Polk Audio RM95

The good: Five-piece home theater speaker package; supercompact satellites and center speakers; wide dispersion design produces a room-filling sound; shelf and wall brackets are included.

The bad: You'll need to provide the subwoofer; spring-clip connectors rather than banana jacks; small size limits dynamic range; achieving optimal crossover with a subwoofer can be a challenge.

The bottom line: Its unusual triangular design helps the Polk Audio RM95 home theater speaker package project a spacious sound, but it can't rock out at higher volumes.

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Description: The Polk Audio RM95 is a five speaker, compact surround sound system. Compared to other compact speaker systems on the market, it is relatively expensive at around $600.

Pros: Choosing a speaker system (rather than mixing and matching components) ensures your home theater will have voice-matched speakers. Matched speakers in a home theater system will result in a more seamless, plausible, and immersive sound experience.

Cons: Has a passive amplification type, which is considerably less favorable than some similarly priced speaker systems.

Suitability: Suited for smaller rooms.

Value: In general, this speaker system's features are as expected for this price.

Suggestions: (1) Visit CNET's surround sound speaker guide for more information about buying packaged systems. (2) Learn more about home theater speakers at CNET's surround sound buying guide.