Auditioned the RTi12 yesterday

bigsexy1

This speaker is awesome. It was at a different CC than I compared the 8s vs. the 70s last week (which unfortunately meant that I didn't get to see the hot blonde again). However, the 2 kids working there actually were quite knowledgeable about their stuff. One of them said that he has a B&K/B&W system at home. Not all CC employees are totally ignorant when it comes to their equipment.

Anyways, this store didn't have 8s yet to compare the 12s with, but it didn't matter. I can unequivocally state right now that they blow both the 150s and the 8s/70s out of the water! They were only being driven by a $700 or $800 Onkyo receiver, and I know that they were hi-passed, but this really is an incredible speaker. Listened to some Led Zeppelin. Price was $700 ea. I know that there are a lot of good if not great speaker brands out there right now on the market, but at this price, you really would be hard pressed to top this.

I'd be very interested to see other's opinions here in a RTi12 vs. LSi15 shootout on some high power, high quality seperates on rock music. Could be very interesting. I honestly think the LSi15 owners here might be in for a shocking surprise.

Dr. Spec

Originally posted by bigsexy1
(which unfortunately meant that I didn't get to see the hot blonde again)

This is all we really care about. I want to hear more about that quarter bouncing ****. :cool:

bigsexy1

Doc, I swear to you that she had an onion ****, meaning that you take just one look at it, and it makes you want to cry!

Dr. Spec

Originally posted by bigsexy1
Doc, I swear to you that she had an onion ****, meaning that you take just one look at it, and it makes you want to cry!

Do we ever get tired of the female form?

brettw22

Originally posted by Dr. Spec
Do we ever get tired of the female form?

Yes.....;)

stevew14

Hey Big,

I picked up a pair yesterday and they are indeed awesome. They sound even better in my setup/room than at Frys where I auditioned them several times side to side with the 150s. I was going to hook them each up to an amp and a/b them but that requires moving the big **** rack and what not. After substituing them for the 150s( in the exact same place no less) and listening to them for a bit, I don't think the a/b is necessary. I'm sold on these.

The only kicker is CC is only carrying the black and even if the corporate office would agree to a special order for the cherry, they wouldn't do it for a trade up. I like the black finish better than the black 150s, but I did kind of want the cherry this time. It looks very nice. I'll call tomorrow and see if there's any way to do that. Why on earth would they not carry the cherry????????

Tour2ma

Originally posted by brettw22
Yes.....;)

WAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa....

bigsexy1

ATC, the speakers do look good, but they still don't look as good as that beautiful blonde saleslady!

Steve, congrats. I will be getting some myself at some point. Apparently, like you, I didn't even need to do a side by side A/B comparision between them and the 150s. I could just tell right off the bat how much better the 12s are. Do not know why CC doesn't carry the cherry, but the black will match anything, while the cherry won't.

RVJII

Glad to hear that these sounded so great even on a lesser amp. Been building my new system slowly and, at least for the moment, I am going to be using a $1500 Onkyo TX-NR900. (I will bi-wire if nothing else.)

Just talked to the freight carrier and mine (in cherry) get here on Friday!

LiquidSound

Checked out CC today and they had 3 12's in stock. After a bit of pushing they pulled out two for the sake of the customer. heh. I put the feet on the two myself with a little help and first impressions are..the 12's are quite nice, I must say. Rich and smooth..but lacking something I couldn't place my finger on. Keep in mind they were JUST out of the box, and upon leaving I discovered they were hooked into the top terminals. Whether this made a difference or not, I'll find out tomorrow when I hook them up myself. If the person running the HT department is cool, I'll try a patch cord between the two terminals instead of the regular jumper. Any thoughts on this?
So anyway, in the listening room, with all kinds of bad acoustics, running off an H&K reciever I set to effects off, speakers on a hollow platform, Sony dvd changer, all running into the speaker/source/reciever switchers..I thought they were very impressive. I compared them against a pair of Infinity towers and thought the Infinities had more present midrange..but at a cost of the top end. I'm thinking wiring and lack of break in had something to do with the lack of midrange on the Polks. I used Back to Titanic *second cd in the double disc set*.. Chemical Brothers and Tool as my choices in the short lived demo. Overall, I was QUITE impressed. They look amazing. Monsters they are, with a commanding presence. They sounded full and possessed a larger range than the others. While others had one particular stronger sonic range, while sacrificing the rest, the polks produced them all quite nicely..sacrificing little. I wonder if wiring and break in will push them above the rest. I'll check the wiring aspect tomorrow. Break in will obviously take time.
I'll follow up soon. Too bad I don't have 1400 to take them home and give them a proper chance.

bigsexy1

LS, I'm sure that wiring and break in had at least a little to do with it, but probably not really all that much. It would be just (IMHO) a small subtle difference at best, and nothing extremely dramatic. CC's "soundroom" (or lack thereof) I feel would make a bigger impact than wiring and break in.

