I am also in the same internal debate. I have alot going on in my head about these speakers. On one hand I'm a big Paradigm fan, the obvious choice here are the premiers. On the other hand, I had the opportunity to hear the polks first hand and they were very impressive, but I am skeptical of Polk because other than the legendary line, they havent released anything that interests me in the past 20 years. In fact I've tried to like Polk a few times, but everytime I gave them I try, I was disappointed.
This is harder than it has to be because as much as I'm biased to Paradigm, I have heard quite a few times that they are pretty flat, meanwhile the Polks have a very nice warm sound to them which brings movies alive. I've begun to think the Paradigms aren't the best for home theater use, but the 3 way sealed 600c is the wrench in the mix keeping me from confidently choosing Polk.
The Polk center (R400) is only 2 way, and ported, same as my current center which is a driving reason why I want to upgrade in the first place. Center soundtracks arent as clear as I wish them to be due to muddied mid range, and the speaker being too close to the wall which messes with the port frequencies. However, the R700's seem to be the better choice over the 800f's in regards to the warm sound and better price, but again it's not that simple because the 800f's are easier to drive, and have higher build quality and I was told by my local Audio shop that the Polks sound incredible, but need alot of power. I have an external amp for the LRC witch is 90w per channel 3 channels driven, plenty for the Paradigms, but may not be enough for the Polks based off the Audio shop was feeding them 130 watts, about 50% more power than I can.
I know my ears are the end all be all for my setup, but there are so many variables that cancle each other out that I can't really find an edge for either speaker here. I guess I'm asking for opions for which is better for home theater? Do I go with a Flat response 3 way sealed center, or a warm 2 way ported center? Is it an easy to drive, flat response, high quality tower, or a power hungry warm bass tower? All opinions are welcome, thank you.