Speaker choice help needed

[TheFinalWord]

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice.

I have a Yamaha HTR5860 receiver, a Polk CSI3 Center, a pair of Polk RTI6 bookshelf speakers and I've just picked up a pair of doorcrasher Polk R30 towers cheap.

My question is whether or not the R30's are better than the RTI6's and can/should I have the R30 as the rear speakers.

Any help is appreciated. Also, how will I need to set up the speaker settings on my receiver.

Thanks

 

[markw]

"better" is extremely subjective and...

...you're in the rare position to judge for youreself. Try both as your main soeakers, experiment with the large and small settings and see what works best for you. The winner stays up front.

I suggest using music as the test source but that's just me.

 

[Tritonman]

The towers and the bookshelves are very similar in performance. If it was me...

I would keep the Rti6's up front with the csi3 and place the towers in the rear. The rti6 and csi3 are perfect match for each other timbre wise. You may possibly mess up your front soundstage by putting the r30's up front with the csi5 center, specially during left to right or vice versa sweeps. Since your r30 and rti6 are almost similar performance wise placing them in the back would basically be equal to placing your rti6's back there as well.

 

[AVRat]

I'll just concur with the previous replies and suggest you set the speaker sizes to small with a X-over of 60Hz since you have a small sub.

 

[TheFinalWord]

Thanks so much for the help.