I actually own these speakers and have been very happy with them. When I was in high school, I worked at Circuit City selling TVs/Speakers. These are easily better than the lower end polks and on par with the Infinity Betas from that era. Yes the surrounds and center aren't quite on par with the fronts, but they still have done alright for me. I did find they had a fairly long break-in period of probably 30-50 hours. The midrange was probably the biggest improvement in that time, really warming up and becoming more cohesive with the rest of the sound. I haven't heard much under 700 dollars (for 5 speakers) that could touch it (and no HTIB that's even remotely close). Do they compete with my dad's McIntosh rig? No, but they are way better than $300 would suggest. I have them running from a Sherwood 7502 I picked up on ebay for 80 bucks, two Dayton 10 inch subs in stereo for 115 each, and an Oppo 980. I haven't spent a lot of money, but with a lot of careful setup, placement, calibration ect, I have a darned good sounding system which gives me a lot of enjoyment. The company was also a pleasure to deal with.