Wiim Amp with Polk XT15 & Polk PSW10

[Vicious]

Howdy, me again
Considering my current kit - Polk PSW10 10" active sub, and Polk XT15's paired up with the WiiM Amp

If there's anything to consider as a upgrade, where and what would that be - I'm leaning towards the Polk XT15's being replaced first, but maybe the Sub? I don't think the Amp will need replacing anytime soon.

The reason I'm thinking about a slight speaker replacement/swap. My wife would like a WiiM in the entertainment area with bookshelf speakers as well, for casual listening when she's busy in the general area.

Thought about getting a slight bump in quality speakers to replace my Polk XT15's, and give that to her. But what's a feasible upgrade, considering the Polk's size. Looking around and watching reviews, the next tier seems to be around 250-400$, but you lovely smart people would probably know a bit more if it's a better return on investment to replace the sub or speakers first.

 

[Vicious]

Can get the XT20’s for 50$ more than the polk XT15, and the following, monitor audio bronze 50 for the same price as the XT20, used bronze 100 for the same price (5 months old) but these look massive

 

[dominikz]

After experiencing the large initial improvements in sound quality I fully understand that continuous gear upgrades can seem very appealing, but IMHO you are already in diminishing returns territory since you optimized your system with placement and EQ, so I'd suggest to seriously temper your expectations if you are looking to upgrade any further.
While some loudspeakers would surely sound different, that doesn't necessarily also mean better. There's a real danger you might end up feeling that you are paying a lot more without getting proportionally higher enjoyment from your music.

So the first thing I'd propose is to live with your current system for a while before you consider any changes - you may just realize you're happy with it as is. That being said, it is also fine to upgrade if you feel you need to for any reason (or even without a reason at all).

Your subwoofer is probably fine if you don't need extension below 30Hz or extremely high playback levels. I occasionally find <30Hz content in media and it can be quite pleasing to have a system that can reproduce it, but most rock and metal has nothing below 30Hz. Also, very low frequencies travel through walls easily - that might be worth considering, especially if you live in an apartment building.

Your loudspeakers (XT15) with some EQ are IMHO the best choice in their price class. Given that your setup is ultra-nearfield/desktop I don't really see any benefit going with the larger XT20, because it is unlikely you would be overdriving the XT15 in practice.

If you want help choosing subwoofers I'd suggest to look at the amazing comparison sheet created by an ASR member sweetchaos in this thread.
It contains a huge number of subwoofers and results of CEA-2010-A (and in some cases CTA-2010-B) compliant measurements where they exist. You can filter and sort on budget and performance to find a list of potential candidates. Personally, I'd only look at models where reliable measurement data is available.

For choosing loudspeakers you can start with spinorama.org, where you can filter and sort many loudspeaker models based on budget and anechoic performance.
Please note that while the "tonality score" is a really useful tool for narrowing down the number of candidates, it has approx. 1-2 points of uncertainty so it should not be taken as gospel. While in general the higher the score the better the loudspeaker is; a loudspeaker with e.g. tonality score of 4 might be just as good (or better) than one that scores e.g. 5 on tonality (or not). Being able to read and understand CEA2034 (i.e. "Spinorama") measurement graphs (+ a few additional measurements) would be required to better understand the differences between loudspeakers. Some basic guidance is provided here, including links for deeper learning.

Lastly, even very well-measuring loudspeakers can sound a little bit different to each other due to small differences in their sound dispersion characteristics. In this case you may prefer one or the other, or you may decide both are equally fine for you. Note that in time your hearing will adapt to most sound signatures so it is debatable how much time is worth spending on it once audible differences become objectively small.
Not to even mention that small audible differences are usually swamped by a plethora of perceptual and cognitive biases, room effects and differences in loudspeaker placement in practice...

Anyway, hope you found some of this helpful!

 

[Vicious]

After experiencing the large initial improvements in sound quality I fully understand that continuous gear upgrades can seem very appealing, but IMHO you are already in diminishing returns territory since you optimized your system with placement and EQ, so I'd suggest to seriously temper your expectations if you are looking to upgrade any further.
While some loudspeakers would surely sound different, that doesn't necessarily also mean better. There's a real danger you might end up feeling that you are paying a lot more without getting proportionally higher enjoyment from your music.

So the first thing I'd propose is to live with your current system for a while before you consider any changes - you may just realize you're happy with it as is. That being said, it is also fine to upgrade if you feel you need to for any reason (or even without a reason at all).

Your subwoofer is probably fine if you don't need extension below 30Hz or extremely high playback levels. I occasionally find <30Hz content in media and it can be quite pleasing to have a system that can reproduce it, but most rock and metal has nothing below 30Hz. Also, very low frequencies travel through walls easily - that might be worth considering, especially if you live in an apartment building.

Your loudspeakers (XT15) with some EQ are IMHO the best choice in their price class. Given that your setup is ultra-nearfield/desktop I don't really see any benefit going with the larger XT20, because it is unlikely you would be overdriving the XT15 in practice.

If you want help choosing subwoofers I'd suggest to look at the amazing comparison sheet created by an ASR member sweetchaos in this thread.
It contains a huge number of subwoofers and results of CEA-2010-A (and in some cases CTA-2010-B) compliant measurements where they exist. You can filter and sort on budget and performance to find a list of potential candidates. Personally, I'd only look at models where reliable measurement data is available.

For choosing loudspeakers you can start with spinorama.org, where you can filter and sort many loudspeaker models based on budget and anechoic performance.
Please note that while the "tonality score" is a really useful tool for narrowing down the number of candidates, it has approx. 1-2 points of uncertainty so it should not be taken as gospel. While in general the higher the score the better the loudspeaker is; a loudspeaker with e.g. tonality score of 4 might be just as good (or better) than one that scores e.g. 5 on tonality (or not). Being able to read and understand CEA2034 (i.e. "Spinorama") measurement graphs (+ a few additional measurements) would be required to better understand the differences between loudspeakers. Some basic guidance is provided here, including links for deeper learning.

Lastly, even very well-measuring loudspeakers can sound a little bit different to each other due to small differences in their sound dispersion characteristics. In this case you may prefer one or the other, or you may decide both are equally fine for you. Note that in time your hearing will adapt to most sound signatures so it is debatable how much time is worth spending on it once audible differences become objectively small.
Not to even mention that small audible differences are usually swamped by a plethora of perceptual and cognitive biases, room effects and differences in loudspeaker placement in practice...

Anyway, hope you found some of this helpful!

Thank you, as usual @dominikz - Your insight is always decent and supportive.
I'm not in a rush to go out and buy the next best thing. The wife would like a set for her area, but in due time once I find a wiim amp on special or used for a good price.

Just thought the Monitor Audio Bronze 100's, for the price and even used, were appealing, but damn they're quite big, i'd have to re-arrange my setup and considering bringing them down to the table on mounts pointing them slightly upwards towards me. Nonetheless, still rearrangement needed.

Again, not in a rush right now, just scoping if the Monitor Audio Bronze series would be a 'better' loudspeaker compared to the Polk XT range.

 

[dominikz]

Thank you, as usual @dominikz - Your insight is always decent and supportive.

No problem, I'm glad if you find my comments helpful!

Sorry, I couldn't find full anechoic measurements of the Monitor Audio Bronze series so I can't say if they’d be better or not.

I can say however that I'd personally only consider loudspeaker models for which a full suite of measurements is available.