I'm putting a new home theatre system together, and having selected a TV and a receiver (a Panasonic plasma and an Onkyo TX-SR608) I'm now trying to decide what the best choice is for speakers to go with. Unfortunately, due to my location I don't really have anywhere around to listen to much of a selection of speakers, especially the ones I'm considering, so I'm pretty much forced to buy these sight-unseen (hearing-unheard?)...
That being said, here's what I'm considering:
Basically, it's a toss-up between Polk Audio and BIC America. Both have some really well-reviewing speakers in my price range (<$200/speaker) and, like I said, get great reviews wherever I've seen.
So for fronts and rears (I'm putting a 5.1 system together, as I think 7.1 is a little overkill) I'm looking at either Polk Monitor 70's or BIC Venturi DV84's; for the center channel I'm looking at a Polk Monitor CS2 or a BIC Acoustech PL-28.
The only thing I'm using to compare them at the moment is the rated frequency response, and in this category it seems like the Monitors do better... but I'm sure there's lots of criteria to make a comparison with.
These aren't my only choices though, so if someone can suggest something else that's sort of within my budget (<$1000 for four tower speakers and a center channel) then I'm open to anything.
Buy a pair of BETTER speakers and forget the HT until you can add the additional speakers? There is a thread around here somewhere about speaker bargains. Good stuff can be had inexpensively and will provide better sound than the BIC, which I heard a LONG time ago ( the BIC Venturi model) and was nothing to write home about. They may have improved.....
But, if you have your sights fixed on a 5ch setup, I'd suggest, for a budget and by mailorder, something like this::