If you’re at all serious about home theater I would not skimp on the center channel speaker. I’d shy away from SVS — good speakers but that metal-dome tweeter doesn’t always play nice with A/V receivers. Very hit or miss. Here are a few to consider:
BTW, I worked for Magnolia for a bit and got to try all their receivers at length. By far my favorite and the most transparent and dimensional with high-quality recordings through $9000 B&W 804Ds was the Yamaha Aventage. Smoked Marantz, Adcom, and Onkyo, and it has the bonus of being significantly more reliable than all of them as well. A guy came in who owned a Marantz AVR and when I switched back and forth between his Marantz and the Yammy he told me the Marantz sounded “broken” in comparison. He was not happy. Anyway, more food for thought FWIW.
- Ascend Acoustics Sierra Tower ($1998/pr), Sierra Horizon Center ($1098).
- Aperion Audio Grand Verus lll ($1998/pr), Grand Verus lll Center ($559). You could also drop down to their Intimus series and save a lot of $$$ and still get very good performance.
- If you can find them new or used, the Wharfedale 10.7 Diamond Towers and Diamond 10.CM Center will sound great and be half the price or more than the others, which would leave you room to add a nice SVS sub.
BTW, I worked for Magnolia for a bit and got to try all their receivers at length. By far my favorite and the most transparent and dimensional with high-quality recordings through $9000 B&W 804Ds was the Yamaha Aventage. Smoked Marantz, Adcom, and Onkyo, and it has the bonus of being significantly more reliable than all of them as well. A guy came in who owned a Marantz AVR and when I switched back and forth between his Marantz and the Yammy he told me the Marantz sounded “broken” in comparison. He was not happy. Anyway, more food for thought FWIW.
