Help With Fronts and Surrounds

Bmayberry

I currently have a Polk Lsic center channel and need to get new fronts and surrounds. The room size is 16' wide by 19' deep. Because of the way the windows are, there is only about 12" between the trim of the windows near the back corners of the room and the ceiling, so I don't think large surrounds will work very well (the back wall has one long set of windows, and the window trim again stops 12" below the ceiling).

Playback would be 90%+ for TV/movies and the rest music.

To match the LSIc center, I was looking at the LSI-9s for the fronts and Fxi-A4s for the surrounds and mount them on the side walls near the back.

Does this sound like I'm on the right track?

Edit: I also have a 12" Velodyne Sub for the lows.

HTguru1982

Sounds fine to me. Most would probably recommend the LSi7 or LSiFX for your surrounds but timbre matching isn't as important so you could definitely get away with the less expensive FXi speakers.

Bmayberry

HTguru1982 wrote: »

Sounds fine to me. Most would probably recommend the LSi7 or LSiFX for your surrounds but timbre matching isn't as important so you could definitely get away with the less expensive FXi speakers.

Thanks! The LSiFx's look great, I was just worried that they might be too tall to fit in the 12" space between the top window trim and the ceiling.

tonyb

What are you using to drive all those LSI's ?

Bmayberry

A Marantz SR6006 for now, unless I need more power?

HTguru1982

You'll definitely need more power.

Bmayberry

HTguru1982 wrote: »

You'll definitely need more power.

Or go the fx surrounds and drop down to the 7's on the fronts?

HTguru1982

That will help out a little bit. You may still have to watch your volume levels. The 7's aren't hard to drive by themselves but with the LSiC, they will be fairly difficult to drive with just your receiver.

If you don't have a lot to spend on an amp, something like this will work:
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1316634362&/Carver-AV-405-AV-405-5ch-amp-a

Bmayberry

HTguru1982 wrote: »

That will help out a little bit. You may still have to watch your volume levels. The 7's aren't hard to drive by themselves but with the LSiC, they will be fairly difficult to drive with just your receiver.

If you don't have a lot to spend on an amp, something like this will work:
http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1316634362&/Carver-AV-405-AV-405-5ch-amp-a

Thanks for the advice and the link. Volume levels shouldn't get too loud right now with a 2 year old running around the house but I know that too little power can wreak havoc.

nwohlford

Bmayberry wrote: »

A Marantz SR6006 for now, unless I need more power?

Unless you can find somebody else who has tried it, I would not suggest hooking three or more 4 ohm speakers up to that receiver. Marantz only lists 6 or 8 ohm as options. You may still be able to get away with it, but I would suggest not turning the volume up too loud. A two or more channel high current amp would be advisable.

Bmayberry

nwohlford wrote: »

Unless you can find somebody else who has tried it, I would not suggest hooking three or more 4 ohm speakers up to that receiver. Marantz only lists 6 or 8 ohm as options. You may still be able to get away with it, but I would suggest not turning the volume up too loud. A two or more channel high current amp would be advisable.

Got it, thanks. Wondering if I should get a different center channel and start over?

polkfarmboy

You could buy a set of white fxi and mount them on the ceiling, it would be tricky but not impossible

Matching the surrounds is not really as crucial like it would be for the front soundstage . It would still sound awesome because the marantz auto cal would smooth it all out

tonyb

You have to remember also that in surround mode, the receiver puts out far less power to those 4 ohm speakers. You really need more power for a full lsi setup than a standard receiver can offer. Just my .02 and something to think about.

nwohlford

Bmayberry wrote: »

Got it, thanks. Wondering if I should get a different center channel and start over?

If you like the sound of the LSi series, I would stick with that. Given what you said, it does not seem like you need a lot of power for now especially if you go with the LSi7s upfront. You will need high current, though. You could look at a used 60-100 Watt (8 ohms rating) two-channel amp. Something like a Adcom gfa-545 which would run you usually around 150 dollars would be adequate, but there are comparable amps from a number of brands. I have run the LSi7s with a gfa-535 (60 Watts at 8 ohms) and they sound great and can get loud (but it is a relatively small room).

I would just make sure to get a high current amp. (For high current, I look for a 50% or greater jump going from the 8 ohm to 4 ohm power rating using the same criteria with not much change in the THD.)

You could then run the center channel off of the receiver and get the easier to drive fxi surrounds you had mentioned.

If you want to look for a three channel amp on the cheap, I have noticed that some of the older Adcoms five channel amps that had lower power to the rear channels such as gfa-6000 go for less than the equivalent three channel amp (probably not local for you but here is an example: http://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/2542096394.html). These would make nice three channel amps, and you could just power the rears off the Marantz.

Bmayberry

nwohlford wrote: »

If you like the sound of the LSi series, I would stick with that. Given what you said, it does not seem like you need a lot of power for now especially if you go with the LSi7s upfront. You will need high current, though. You could look at a used 60-100 Watt (8 ohms rating) two-channel amp. Something like a Adcom gfa-545 which would run you usually around 150 dollars would be adequate, but there are comparable amps from a number of brands. I have run the LSi7s with a gfa-535 (60 Watts at 8 ohms) and they sound great and can get loud (but it is a relatively small room).

I would just make sure to get a high current amp. (For high current, I look for a 50% or greater jump going from the 8 ohm to 4 ohm power rating using the same criteria with not much change in the THD.)

You could then run the center channel off of the receiver and get the easier to drive fxi surrounds you had mentioned.

If you want to look for a three channel amp on the cheap, I have noticed that some of the older Adcoms five channel amps that had lower power to the rear channels such as gfa-6000 go for less than the equivalent three channel amp (probably not local for you but here is an example: http://baltimore.craigslist.org/ele/2542096394.html). These would make nice three channel amps, and you could just power the rears off the Marantz.

Great info, thanks! I have had friends who have been very happy with Adcom amps. Makes a lot of sense. I have lots to think about...