Monitor 60's versus S20 speakers?

dr1978

I'm working with a pretty much barely there budget, but I'm itching to upgrade my front speakers. I see the Monitor 60's on Polk's Ebay store for $99/ea and am intrigued I could make that work financially, but I'm wondering if I should just hold out for now.

I picked up the Polk RM95 set (4-RM8 satellites and 1-RM8 center) at a garage sale recently, and in my rush to put them to use I probably made a mistake in getting an entry level AVR in the Sony STR-DH550. I got it at a pretty good deal, but after doing some reading I'm assuming I'll need to upgrade sooner or later. I also picked up a Polk PSW450 sub on facebook marketplace.

My questions...

Would my AVR be able to supply enough power to the 60's to get enough bang for my buck?

Would I even be getting much of an upgrade by replacing two of the RM8's with the 60's? If not then I might as well wait until I'm (hopefully) in a better financial situation in a year or two and upgrade across the board with a more powerful AVR and even better speakers?

I know I should be able to figure this out myself, but I haven't been able to figure out the basics yet such as wattage, ohm's, etc. What isn't helping is when I read up on my AVR, the reviews mention that the wattage that Sony touts is misleading. So any help, explanation, good natured advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

rooftop59

1. It will be an upgrade
2. Your avr can power th m60s as they are easy to drive

BUT I would hold out for either s20s or RTi A1or A3, either or which can be found open box or refurb for around hte same price if your patient, and will yield much more refined sound quality.

mrloren

I too agree the M60 will be an upgrade. With that said I also agree that the S20 and that AVR would be much better.

I would wait and bank a couple grand then go for the big move up all at once. Open box deal on Signatures with a monster AVR and big HSU or SVS Sub

dr1978

Thanks for the suggestions! Would either the s20 or rti stand out as being better for music listening? I'll definitely be watching movies, but I'm really hoping to improve the music listening experience. If I can do that for a couple hundred now that would hold me over until I go all out down the road. And at that point I'll probably want two setups so these wouldn't go to waste.

mrloren

Music S20. Signatures are great for both music and movies

RTi are a bright speaker that can get rather shrill on music.

dr1978

Looking at audorama, and after getting a little creative with my finances, I could probably swing a pair of used LSiM 703 bookshelves. Couple more questions though, would my avr now be punching out of its weight class, and how nervous should I be with buying used? The site looks pretty legit, but I'm always nervous with used anything.

rooftop59

They won’t sound great on your receiver, but if ur playing the long game they are a great choice, then slowly upgrade to match...

dr1978

All right, I think I'm settled. I'm buying some used S20's. Getting ahold of the 703's would be nice, but I should try to stay responsible, and it really doesn't make sense to blow up my budget if I'm not going to get all of the value out of them now anyway. This is probably a shot in the dark, but does anybody have experience with S20's up front and an RM8 center? I'd obviously prefer to roll with what I've got, but if there are timbre issues then I'll probably be on the lookout for a good deal on an S30 over the course of the next few months. I think that would give me all I need for this HT setup.

Then down the road I think I might be better served by setting up a dedicated music listening area and pairing a couple top notch towers with an amp. I guess I might need a sub to go with it, though I'm not sure if that would be necessary with towers in the LSiM 707 range of quality. I have plenty of time to ponder that though...

mrloren

I use a TSX 250C with my S60. It does match very nice.

Amazon has the 150 for $90 https://www.amazon.com/Polk-Audio-TSx-150C-Channel/dp/B00CHHCAR0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510594132&sr=8-1&keywords=polk+tsx150c

The S30 did blend a small tad better but I made my TV stand to fit a large center and it looked funny with the smaller speaker in there.

From Polk's Q&A Compatible Model: Monitor, T, TSi, TSx, Signature, OWM, RCi, MC, SC,

dr1978

Good to know! Thanks to you and Rooftop for your comments!

mtnhickorynut

Yes, the S20 are definitely better overall performer than the Monitors (still have Monitor 70s). BUT, if you are thinking the 703, they are a little better overall than S20 - more balanced with a little bass boost. Both will make you happy. How many times do you plan on upgrading?

dr1978

The 703's were more of a spur of the moment thought, I probably won't consider them going forward. Aside from possibly upgrading the center, I hope to be done upgrading this set. Down the road I'm thinking of getting a couple of nice towers for a separate 2-channel setup.

ROHfan

I hated my old M60s. I swapped them out for vintage Monitor 10s and I was happy again. I'm now using Energy RC70 fronts and sound has never been better.

afterburnt

60's ain't bad with an amp. Have no idea how they would sound with just an AVR. I have em as mains at my other house. They were just surrounds before. I hate newegg but I think I got em there for $70 each.

dr1978

I supposed the answer is that everything's better with an amp, but would the S20's benefit much from one? If so I might just make that my bargain shopping quest for the year and try to find something on the cheap. Although it seems like AVR's are much easier to come by than amps.

