Way back in 1999 I got my first surround sound system, a “home theater in a box” by Aiwa consisting of a receiver and 5 speakers, so that I could enjoy surround sound from my DVD’s. Surround sound isn’t mind blowing, but it is pretty neat, kind of underwhelming given all the hype, not that I was spending huge amounts of money. I’m not sure why I felt the need, but in 2007 I upgraded to an Onkyo system with 7 speakers and a subwoofer. Even today most Blu-ray movies don’t have 7.1 audio, but I felt like I would be missing out. And the subwoofer adds a lot of oomph to explosions while also filling in the low frequency sounds that small speakers have a hard time producing. It was a nice system and worked well in a pre-HDMI era where all of the sound was carried over RCA cables instead of HDMI cables (so many wires!), but when my old pre-HDMI TV died in 2017 it was time for another upgrade. Rather than spend twice as much for another home theater in a box, I just got a new Denon receiver and kept the Onkyo speakers and subwoofer. The Denon receiver was neat because it came with a microphone that you would put in different places in the room and the receiver would come up with the best settings. I’m not sure if it is just equalizing the speakers, syncing them up, or something more advanced, but it is a great idea.
It is 2 years later and I am thinking the 10 year old speakers could probably use an upgrade. There is a lot of advice on the internet and a lot of user experiences and I think you have to filter it a little. People said that when it comes to speakers, you need to spend the most on the subwoofer. I’ve seen subwoofers for $100, but they feel like the price points are $300 for a decent one, $500 for a good one, and $1000 and up for a really good one. Oh, and they think you should buy two.
The second most important speaker is the center channel since that is where most of the sound in a movie comes from. I looked around at Boston Acoustics, Klipsch, and Polk, but was open to others. I wound up choosing a Polk CSiA6 for $240. The third most important speakers are the front left and right, and it probably isn’t a bad idea to match the fronts to the center, so I will get Polk RTi A3’s for the front, which combined will cost about the same as the center.
For the other 4 surround speakers, I didn’t want to spend that much (some people use the Polk RTi A3’s for surrounds and pick bigger RTi’s like the floor-standing A5, A7, or A9 for the fronts), and found some small speakers that people seem impressed with called NHT SuperZero 2.1. All 4 of those will cost about what the center speaker cost, but should be a good upgrade from what I have.
I went ahead and ordered the center channel from Crutchfield, who had a good price and are good to work with. I had some bonus points from a previous purchase, but they weren’t enough to trade in for a $5 discount. So I bought just the center speaker, which will give me enough points to save $5 when and if I buy the fronts from them (seems silly, but it also kept me from just jumping in without considering all the options first). And in the meantime, I bought two of the NHT surrounds, figuring I could use them temporarily as fronts to see how they sound. I got the NHT’s lightning fast from Amazon and am still waiting on the center. In a month I could get the fronts.
The subwoofer is the big question mark. Some say that a $250 off brand one sounds just as good as a $350 brand name one (Klipsch or Polk) and neither can hold a candle to a $500 one. But I don’t want to spend $500, so may end up with a $200 one. It is very frustrating to read forums where people say they have a $300 limit on a subwoofer and immediately people tell them they need the $500 one and that it will sound a lot better, which it should since it is nearly twice as much. And forget about buying two, though the Denon receiver does support that. That’s what you have to watch out for on the internet: people there always push you to spend more money. With the subwoofer and really the whole system, there is a lot of fine tuning involving getting the best sound with different placement of the various speakers. This is especially true of the subwoofer, which I always thought could be put pretty much anywhere, but people say the subwoofer chooses its location, not you. The danger is I buy good components, but then end up with something that sounds much worse than it could have if I had made a small change or could place the speakers better.
I was doing some more research and Google showed me a Klipsch 12″ subwoofer for $179 at Frys, usually $400. And brand new. It is an older model and overpriced at $400, but $179 is way cheap. So I bought it online for pickup. 30 minutes later they call me and say they have one in stock but it doesn’t work. So still looking.
I read some good reviews on a 12″ Polk HTS-12 subwoofer that Amazon has on sale right now. Not as good a deal as the one at Fry’s, it should be a better subwoofer, $338 marked down from $450 pretty much everywhere else. It is tricky getting the best possible performance out of a subwoofer, so I will have to play around with trying it in different locations, though there aren’t that many reasonable locations to put it.
While I was at it, I went ahead and ordered the other two surround speakers since I think they are pretty good.
Also, I was going to wait to get the $5 bonus from Crutchfield for buying the center speaker. I got that speaker today and it is very nice, so I know I will get the matching front speakers. Checking around, Adorama had them for the same price but doesn’t charge sales tax, which is more than $5, so I got the fronts from them. In a week I should have everything set up.
Today the front speakers were supposed to arrive. UPS sent me a link so I could follow the progress. Since I was at work, I would rather they deliver later in the day, which is what usually happens, but it still hadn’t been delivered by the time I left work. Shortly after I got home, the UPS truck pulled in front of the house and I waited for him to come up to the house with my box of speakers. And waited. And waited. Then he got back in the driver’s seat and drove down the street! Very frustrating. Meanwhile, the other two surrounds shipped today from Amazon and are supposed to arrive tomorrow, but the subwoofer hasn’t shipped yet (it did go up $7 in price). About 10 minutes later I got a notice that it was delivered. I looked out the front door and there it was. I guess he came back.
Then around 9:30 I found out my subwoofer had shipped afterall and should be here tomorrow!
After getting a very late shipping notification about the subwoofer last night, at 6:30 this morning the dogs woke me up barking, and I went outside and there it was. A very large box, I felt like the Trojans wheeling a large gift horse into my house. I connected it and it didn’t seem like it was doing much, but I wanted to wait until I got the two surrounds before I went through the 20-minute calibration routine on my receiver. Sadly, the surrounds never showed up, so tonight I went ahead and did the calibration with weird results that I mostly overrode. Nice to be almost there, but not quite.
The two remaining speakers finally showed up Sunday night about 9:30 (weird delivery times, Amazon), so I hooked them up, but didn’t run through the setup routine with the microphone yet. That shipment also included a new subwoofer cable. Also I noticed one of my speakers is not nearly as loud as it should be and I wonder if the line is damaged or if it is just sensitive to the distance to the receiver (this speaker is the furthest from the receiver so has the longest reach of cord). It has been a while since I replaced the cords and they get kind of beat up over time, so I may need to replace it. While I was waiting on Sunday, I went to Home Depot and got some wood to make speaker stands for the new front speakers and they turned out great. Before I had the old speakers on top of the even older unplugged speakers to get them to the right height, but the old speakers aren’t really big enough for the new larger speakers.