Looking for advice on weak point in system

killerquattro

Since last post, I have done a couple things. For one, I recognize the placement for my speakers is far from ideal and is/was mostly my problem. Which got me thinking, a nicer pair of bookshelf speakers would fit better in my space, and by being closer together that placement will deliver better overall sound than the current towers setting almost 10' apart. Currently my listening seat is right in front of the left tower about 6' away, and that puts the right tower about 10' away from me. It is definitely a bigger part of my issue than I first understood it to be. I know, I know, you guys told me placement was the biggest issue... you were right.

So my plan is to remove the towers, slide the entertainment center to the left and put in some bookshelf speakers I actually want. I bought new bookshelf speakers, and while I was at it, I bought a tiny bit better receiver with a proper phono input, sub output, actual binding posts instead of spring loaded design, and bluetooth(something my wife really wanted).

Future plans are to upgrade the receiver to a higher quality integrated amp like the Marantz someone listed, and a better subwoofer, or ditch the sub all together.. Those for now, will have to wait until next year..

Speakers (Polk Lsim 703) are still on their way to me and should arrive today or tomorrow. New receiver, but not an AVR (Onkyo tx-8220) is installed and sounds much better than the Sony ever did. Also upgraded my old tiny speaker cables to a higher quality copper, 14 gauge cable. Hopefully I wont get flamed too badly for putting such nice speakers on a cheap receiver, but it is what it is. Hopefully they will do okay for now, and if they dont work well together, I can always return the Onkyo and get something better now instead of next year... Either way, I do still plan to upgrade it eventually, so I am okay with the mismatch of quality for the time being so long as they play nice together.

Thanks everyone for your advice and input. It has served me well and I can honestly say I've learned a lot over the last month by reading, watching videos, and generally working to understand all of these components and terminology to a new level. I feel like now I have a much better foundation of knowledge to more forward on in the future.