need a little direction

[Sgratien]

the possibility exists that i will be upgrading my living room ht setup- my wife doesn't know about this yet. it currently consists of a small lcd where we do most of out tv watching, a sony str da33es, polk rt800i floors, polk cs245i, an old infinity 8" sub and infinity rears- not sure what, ps3, direct tv, etc. the surround rarely gets used. i have a 6 month old, and before he starts to get mobile, i want to swap everything out for a smaller bookshelf/sat sized system. at the same time upgrading the receiver to an hdmi capable unit and hiding everything in the closet.

my downstairs ht setup consists of a panasonic tc-p54s2, yamaha rxv567, boston acoustics micro9500, ps3, direct tv etc. i use this often enough, and enjoy it for movies, games, etc.

now for the dilemma. do i buy a new tv for my living room and swap my surround speaker setups and receiver, and then purchase a new receiver, rears and sub for downstairs. do i buy a htib for upstairs (yht597bl), or seperates, and leave downstairs alone. although i'm satisfied with the way my ba9500 system sounds, i could use a little more umph downstairs- its a big basement space, approx 20x40 with low ceilings- the listening/viewing area is about 20x15. ive never given the polks a fair ht shake- mostly music- are they any good? the ba system is more than adequate for my needs upstairs, but is it time to upgrade them too? are my speakers a little long in the tooth- i know that how they sound is the only thing that matters, but if can buy new and sell off what i'm not using, than why not.

either way, a new receiver and tv will be purchased. so, not including that, if i were to upgrade speakers, i guess i would like to keep the budget around the price of a new htib, or seperates- receiver and bookshelfs.

and begin!

what do i do?

 

[avengineer]

Got a budgetary figure in mind?

 

[Sgratien]

Depending on what, if any, pieces I'll re-use, I'd like to keep the budget around a grand for speakers. i suppose i need to figure a lot of things out first- kinda why i was looking for some input. i'll most likely be keeping the boston system- really no need to upgrade there. BUT, do i need, or want, to replace the polks. If i re-use the polks, and move them down to my main h/t, than i'll only need a sub and surrounds. if i leave the bostons where they are, i'll want to get a bookshelf/sat type system for upstairs. What probably makes the most sense is to move my downstairs-system- avr, speakers- to my living room and re-build my main h/t from there. If i do that, i'll need a new avr and speakers, sub. my direction seems to hinge on whether or not i re-use the polks. maybe that should have been the topic for this discussion.

 

[avengineer]

Might consider re-using the Polks in the HT, but upgrade the sub at least, possibly the surrounds. Upgrade the AVR too. If that's the main entertainment space, you might want to put your money there, and let the cast-offs go to the smaller, less used system. I'm an proponent of Audyssey room cal, so if you do the AVR, look at Denon or Onkyo.

 

[unemployed]

Monitor Audio silvers are in your general price range. Nice speakers for music.