Cheaper Surround Speakers to pair with Revel F208 and C208

[jtremble]

I am in the process of setting up my HT/audio room and am looking for some speaker advice.
I currently have a pair of Revel F208s and will shortly be ordering the C208 center.

However, I am about at the end of my AV equipment budget for awhile. I'd love to add 2 pairs of the Revel M106s for side and rear surrounds, but the budget won't allow it at this time.

I am looking for a couple of pairs of cheaper bookshelf speakers that I can use for the next year or two as surrounds, before I purchase the matching Revels.... then I will repurpose the cheaper speakers out to my garage setup. Powering the speakers in my setup will be pair of older Acurus 100W/channel amplifiers.

A few options that have come to mind are
1) NHT C1s (if Amazon ever puts them on sale again)
2) NHT SuperOnes
3) Elac Unifi (now $300/pair)
4) Wharfdale 225s (now $300/pair)
5) Ascend CBM-170SE

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the options above and if there are any other speakers in the $300/pair range I should be looking at to best match with my Revels.

Thanks!

 

[Blumlein 88]

JBL LSR 305s. $300/pr, and powered. If you have single ended RCA outputs those can be paired with adapter cables to send to the 305's balanced input.

If your surround receiver doesn't have preamp outputs then you'll want conventional passive speakers. I'd probably go with the Elac on your list in that case. Or maybe these Elacs which are $329/pr on Amazon and which Amir has measured.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ut-2-0-b6-2-speaker-review.14272/#post-437636
https://www.amazon.com/ELAC-Debut-Bookshelf-Speakers-Black/dp/B07B4Q5587

 

[leeroy 85032]

I am in the process of setting up my HT/audio room and am looking for some speaker advice.
I currently have a pair of Revel F208s and will shortly be ordering the C208 center.

However, I am about at the end of my AV equipment budget for awhile. I'd love to add 2 pairs of the Revel M106s for side and rear surrounds, but the budget won't allow it at this time.

I am looking for a couple of pairs of cheaper bookshelf speakers that I can use for the next year or two as surrounds, before I purchase the matching Revels.... then I will repurpose the cheaper speakers out to my garage setup. Powering the speakers in my setup will be pair of older Acurus 100W/channel amplifiers.

A few options that have come to mind are
1) NHT C1s (if Amazon ever puts them on sale again)
2) NHT SuperOnes
3) Elac Unifi (now $300/pair)
4) Wharfdale 225s (now $300/pair)
5) Ascend CBM-170SE

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the options above and if there are any other speakers in the $300/pair range I should be looking at to best match with my Revels.

Thanks!

Infinity r162s...wait for the next sale...

 

[JustJones]

There some NHT Super Zeros on EBay for about $100 a pair. I used them for years as the surrounds in 5.1 system. Great little speaker.

 

[vavan]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the options above and if there are any other speakers in the $300/pair range I should be looking at to best match with my Revels

if you are confident you're going to buy matching revels in the future I believe almost anything will do. I have el cheapo heco victa prime 202 on surrounds and FH and feel no urge to replace those. I'd like to have c208 but I have no place for it and don't think c206 will be so much better than heco aurora center I have

 

[Cahudson42]

Infinity r162s...wait for the next sale...

+1 on the R162. But they seem temporarily Oos on the Harmon website . However, the R152 and RS152 wall mounts are available at $200/pr.
https://www.harmanaudio.com/loudspeakers/REFERENCE+152.html

Erin over at erinsaudiocorner recently Kippel-tested the Neumi BS5 at only $90/pr. Tested very well for that price range:

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/neumi_bs5/

 

[Prolix]

I've owned both superzeros and superones. The ones are much more satisfying as a surround speaker IF you do full range eq. Without eq I find the tweeter almost grating, which i didn't experience with the zeros. The difference was so great I wondered if I got a defective pair of ones.