digital crossover choice and future plan

New wife?  Congrats!

I'm actually starting to turn her on to audio.  We sat down last night for about 45 minutes and just listened to the Diana Krall: Live in Paris and Eva Cassidy:  Live at Blues Alley on some old equipment I'm currently using as my main setup:

Polk RTA 12b (wedding gift)

When I first brought out those Polks she looked at me like I was insane.  They are ugly and large by today's standards.  However, they sound absolutely fantastic for this type of music.  Great smooth vocals, very open and wide mids and highs, warm bass (slightly inaccurate, but still more natural sounding than many active subwoofer solutions). 

Anyway, she was having fun picking out the location and instruments on the stages - something totally impossible with either of our home theater setups (a jbl htiab system and a mtx sat / sub ht system).  I'm hopefull a few more listening sessions like this will indoctrinate her into an audioholic - or at least willing to understand one.   ;-)

By the way, I'd always been a sat / sub / home theater guy - for lack of experience with the 2-channel world.  However, I think these speakers, amplifier, and source-direct just turned me into a huge full-range 2-channel fan.  The quality difference between source-direct and non-source direct mode on that Marantz is astounding.  I also fell in love with full-range for stereo listening.  Wow.  I've don't have enough experience with _good_ powered subwoofers to say this as a fact, but the full-range(ish) sound from the polk sounds so much more natural than any powered subwoofer setup I've heard before.  They would never cut it for movies... Sigh, I think I'm gonna be one of _those guys_ with a separate system for stereo listening and ht.

DYohn, Stevdart, Haemphyst, do you remember this pair of polk loudspeakers?  They're from the early 80's - top mounted crossover and tweeter, open air tweeter attached to a small baffle.  2 6"ish drivers horizontally mounted. 10" passive radiator.  Any memories of listening impressions?  They sound fantastic to me, but I admit that my standards are fairly low given the sat / sub budget type systems I'm used to.

Yep!  Polk towers are fantastic loudspeakers.  The key to their detailed sound is the attention to detail and voicing created in the crossover circuitry... are yours the ones with mirror imaged driver arrays (meaning they are offset from center so that one speaker has to be used on the left and the other on the right)?

No need to purchase a second set of gear for HT use.  Just get a preamp/amp (or receiver) with multiple DSP setups.  Then you can use your good sounding Polks as R/L mains, add a powered sub (if you want it to compliment the Polks, look for at least a 12" system) a good sounding center channel and a set of surrounds.  Then, when you listen to 2-channel stereo, the preamp or receiver can be switcvhed to that mode, and when you want Dolby DTS or 5.1 it switches to that mode.  That is, by the way, precisely what I do with my beloved ESS AMT 1b towers.

Good choice on the Onkyo amp.  Onkyo/Denon/Marantz (same company) makes great sounding amplifiers and offer plenty of power for the price.

Mine don't have the drivers offset from center.  But yes, the crossover on the top is massive and looks very well constructed. 

They still sell the replacement drivers for this line of loudspeaker.  These old Polks must have an amazing following for that to be at all worthwhile.  I'm half debating buying some of the replacements up so when the glue finally dies on these drivers I'm not out of luck. 

Here's a question for you:  I've never had anything but HT receivers.  I've been so impressed with the quality of that Onkyo amp (probably the best wedding present we got, in my opinion), that I've been wondering if it isn't a disservice to use the relatively cheap Marantz receiver as the pre-amp.  How does source-direct mode on a receiver like that compare with say, a separate stereo pre-amp?  Take, for example, the onkyo integra servo (whatever that means) pre-amp that was released with that old 504.  Is this a case where older and dedicated might be better than the new mass marketish receiver?  Just curious. :-)

Welcome to the wonderful (expensive) world of high-end home audio.

In general, seperate amps/preamps will provide higher quality and better sound than an integrated amp or receiver.  That being said, the differences can be very subtle and very expensive to realize.  A good high-end HT receiver from any of the better companies like Yamaha, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer Elite, Harmon-Kardon, etc. can be very good indeed and can rival seperates in the same price range.  In fact, a few years ago I replaced my Pioneer Elite HT receiver with a nice set of Chiro seperates looking for that extra quality edge.  Spent three times what the receiver cost.  But then after two years I replaced the seperates with my (current) Sunfire receiver and was surprised that it sounded much better.  Plus the flexibility, size savings, better looks, etc. all made it an overall win.  So like all things in audio, look for the features you want and then AUDITION the gear and buy what sounds best to you that is in your price range.