• We hope you have a fantastic holiday season to close out 2025! Thank you all so much for being part of the Tom's Guide community!

First home audio set up. Help me choose my hardware

Kaytech

Honorable
Jun 3, 2012
2
0
10,510
I am working on my first home audio system

For my receiver: Denon AVR3312CI

Subwoofer: Polk audio Psw505

Two front speakers: Polk audio Rti a9 black

This is a budget system for under $3000. I want to be able to upgrade to 5.1 or 7.1 in the future. What equalizer should I get, and what do you think of the components I have chosen so far?
 
What are you wanting this system to do? Music, movies or both?

The receiver seems like a good one. Denon makes excellent equipment.

I would recommend the EMP Tek 7.1 series and that receiver.

EMP Tek 7.1 http://emptek.com/impseries71_pkg3.php or the 5.1's. http://www.emptek.com/impseries51_pkg3.php
EMP Tek review http://www.trustedreviews.com/EMP-Tek-Impression-IMP-7-1-2_Surround-Sound-System_review_performance-and-verdict_Page-3
You simply cannot beat the price/performance of these speakers with anything Polk makes.

Denon receiver = $1200 at amazon.
Emp Tek 7.1 = $1,890.00 from emptek.com / 5.1 = $1640
Total = $3090 7.1 or $2840

Slightly over-budget (7.1s) but 100000% worth it. The 5.1's you could always upgrade to 7.1 with 2 more bookshelfs when you can.

Then cables and speaker wire. I would recommend Blues Jeans cables. Excellent products and a great price. http://www.bluejeanscable.com

*edit*
For some reason, I can't add functional links. Sorry about that.

*edit 2*
Apparently they fixed themselves... odd.