Agreed, none of these options are terrific for the money. The Polk TSi speakers are not very good, and the SB1000 is not much of a subwoofer unless you can only have something really small. The BIC subwoofers are budget subs and not exactly mind-blowing. I would bookshelf speakers and a good sub, and let the sub handle the low frequency stuff. Tower speakers would be a waste with a good subwoofer. I have heard the Atmos system using those special Atmos speakers and it was pretty meager. If you can't do in-ceiling speakers, just forget about Atmos. It's not worth getting into otherwise.
If you wanted an affordable Atmos system, I think the best solution at the moment is a Hsu package using the HIW speakers as in-ceilings. Dolby recommends that all speakers in an Atmos setup be timbre matched, which is something you can get with in-wall/in-ceiling speakers from Hsu. Per Dolby: "overhead speakers should complement the frequency response, output, and power-handling capabilities of the listener-level speakers. Choose overhead speakers that are timbre matched as closely as possible to the primary listener-level speakers." You will want to read their
Atmos installation guide. Take a look at a
5.1 Hybrid 3 setup from Hsu, and throw in a pair or two of the
HIW speakers for in-ceilings. The Hsu speakers are very good and the Hsu sub would just crush the BIC or SVS subs.
If you can not do in-ceiling speakers, the Hsu package would still be good, but there are other good speakers out there too. I might be looking at some
Ascend CMT340s or
EMPTek R55Ti speakers. I would still go for the Hsu sub, it can not be beat for the price. Those would be tremendously better than a Polk/SVS SB1000 system. They are all manufacture direct only as well, so you can not get that stuff from Amazon. If I had to order from Amazon on your budget, I would be looking at some
Klipsch RB-61s for front left/right speakers,
RC-62 center,
RB-51 speakers for surround channels, and an
SVS PC12-Plus sub. That would be a good system, much better than the Polk/SB1000 or BIC Acoustech packages.
