Good Center Channel and Sub for around $500 each

[ultimatebob]

I've been building myself a fairly nice home theater system that I've been building one piece at a time whenever I can find a good deal, and I think that it's time to add a center channel and sub woofer to my setup.

Here's what I have so far:

40" Sony Bravia LCD TV (Black Friday sale)
Sony HDMI Upconverting DVD player
Scientific Atlanta 8300 HDC DVR (It's Comcastic! Ugh.)
Sharp Aquos BluRay player (got it from a co-worker for $300)
Yamaha RVX-2700 7.1 receiver (open box closeout deal from Tweeter for $550. Sweet!)
A set of AR SRT-170 speakers (hand me down set from the family, I'll be "demoting" them to rear channel speakers soon)
I'm supposedly getting a nice set of used Epos speakers for my birthday, which I'll use to replace existing my front channel speakers.

All I need now is a center channel and a sub woofer, and I think that I'll have a pretty sweet 5.1 surround sound system.

I've listed to some Polk Audio speakers in this price range so far, and they sounded decent but not awesome. I'm going to try to listen to some Klipsch and Paradigm speakers as well, but I'm wondering what you guys are using! I'm sure that somebody (YoYo perhaps?) will have some good advice.

 

[PurdueRy]

How big is the room?

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
How big is the room?

Good question... It's an "L" shaped room with the dining room and living room connected. The living room area where the home theater sits is about 12 feet square. I hope that the open space isn't going to screw up my acoustics too much.

Come to think of it, I also need some advice on how to run the speaker cables to the back of the room. I have wood floors, so the old "hiding the wires under the carpet" trick isn't gonna work.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Well you should probably try to match the center to the eventual front speakers you'll be using, eh?

Maybe until you know for sure you should just concentrate on getting a subwoofer?

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Well you should probably try to match the center to the eventual front speakers you'll be using, eh?

Maybe until you know for sure you should just concentrate on getting a subwoofer?

I think that the matching center channel speaker would likely be an Epos M8i, which might be a tough find here in the US. Why my Dad likes these obscure British audio products is beyond me!

So... any advice on the sub?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Well you should probably try to match the center to the eventual front speakers you'll be using, eh?

Maybe until you know for sure you should just concentrate on getting a subwoofer?

I think that the matching center channel speaker would likely be an Epos M8i, which might be a tough find here in the US. Why my Dad likes these obscure British audio products is beyond me!

So... any advice on the sub?

The L shape room will affect acoustics. I would go with this sub:

http://www.svsound.com/products-sub-box-pb12nsd.cfm

The PB10 is its smaller cousin but I really think you need the larger sub for this room because of the overall area.

 

[s44]

Epos has an American distributor... Their stuff looks nice.