Rti 12 2 week review

naturallight

First let describe the room. It's a basement area, concrete floor with a thin rug. Dropped ceiling, about 7 1/2' high. Room is about 14x28 with a bar at the other end. There are chairs and tables in the room. I'm sure it is far from perfect but is NOT a bright room. The back of the 12's sit about 9" off the back wall, the one speaker sits about 14" off the side wall. The other is next to the opening for the entrance into the room.
There is no toe in at this point, there firing strait ahead. I'm normally sitting about 14' back in the room.

The equipment is an Onkyo M-504 power amp, Adcom pre, and a Jolida CD. Nothing else hooked up at this time. All cables and inter connects are Monster type. Not the best, but not the worst. This is a strict 2 channel stereo setup.

Bottom end... With the speakers so close to the back wall, you might think they would be muddy. But they are anything but. There is plenty of bass, and it is VERY accurate. It is big, full, not muddy at all..lots of chest feel.. You do NOT need a sub for 2 channel stereo with these speakers, Unless your used to/want over exaggerated Bass. Assuming you have the right power to run them.

Mids, and treble. Now some people have called them "bright" I will use the term "accurate"...which in some "audiophile" circles equates to bright.
But i don't feel that is the case here. The problems lie in the cd's or how they were EQ'd and compressed.

Basically, badly recorded/EQ'd cd's show up on these speakers in spades.
In some cases, your almost at the point of getting up and turning down the treble, as it's almost at the point of being too much. This usually happens on remastered old analog recordings, and is the fault of the engineer behind the console. Not the speakers. Well recorded Cd's on the other hand are wonderful. The vocals are sweet, and melodic, you hear all the emotion in the voice, guitars come across perfectly. Again i will use the term very "accurate" You can pretty much hear every little thing thats going on. Which on other speakers you may not.
The equipment that your running on these speakers may add to the comment of them being bright. The M-504 was never considered a "bright" amp, and either is the Jolida, the Adcom neither adds or takes away, so it's pretty neutral

You may find some of your cd's that sounded ok on other speakers, are no longer that great on the 12's.

The sound stage on the 12's is very good, wide and deep. They will fill that size room with sound. There not as directional as i would have expected. Altho i am sitting farther back then most people.
The speakers only have about 60 hours of play time on them. But they just keep getting better. These speakers do need brake in time. The drivers are stiff as planks when they first come out of the box. The general feeling seems to be about 200 hours before they really start to shine. I'm not sure they can get much better, but will see. When i reach that point, i will give them a little toe in...probably move my seating a little closer, then really give them a full on review, with more "audiophile" type comments. If i can find the right words..LOL Right now there exceptional speakers, for the price.

naturallight

Just a note on this. The Adcom is always run with the bass and treble controls in the 12 o'clock position. I never try to add or take away anything. The volume control for most cd's runs between 10-11 o'clock.
At 11 o'clock on most cd's...it is extremely LOUD. On older recordings that the volume is not extreme, you can get up to 12 or a little past.
In no case is the M-504 working hard. It's nowere near close to clipping...there is plenty of headroom with this amp. To be honest, you just don't need to push these on most cd's past 11. It just becomes too dam loud. Like ear damage loud.

I do believe the equipment you use to run these, will greatly effect the sound. You pretty much have to have a real Hi Currant amp. The sound difference is shocking. You will lose bass and everything else, without one. As far as watts go, not sure i could really say. I'm not sure you really want to run these with anything less then 120 watts per. I don't really see any receiver working to well with the 12's, but i could be wrong.

my comments about the remastered cd's, is because i have the original vinyl recordings. They were played on this same system with Polk SDA's...they were never that bad or treble heavy. Unfortunately 90% of the 7 milk crates of vinyl i have, after 30 years have all been over played, and have plenty of scratches. But i may still have to break out the TT, get a new cartrige, new record cleaners, and see what i can salvage out of it.

I have tried other speakers before the 12's. I bought a set of Axiom m80's
Nice speakers, they are very "accurate", but as with most column type speakers, they were lacking bass. Sitting in the same room and same equipment. The bass drivers were smaller, and only 2 of them. The cabinet is much smaller. Again, Nice but just missing the bottom end.
I also listened to some Matin Logan stuff.(at a store) Very nice, but without a sub, again missing the bottom end. So tack on another grand to the already high price of the ML's. The ML's are hard to fault on the mids, and high end, but the bass is not there. Maybe if you spend 5K on the really big ones, it may be there. But my pockets are NOT that deep. The smaller ones work fine if you throw a 1K sub at them..but your dealing with an easy 3K package at that point.

I'm not calling the 12's perfect. But there is no lack of bass. There more in your face then the ML's, which tend to be more laid back and mellow sort of speaker. In time the 12's may become more mellow. The 12's are very dynamic, very foward, in you face type speakers. The ML's are dynamic but more laid back. If that makes any sence. But there is a hugh price difference between the two.

TouchOfEvil

nice review man, good job. enjoy the rig!!

naturallight

Thanks touch. I do believe these speakers even at the original price of $1600 were a great deal. At the Polk ebay price i got them for..there just an out right steal, period. To get close you would have to spend an easy 3K if not alot more.

I believe the problem comes in with Power. Plus the fact these speakers are like rock hard when you first take them out of the box. These speakers are very..NOT fluid when they are first played..they need time to break in.
When i first got them, i used a QSC G5 to try them out.
They were shipped from CA, and the box had a big gash in it. The speakers had no outside damage. But the QSC has more protection circuits, and clipping leds.
The amp has massive power, but i don't think is a true hi current amp.
The speakers worked fine, with no problems..sounded OK.

So then i switched out the QSC for the Onkyo M504..... BIG difference. The bass was massive..everything came alive. The 504 is a true hi current dual mono block amp..the QSC is not. BIG difference.

The speakers have mellowed after 60 hours of play..but are still very in your face type speakers. Which some people may not like. They may mellow more as there played more.

For tower speakers ..they put out massive bass, as good as any 12" speaker set up, that i have heard. Far beyond anything the Axioms or the ML's could put out on there own.

If you bought them at the $1600 price, hopefully you had the right amp to push them. If not..then they may have come up lacking.
The speakers are very amp dependent...on what you will get out of them.
Basically you can't run a 800 dollar receiver that puts out a supposed 100 watts on these...probably NOT going to work well.

All i can see is the lack of bass, or the bright comments stem from the equipment used...not the fault of the speakers.

tonyb

naturallight wrote: »

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All i can see is the lack of bass, or the bright comments stem from the equipment used...not the fault of the speakers.

Good point, and one we all like to drive home on many occasions. Glad your diggin' the 12's, rock on.