Need advice on revamping my system

Simo328

Hi,

I've been doing a lot of research on driving rti8's and stumbled upon this forum, what better place to ask about Polk speakers!

I currently have a pair of rti8's, a csi30, psw10, and rti4's for rears. I have a Pioneer VSX815 that I purchased several years ago. It has been ok but I am building a custom wall unit and thought this is a good time to upgrade the receiver.

After doing a little reading I discovered bi-amping which I had no idea about prior. Some say do it, some say its not worth it on the 8's.

Basically, from the receiver I'm looking for 4 hdmi inputs, which the probably all have nowadays, 5.1 is fine, don't plan on going to 7.1 and really good quality sound.

What would be some suggestions for a receiver or receiver/amp setup.

TIA

Erik Tracy

Welcome to Club Polk!

So you are first primarily interested in just upgrading your AVR? And overall you are happy with the speakers you have?

What is your budget?

tonyb

For a receiver, look for a used Pioneer Elite SC series and for speakers, upgrade that center and especially the subwoofer.

Simo328

Erik Tracy wrote: »

Welcome to Club Polk!

So you are first primarily interested in just upgrading your AVR? And overall you are happy with the speakers you have?

What is your budget?

Thanks!

Yes, just the AVR and proper cables/connectors. I do like the speakers I have and I have been happy up until now, however, I know they can be much better and I'd like to get that out of them.

I have also read a lot of posts that upgrading the CSI30 can make a big difference in overall system performance, but for now just the AVR or AVR/Amp combo.

As for budget, I haven't really set one. I'm not sure as they seem to start at 4 or 5 hundred and go into the thousands. As for amps, if that's the way to go, I'm not informed on prices there either. I would rather find out what the best hardware would be for my speakers and then just work towards it, within reason of course. I don't want to go crazy and get something that is overkill for me.

I have also read how important the setup is. Are the guys from Geek Squad any good or should I go with a high end home audio place? I would be willing to spend the money here to get it running right as I'm pretty green.

Erik Tracy

Do you use your system more for just movies or do you also want to listen to music?

Several ways you can go - but bugdet is going to factor which way you can go and...in general...what you can get sound quality wise.

One way to go would be to get a nice big and beefy AVR - say a Marantz SR7007 - that would a nice first step, imo. Or a Pioneer Elite SC-67.

When designing your wall unit - be sure to leave space for additional components - most HT systems will benefit from external amplification, so that down the road you could add an amp to your AVR to drive your front speakers.

Another way to go would be to get separate components - a pre/pro unit and then external amplification. This gives you some flexibility later if you want to just upgrade the pre/pro or the amp(s).