Dahlton Loudspeakers are a white van scam product from what i can tell....
www.avsforum.com
and...
White van speakers from Dahlton, measured and tested...
www.audiocircle.com
They use cheap products and often are sold to try to bilk people out of their money. It kind of sounds like your friend has some quite low-grade gear. Not that this makes it worthless, but it all sounds quite dated at this point with things falling apart. You can spend your hard earned money on his mistakes, if you like, or if the price is really good, but I personally would not do so unless you have determined that the cabinets are built to a very high standard and actually do sound good. This is just really unlikely.
Nobody can decide how you spend your money, but Craigslist is often fully of used audio gear and AV receivers that actually are designed for proper surround sound, or can do what you want nicely. Good used commercial grade amplifiers are all over eBay that can be of very high quality and will work well for years to come. Speakers are a tough call as some people think that because a speaker is big, it must be good. Some actually sound okay at lower audio levels as well. But, the audio guys can get into exactly why this really isn't the case. They may be able to direct you towards some better solutions.
Keep in mind, from the link above, someone bought a pair of Dahlton speakers from a white van, brand new, for $100. That was about 20 years ago.
