I'm helping a friend with a system...

tryrrthg

A buddy of mine just bought a house. He assigned me the task of helping me pick out his system. He gave me a budget of around $1000 for a surround sound system with receiver and speakers (I'm assuming he'll keep the DVD player price seperate).

he's a 25 year old bachelor but for some reason he's worried about his speakers looking tacky... I took him to CC last night and obviously he can't afford much of the RTi line without going the bookshelf route, but for some reason he thinks hanging bookshelf speakers on the wall looks dumb and "tacky" I'm hoping I break him of that. I've tried to convince him that Bose size speakers will not please him because of their small size. I think I convinced him of that but we'll see. He also said I was the "first person he ever heard say that Bose SUCKS!" ahh ignorance is bliss!

I have come up with this system:

R30's for mains (199 a pair this week)
either the CSi30 or CSi20 for center (both $135 for some reason)
the HK AVR125 is on sale for just over 300.

with those 3 it came out just under $700 right now. I will tell him to wait on the surrounds until the R series bookshelves go on sale for $80 a pair like they do sometimes. So I just have a sub left. I was hoping to convince him of DIY and I also found a nice kit HERE that uses the Adire Audio Shiva and 250 watt plate amp.

Does this system seem ok to everyone? Can you come up with something else? I'd like a few different options of speaker size (since he's being so damn picky for some reason). A year ago this guy wanted the biggest speakers he could find now he's worried about R10's hanging on his wall looking "tacky" :rolleyes:

let's see some more suggestions... I guess it doesnt' have to be limited to Polk but I was leaning him towards them since they are such a good bang for the buck!

Thanks!

TroyD

Doesn't sound bad....

I would actually suggest starting out with JUST the mains and possibly a sub at first. I would recommend getting the best mains possible and building the system around those as fundage becomes available.

BDT

faster100

I actually agree here, mains and receiver.. then he's good to go for music and movies somewhat.. later get the center, and rears.. here in the next few weeks the prices will drop like a rock. search and search and call and ask.. talk the talk if you want good deals, I just bought fxi30's for 86 bucks for the pair, grant it it was a mistake i think, but non the less thats what i paid, after calling 3 erea stores, talking to a manager and even calling a CC in macon GA. i also got a price match with the 10% off they offer and from their own store, locally!!

jkratzer

Because he is young and has such a limited budget, the R series are the way to go. I would talk him into getting the CSi30 instead of the CSi20 for the center channel. Don't skimp here. The CSi20 only has one mid-range driver where as the CSi30 has 2. For home theater, the better the center speaker the better off you are. If he can swing the R50s I would go that route as well since they also have 2 mid-range drivers, otherwise the R30s are fine.

tryrrthg

Thanks guys. My buddy is pretty stubborn and I'm not sure he cares enought to slowly build something worth the money. So I'll have to see what I can come up with.

I was actually thinking of convincing him to go the mains, sub, receiver route, since he never really seemed into the whole surround sound thing anyway. I think the only reason he wants surround sound is because his new house is wired for it...

What mains and a receiver would you suggest? With and with out $300 or so for a sub...

Thanks!

phoneisbusy

tryrrthg,

Can your buddy borrow a pair of speakers for the rears until he has more cash saved? I just loaned a friend an old set of mission speakers until she could save up for a good set of mains.

Not sure if it's an option available to him or if he's willing to consider it. I agree with the rest of the group that a good set of mains is the way to go.

regards

Dave

faster100

Now that's a nice starter setup there ATC, good advice..

sometimes "us" polksters think to far ahead, or as we would do, instead of someone else who may think the whole R setup is awesome, to us maybe not the best system, but for someone starting out, pretty good.. and polk subs are "not bad" for starters, most newbies don't know what deep extension bass is anyway. they need to start small, so when they hit the big time they know it sounds better.

tryrrthg

Originally posted by phoneisbusy
tryrrthg,

Can your buddy borrow a pair of speakers for the rears until he has more cash saved? I just loaned a friend an old set of mission speakers until she could save up for a good set of mains.

Not sure if it's an option available to him or if he's willing to consider it. I agree with the rest of the group that a good set of mains is the way to go.

regards

Dave

That's what I was going to tell him. in fact if I know him as well as I think I do he probably won't even care if he doesn't have surrounds. I'd make him get a good sub before spending his money on surrounds. I'm DEFINITELY making him get that Shiva kit for the money!

ATC,
That's pretty much what I was leaning towards exept the CSi20 is the same damn price as the CSi30 at the store I was in last night. makes NO sense! I'll have to see what he says about having "big" R30 floorstanding speakers in his living room... :rolleyes:

Mazeroth

How soon does he want to purchase all of this? I work at the Circuit City up in Youngstown, OH and we have the Polk RTi100s for $185 each BRAND NEW! They retail for $500 each. Come with a powered subwoofer built into them. Not a bad idea for a 2.5 hour car ride to pick them up. With these you can hold off on a powered subwoofer for a long time; they sound GREAT without one. Then I'd probably get an HK AVR225 or AVR325 off the internet and he'll be in great shape. He'll even have enough money to buy the CSi30 center channel.

danger boy

Originally posted by Mazeroth
How soon does he want to purchase all of this? I work at the Circuit City up in Youngstown, OH and we have the Polk RTi100s for $185 each BRAND NEW! They retail for $500 each. Come with a powered subwoofer built into them. Not a bad idea for a 2.5 hour car ride to pick them up. With these you can hold off on a powered subwoofer for a long time; they sound GREAT without one. Then I'd probably get an HK AVR225 or AVR325 off the internet and he'll be in great shape. He'll even have enough money to buy the CSi30 center channel.

Wow. the price for those RTi100's is incredible to me. And you're right, Mazeroth. he won't need a seperate sub if he had those. Nice idea.