The S20's that I ordered are set to arrive tonight. You'd think that's perfect timing since it's a Friday, but that couldn't be further from the truth. At just about the same time as FedEx will arrive, we'll be receiving a house guest for the night, and she'll be sleeping in the living room where my setup is. She and my wife are running a race in the morning, so it'll be a very low key evening with bedtime probably around 10.... Guess I have some early morning jamming in store for me tomorrow!

dr1978

Not sure if it's possible to edit a thread title, but if a Mod could change it to something like M60's vs S20's that might be more appropriate. Not a big deal either way

dr1978

I'm in love

mrloren

dr1978 wrote: »

I'm in love

Take it you like the S20... they are a nice speaker

dr1978

Oh yeah, thanks for steering me in the right direction. This is a while new world for me. And in a surprising development my wife suggested that our center speaker looks out of place and she liked the s35 when I showed it to her!

msg

this is good stuff, congrats, dr!

I picked up a set of S20s from an inmate here a while back, and I was pretty impressed with them. I swapped them in for my 703s, and ran them for several weeks. I had a friend over who was in the market as well. In fact, he accidentally bought some Monitor 60s in a rush, thinking they were S60s, so we were able to demo those as well. There really wasn't any contest. The S20s outdid the M60s pretty easily on the music front, so that's a nice move you've made there.

I think I liked the S20s better than the 703s for tv use. I even liked the S20s for music, too, with a sub. If/when you upgrade your AVR/Preamp and maybe add some power to the rig, maybe you can consider the 703s again down the road if you feel so inclined. For as much as I like the S20s, and for as good as they are in combo duty, the 703s will offer noticeable refinements with the right gear and source media for music. Really just depends on what you're after. I think if the Signature series speakers had been available when I first got started in this just about 4yrs ago, I'm not sure I'd have gotten as deep into it chasing sound. Whether that would have been good or bad, I can't yet say

Read/ask around here a bit on the S35 vs S30. I think the consensus is the at the S30 is the more capable center channel, but I think the S35 is also good where you may need to sacrifice height/space?

I think @DSkip has experience with both and can weigh in. With your current AVR, I think either will work fine, with the S35 possibly the better all around choice for you. "Future-proof"-wise, I'd probably go S30 and tell your wife to get used to the bigger size.

dr1978

I think it's most likely that I hold off on a new center channel for now, but having the wife's buy-in is half the battle! I'll do some reading and will gladly listen to any advice on 30 vs 35, but with my current setup the 35 would definitely fit better.

Down the road I do have my eye on the lism series. As you can see from my setup, music holds a priority around here!

dr1978

msg wrote: »

tell your wife to get used to the bigger size.

...I've been telling her that since we met!

mrloren

Oh man all that nice vinyl

With that setup an S35 would fit under the TV.

dr1978

mrloren wrote: »

Oh man all that nice vinyl

With that setup an S35 would fit under the TV.

Top two rows are new stuff, bottom left is older stuff that we're keeping, bottom right is future garage sale stuff. Organized alphabetically by artist, chronologically within each artist. No OCD in this house...

Sure would! It'd be about an inch higher than the speaker that's there right now, but I could deal with that.

mrloren

I would look at buying or building a stand that can hold a bigger center.

The S30 is a nice center, nice full sound to it.

Also maybe some speaker stands in the future. get them S20 a little spaced apart.

dr1978

Makes sense. I'm definitely making due with what I have for now. I'd like to wall mount the TV eventually, which would open up my possibilities, but we recently moved to the area and are just renting for now. Would rather avoid having to patch up holes in the wall when we do decide to buy.

dr1978

Any advice on setting up the crossover for my S20's? When I do the auto calibration on my AVR it always spits out "Large" for the speaker size, and it doesn't allow me to set a crossover. The specs say 39Hz-40 kHz for the S20, but obviously I wouldn't want to push them to the limit. 60? 80? I'll be playing around with it, but I was interested to hear where some others have ended up. Thanks

msg

Are you able to make manual adjustments after the auto calibration? If so, a good starting point for the sub handoff is 80Hz. Play around with 70Hz too, maybe even 60. Just see what suits you best. For the fullest sound without having power on hand, I'm going to guess that 70 or 80Hz will work nicely.

dr1978

Yes, I can switch them back to "small" and adjust the crossover. Settled on 80 and everything is really coming together. Thanks for the advice!

dr1978

dr1978 wrote: »

I think it's most likely that I hold off on a new center channel for now, but having the wife's buy-in is half the battle! I'll do some reading and will gladly listen to any advice on 30 vs 35, but with my current setup the 35 would definitely fit better.

Down the road I do have my eye on the lism series. As you can see from my setup, music holds a priority around here!

Things have changed a bit...

txcoastal1

LOL...a bit
Nice room