What did the reviews say that was negative?
Did they claim to have the speakers crossed
over?
These speakers need power, maybe they were running
off of deck power? Or too small an amp.
RSD's are not the best speakers you can buy by any
stretch, but properly crossed over and with a lot of
power they are strong contenders to anything under
$150 (online price) or even $200 (retail).
A lot can be said for setting the amps gain control properly,
using the proper crosover frequency (80-100Hz HP) and
not feeding the amp distorted signals from the head unit.
Distorted signals include things like cranking the headunit to 10/10,
poorly ripped mp3's or CD's, and radio stations that are weak staticky
or cutting in and out. You can play such sources, but not at high volume.
That tends to fry your tweeters. It's called cumulative error, or amplifying
a distorted signal.
What youve asked for is a budget settup. You can move to
the $400-$450 (amp & speakers) range for more piece of mind;
but you may not get a lot better sound out of it.
Anyway, good luck.