Friends HT setup

bigaudiofanatic

So a friend of mine has moved into a new house "congrats" and is wanting me to help him with selections for a HT setup in the basement. I will have some pics tonight of the place. But he has already gotten the consumer reports Panasonic BR player. He is one of those guys that is big into what consumer reports says but also listens to what I have to say. He is looking into a onkyo receiver that includes smaller cub style speakers. Also his other choice is the boston acoustic towers "cs226 I believe". Now I am thinking about pushing him hard towards polk. Something like the TSi series. Any suggestions would be helpful. Also any ammo to use why he should not get something over the other would help as well. As he does put up a fight lol.More info and pics tonight.

GZ

How big of an HT room is he planning? He wants speakers to fill the room with sound and those small cube style speakers might not do that. If he goes with the Boston towers he is also going to have to get the sonically matching center speaker. Also what kind of budget does he have?

Sherardp

Agreed with GZ. With a basement you will want sound that can fill the room easily. Looking at Polk direct I would go RTiA series and be done with it. You can probably put together an amazing system for under 1k using the Ebay store. Finally, if it's a basement suggest he go with a kick **** front projection system to compliment those nice sounding polk speakers.

coolsax

i actually have heard the the BA speakers and their pretty good... but i think the TSI or monitors are better if you can steer him that direction or even the RTi's if he has those in his budget.

gtu2004

I have a system consisting of a pair of RtiA5s, Csi5, and a pair of Rti6s that I'm looking to get $600 from...I'm in NYC here if your frd is interested...

mshan242700

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=89484

For pure home theater, these speakers might be a nice option to consider vs. the Boston Acoustics set he mentioned: http://www.thespeakercompany.com/TST2-High-Performance-3-way-Tower-Speaker-Pair-P74C8.aspx

"D&M Holdings (The company also owns audio titans Denon, Marantz, Snell, McIntosh, and Boston Acoustics)."

bigaudiofanatic

Well I am back from a day of moving. Man I am beat I did forget the camera so I will try to remember it tomorrow. The basement is not finished but does have a bar and heat. It would be very hard to describe this big room online so I will wait for pictures. He does want 7.1 and will have room for speakers in the back and middle for that.