watch a lot of movies and will use the speakers for mainly rock music for parties. My room is 20X18 if that helps. I would like to know what you guys think is a good choice for the front and surrounds. Thanks for the help guys.

If your looking at a budget setup for fronts I would go with either Monitor 40's or 60's (if you can do 70's that is really the recommended set). The only time I would go with 50's is if the cost of 40 + stands > cost of Monitor 50's.

For surrounds you could go with 30's and be fine for movies but 40's would be better for music.

The RTi's are much much better speakers overall but cost more obviously. They also tend to benefit from a dedicated amp (not that the Monitors don't but RTi's can really use the extra power).

Either way I personally suggest floorstanders for your fronts and bookshelves for your surrounds...but thats just my .02

sheets

Are the monitor 60's on up worth it though? The reason I ask this is to my understanding that is the reason for my dayton 12 inch sub. The bigger monitors only have more subs in them. Will the subs in the monitors and my dayton sub both go off together? When going through the settings on my receiver I saw you can choose small speaker or large speaker and based on this is weather the receiver uses the dedicated sub or the sub in the speakers. So what is the purpose of having big fronts? Am I thinking about this correctly? sorry if this sounds wrong.

EndersShadow

The reason is even though they have lots of 6 1/2 woofers those still produce both mid and lows. Even if your using your sub for your under 80hz sound, it just free's up the woofers in the bigger fronts to produce mids and give you good sound.

You can use both in conjunction with no problems at all. The reason you set them to "small" or "large" is to tell it if the speaker can reproduce deep lows or not. Most speakers cannot (there are exceptions but the Monitors and RTi's are not them) so you set them to "small". Its got less to do with their size than their overal frequency bandwidth.

Just about any speaker you use up front when paired with a sub will be set to small. I have my Monitor 60's and have them set to "small" in my settings paired w/ my PSW125 and its decent. (I say decent because I am going to drop a massive amount of cash on a sub that is overkill for my layout and then LSi speakers shortly....you will more than likely find them more than adequate)

Hope that makes sense. If not let me know and I will try to explain better....

sheets

Thanks a lot that makes perfect sense! Now Which of these options would you go with bc I here people talking about how much better rti's are: I am on kind off a budget so I think the rti floorstanding are out. I also will not need to buy stands for any of the speakers.

option 1 (buy 40's now and use them as the fronts for about 3 months then buy 60/70's)
front: monitor 60/70's surround: monitor 40's

option 2 (buy rti4 now and use them as the fronts for about 3 months then buy 60/70's)
front: monitor 60/70's surround: rti4

option 3
front: rti4 surround: rti4

Also my Pioneer VSX-820-K receiver claims to have 100w for each channel (not planning on buying a different one). How much of a benefit would be to get an extra amp for the 60/70's? how much does amp like that usually run?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. I greatly appreciated it

Erik Tracy

sheets wrote: »

Thanks a lot that makes perfect sense! Now Which of these options would you go with bc I here people talking about how much better rti's are: I am on kind off a budget so I think the rti floorstanding are out. I also will not need to buy stands for any of the speakers.

option 1 (buy 40's now and use them as the fronts for about 3 months then buy 60/70's)
front: monitor 60/70's surround: monitor 40's

option 2 (buy rti4 now and use them as the fronts for about 3 months then buy 60/70's)
front: monitor 60/70's surround: rti4

option 3
front: rti4 surround: rti4

Also my Pioneer VSX-820-K receiver claims to have 100w for each channel (not planning on buying a different one). How much of a benefit would be to get an extra amp for the 60/70's? how much does amp like that usually run?

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. I greatly appreciated it

From your initial description, you've got a fairly large room, mostly watch movies, but like to throw parties and play rock music.....

I'd go Option 1 and buy the 70's.

sheets

Thanks for the help. I also decided to go with option 1 with the 70's

ashburndad

The bookshelves would be ok for HT, but you will not be happy with the 30s or 40s for "parties". Sometimes you just want to get your drink on and crank em up. That was only satisfying once I got my 70s and moved the smaller ones to surround duty.

tonyb

The 70's up front,30's or 40's in the rear. Also that receiver doesn't have preouts to add an amp.