About 13 months ago I bought an Onkyo HT-R380 A/V receiver which came with the HTP-380 5.1 speaker package, which is good enough to get you started but has some severe limitations, especially when pushed past 55% to 60% volume, sounding harsh and disjointed in the midrange!
I already bought a set of Pioneer SP-FS51-LR floorstanding speakers for music playback as the sub satellite package sounded atrocious at any volume when playing music, completely disjointed sound, poor blend between subwoofer and satellites. I liked the FS-SP51-LR so much that I had already decided I want to complete the set-up with the matching centre and bookshelf speakers.
Because these speakers are much larger that the speakers they replace; mounting them is a no-go as I the walls are not solid walls! So I will need to put them on stands; right now the SP-BS21-LR bookshelf speakers are sat on the back of the sofa until I can find some suitable stands for a sensible price, I refuse to pay more for stands than I did the speakers sitting on them! Same issue for the SP-C21 centre speaker, the centre channel speaker is sitting on it’s own box on top of my HTPC behind the TV to get it above the top of the HDTV, there is nowhere else I can install it!
I am very happy with the sound improvement, obviously the bookshelf/surround speakers don’t have as much low end thump as the centre and floorstanding speakers because of the smaller 4in bass/mid driver but still a gigantic improvement on the single 2 1/2in “full-range” driver it replaces. The centre speaker has the same 5 1/4in drivers that feature in the floorstanders, which means plenty of punch and clarity although it does lose 10hz on the lower end of the scale! Both bookshelf and centre speakers feature the same 1in soft dome tweeter as the floorstanders!
The only downside to buying these speakers was when I unboxed them, I noticed that a couple of the fixed grills were not attached, I had to reattach one on the centre and one of the bookshelf, not a problem but it does taint the experience of new gadgets, it’s not meant to be self assembly!