Dave Bennett

Polk Surround Advice Needed

Hi everyone,
Well it looks like one of my old Audiosource surrounds has finally blown so I'm looking to replace them with some Polks to match the rest of my system. I'm running an Onkyo 494 receiever(which is rated at 55 watts) Polk RT35i mains, a Polk CS245i center, and a Yamaha 8" woofer. I just got a Pioneer DVD/DVD-A/SACD player so I'm looking for speakers that will work well for movies and for high resolution music.
I'd like to spend $150 or less and I'm currently debating between the Polk R20 and the Polk Atrium 45.
The R20 is cheaper, has a better freq response, and bigger drivers, but it also weighs alot(thus would be a pain to wall mount) and I'm also not sure how they'd work as surrounds compared to my RT35i(i'm not even sure if they're voice matched).
The Atriums are smaller, but easier to mount, and are voice matched to the RTi series. My one worry is that their limited frequency response would be a problem for SACD/DVD-A where sometimes there is more than just surround effects in the rear channels(background vocals etc).
Can anyone shed some light on the subject?

Regards,
Dave

Mando-R

The R20's are really nice. The ATrium 45's aren't that great. The R15's are also pretty decent, and I think they're on sale right now at CC. I can't really say for sure though.

You are what you eat

Jack Keck

Depending on how far you want to go in matching your other Polks, you might want to check out ebay to see if you can fimd another pair of RTi 35s, RTI 25s or whatever the surround speaker Polk had to match your current speakers. You might be able to get a price similar to what you are liiking at for th enew ones.

Jack

\"The definition of progress is Chanel #5 on the rocks.\" D. van Vliet

Dave Bennett

I went ahead and got the Atrium 45s. They feel very solid and well built(not surprising given the high build quality of my other polk speakers).
How do they sound? Pretty nice. Definitely an improvement over my old surrounds. Sound on DVD-A and SACD blends alot more seamlessly and the highs are much clearer and crisper. For $150 I'm very happy. They're small enough to be easily wall mountable but provide very good sound. So now all my speakers are FINALLY all Polk(minus my Yamaha sub ). I'd be interested in hearing how these sound outside but so far I'm really digging them as surrounds.

Regards,
Dave