Onkyo receiver with Rti-A5 speakers

alkit

Hi,

My setup is as follows:
Fronts: Polk Audio Rti-A5
Center: Polk Audio Csi-A6
Surrounds: Polk Audio Rti-A1
Subs: Jamo Sub300 x2
Receiver: Onkyo TX-NR708

I just recently got all the above when I upgraded my home cinema. I use my setup mainly for HT use.

I have already run the Audyssey calibration on my receiver.

I find that the high notes (such as hissing and female voices) sound a bit "bright".

I've read on a few posts that "bright" speakers are better for HT, and that's why I went with the Rti-A series. But in truth, I find the brightness to be a bit irritating. Surely "warm" or "neutral" speakers would sound better, even for HT? How can brightness be a good thing?

Could it be that the receiver is the wrong match for these speakers? Will the brightness disappear as I use the speakers more (burn in)?

Thanks for the help!

alienwatcher

The A5s are pretty "bright". I had mine running directly off my Yamaha 663 for a long while and the sound was definitely in your face. This is kind of what I wanted when I bought them as I was hoping to get speakers that would allow me to hear everything even at lower volumes. While there was a definite improvement after the speakers broke in and later when I added an HK amp, they still sound "bright" to some. I had a buddy over recently who swears by Klipsch and he noticed it too. He attributed that characteristic as a selling point of the Rti's and many Klipsch speakers as "home theater" speakers (hearing all the detail). While I really, really like how mine sound, they are different at first. Try different tweaks and changes and see what works best for you. If you're into modding your speakers, I'm sure new caps/etc can be purchased online. Good luck!

tonyb

You could also try a warmer sounding speaker cable. Kimber 4tc or 8tc come to mind. What are you useing on them now ?
Also tweek the settings a bit in the receivers menu, the auto calibration sometimes doesn't get it right, or may not be to your taste.

alienwatcher

tonyb wrote: »

You could also try a warmer sounding speaker cable. Kimber 4tc or 8tc come to mind. What are you useing on them now ?
Also tweek the settings a bit in the receivers menu, the auto calibration sometimes doesn't get it right, or may not be to your taste.

tonyb's right. I don't want to get into a cable debate here, but switching away from Monster cables made a huge difference. Also, my Yamaha had a "Natural" (high midrange rolloff) EQ setting. I tried that and liked it much better than Flat with the A5's. Finally, this may not change your mind about the speakers being bright, but get rid of those metal jumpers! Speakers sound much better without them in my experience.

abc5

what metal jumpers?

jbooker82

alienwatcher wrote: »

tonyb's right. I don't want to get into a cable debate here, but switching away from Monster cables made a huge difference. Also, my Yamaha had a "Natural" (high midrange rolloff) EQ setting. I tried that and liked it much better than Flat with the A5's. Finally, this may not change your mind about the speakers being bright, but get rid of those metal jumpers! Speakers sound much better without them in my experience.

What do you recomend replacing the jumpers with? Your talking about the metal straps that you remove for bi amping right?

Ron Temple

jbooker82 wrote: »

What do you recomend replacing the jumpers with? Your talking about the metal straps that you remove for bi amping right?

Speaker wire between the top and bottom posts...old school.

Cmiller

Ron Temple wrote: »

Speaker wire between the top and bottom posts...old school.

Why would you do that? whats the difference in using the "jumpers" that do the samething?

pdxfj

If things are sounding a bit "bright" in movies, you can try several things to suit your taste.

Turn on Dynamic EQ
With Dynamic EQ on set Dynamic Volume to "light"
Also there is a "Re-EQ" setting for TrueHD and DTS-MA which will roll the high end off a little and tame some of the "brightness".

Check to make sure "late night" is turned "off". This setting bugs the hell out of me since it turns it self back to "auto".

Lastly try the different "THX" modes. THX also has it's own "Re-EQ" setting, but no access to any of the Audyssey Dynamic EQ/Volume options.

I find that some soundtracks sound better with just a direct decode an no additional EQ settings, some sound better with Dynamic EQ and others in THX Cinema.

My suggestions are coming from my 608 which only has Audyssey 2EQ so your options might be a bit different.

kuntasensei

Some of the harshness will go away as the speakers are broken in, but I do have a few questions:

1) When you ran Audyssey, did you use a tripod for the mic?
2) Did you do all available mic positions?
3) After Audyssey, what crossover settings did the Onkyo end up with?

Ron Temple

Cmiller wrote: »

Why would you do that? whats the difference in using the "jumpers" that do the samething?

The brass jumper is a suspect conductor. I've used them and I've used wire. You may not hear a difference and you might. I can't say that I've checked. When I say old school, I mean that's how Polk did it themselves before they came up with the brass jumpers. The reason I've used wire is that I bought speakers that had missing jumpers.

MLZ

Ron Temple wrote: »

The brass jumper is a suspect conductor. I've used them and I've used wire. You may not hear a difference and you might. I can't say that I've checked. When I say old school, I mean that's how Polk did it themselves before they came up with the brass jumpers. The reason I've used wire is that I bought speakers that had missing jumpers.

Or, like I have done, you can bi-wire using something reasonably priced like Canare 4s11 speaker cable ($1.35/ foot at Bluejeans) . I didn't hear any difference but like the cables and the look :cool: after I covered them with Techflex and heat shrink.