Best upgrade for the money ?

Go for the Meadowlark Kestrels or something of similar quality. I would not go for Totem 1s although I like them (I have some) unless your amp can deliver a lot of current. Next, start saving for a CD upgrade. You have a nice amp so give it a chance to show what it can do. The tweeks above may give improvement but your money needs to go to speakers and source first.

Well, as usual with this hobby we've run the gambit with opinions so here's mine for what it's worth. I would replace the speakers last, after you have addressed aftermarket cords, possibly dedicated lines to your system unless this is too much of a hassle or expensive in you situation. Power upgrades in my system have always been the biggest bang for the buck. I've Polk 2.3tl's for about 10 years now. I bought Vandy 3A sigs about 9 months ago. Before I bought the Vandy's I was happy with my sound, still am - I have Meridian front end, CJ 17LS pre, Classe CA200 amp and MIT shotgun IC's and 750 speaker wire and aftermarket power cords. I really like the Vandy's but I also really like the Polk's. I had the Polks's back in the system the other day just for fun and I don't lose anything, it is just a little different. I also agree with a poster above that you become accustomed to a particular sould and sonic traits. My philosophy is take your speakers to the higgest level they are capable of reaching and if you get a really high resolution system of electronics go for some new speakers. Good luck.

You must have a good revieling component or overall system like cdp, pre amp, amp, or int. amp and speaker first! Think of it as your reff. you can't blame someting else... in this case I'll take a l@@K @ speaker! I'm not blame on polk speaker but I don't know which one so look around your system I think State-2 and Sim it's not a bad combi. If you going to upglade cables or power in this system go ahead if you can hear the diff. but it'll not going change overall caractelistic! so borrow your friend's speaker or local dealer that you can affort to buy. audition those from your system/room(am I spell those right?) Regards, Rute.

Hi Pops...That's some nice gear you have there, but I'm a little bit thrown back by your statments. Your saying the Polks sound as good as the Vandy's just different??? Although the Vandy's have never been the speaker of my choice (a little bit on the warm side for me) I still think they sound pretty good. I certainly feel they do almost everything more right than the Polks could ever hope to. Vandy's strong suit has always been that they are very open sounding & have excellent imaging & soundstaging capabilties. Something the Polks could never come close to. Not to mention the Vandy's are more nuetral sounding than the Polks. You may want to try replacing your cables if your not hearing these differances. I've always found MIT to be some what veiled. My philosophy is to start with really good speakers (put your $'s there) than slowly put the right matching components in front of them to really get them to sing. To start with mid-fi speakers such as Polks & then put high resolution electronics in front them in my opinion seems a waste. Reason being...simply because those speakers will never allow you to realize the full benifits of high resolution electronics. Rob: your getting an awful lot of information here which can be confusing. Simple rule of thumb is as you may well know...the speakers will affect the sound of any system the most, than the source (CD player, Transport/DAC or phono), preamp, amp, speakers wires, interconnects, lastly power cords. In that order. One other component which would make more sonic improvement than any of the wires is the PS Audio power plant as mention in one of these threads.

Thanks Sagger - Let me clarify myself a little. I should have said the Vandy's are better because I wouldn't have shelled out cash if they weren't. They are in the same vein as the Polk's, a little warm, good imaging but more open. They are my primary speaker now no doubt. But I'm willing to be you never heard these Polks with good ancillary equipment with the SDA portion removed (unplugged). I bought these about 10 years ago because I didn't know any better. I was driving them with a Yamaha receiver so that tells you what I knew about highend then. I have upgraded my amp 3 times, preamp 3 times, CD once, and cables too many times to count. I do disagree with you regarding MIT, I think they are best especially the latest shotguns. My point is every time I made an upgrade the system as a whole improved, sometimes dramatically. I think the Polk's have an uncanny ability to recreate the live experience (as much as possible anyway) in terms of size of images and soundstage. Anyway, call me crazy, because I am a little, but that's my take.