If your CC is like those around me, they don't have the HK 7200. The 525 is the highest model they carry. The 7200 is the only one that would have any chance at all of properly driving them, and even it isn't even close to being strong enough.

I know what a difference it made in my 150s going from a Denon 3802 to a couple of bi-amped Adcoms totaling 325 watts per channel of power, and I'm sure the same would hold true for the 12s. I honestly think that they need an absolute minimum of at least a 200 watt per channel seperate power amp to give you a taste of just what they are truly capable of, and even more power than that will be all the better.

I've also had the chance now (yesterday) to audition the 12 vs. the 8 side by side. Granted, the 12s didn't even come close to having enough power, and they definitely do sound better than the 8s, but I'm not sure if they would be worth twice the price of the 8s, and especially if you also had to go out and get a suitable amp or amps for them. Just like the 150s wouldn't have been worth twice the price of the 70s if you had to buy them at full price before they went clearenced.

For those interested, didn't get to see the hot blonde again yesterday. I looked all over for her, but I guess she just wasn't there. I plan on going back Tues., and maybe I'll see her then. As I recall, I believe it was a Tues. when I saw her the first time before.


BTW, RVJII, have your 12s came in yet?

Gary Robertson

I'd LOVE to hook those up with my BRYSTON and break then in for you..
Send them to me for 3 weeks...ha,ha..
damn good speaker.. You can literally drive the piss out of then..

RVJII

Got my 12's (cherry) on Friday! (Wow were the boxes big...)

Polk really did a good job with these...beautiful, solid cabinet. Hooked them up to my Onkyo (bi-wired) and let them rip. Let me just say that even with only 140 watts per they sound GREAT. (Sometime down the line I do plan to get an Adcom but for now the Onkyo has to suffice.) The Onkyo did run a bit hot but stayed out of protect mode.

Put in AC/DC Thunderstruck at 0db...darn things nearly blew me through the back wall. Followed that up with a little Satriani (Surfing with the Alien) and was highly impressed with the clarity...crisp highs (without being harsh) and well defined mids.

Of course I had to give a DVD a try and being a Friday and all I needed to let off some steam...put in the Matrix and selected the lobby shooting spree. Wow! I actually think that my neighbor thought that we were under attack! Loud, powerful, yet I could hear the "ting" of each empty shell casing as it hit the floor.

If this is what they sound like out of the box I can hardly wait to get them broken in so they open up more. I really loved my old JBL's but the 12's are definitely a worthy successor.

Gary Robertson

Originally posted by RVJII
Got my 12's (cherry) on Friday! (Wow were the boxes big...)

Polk really did a good job with these...beautiful, solid cabinet. Hooked them up to my Onkyo (bi-wired) and let them rip. Let me just say that even with only 140 watts per they sound GREAT. (Sometime down the line I do plan to get an Adcom but for now the Onkyo has to suffice.) The Onkyo did run a bit hot but stayed out of protect mode.

Put in AC/DC Thunderstruck at 0db...darn things nearly blew me through the back wall. Followed that up with a little Satriani (Surfing with the Alien) and was highly impressed with the clarity...crisp highs (without being harsh) and well defined mids.

Of course I had to give a DVD a try and being a Friday and all I needed to let off some steam...put in the Matrix and selected the lobby shooting spree. Wow! I actually think that my neighbor thought that we were under attack! Loud, powerful, yet I could hear the "ting" of each empty shell casing as it hit the floor.

If this is what they sound like out of the box I can hardly wait to get them broken in so they open up more. I really loved my old JBL's but the 12's are definitely a worthy successor.

........................................Always with ne,,Always with you and Satch boogie are the ultinate audition songs to play fron the alien.. I jam those extremely hard on my system #1

bigsexy1

RVJII, congrats. You got a fine speaker. BTW, what JBLs did you have? Reason I ask is because a neighbor of mine just this last week got a set of new JBLs studio series. 38s for mains (on stands), 2 pairs of 26s for surrounds (hung on walls), and the center channel speaker. He got all of them for like $750 new, and I was impressed, not only for the price, but for any price. They really sounded great. His receiver is a Denon 3802, with a M&K sub. Nice little system.

AC/DC is what I used to help break in my pair of 150s with, a whole changer full on repeat. Old Bon Scott era mostly, when they were at their best. Saitch is an amazing, incredible player, but you know what, one sleazy, bluesy, sustained note from Angus Young kills a hundred Satraini shredded notes.

Gary Robertson

Yeah-Young plays that good ol' Gibson SG
It has a better bottom end bite as to wher the fenders are twangy and treblesome (very screachey)--both are great , it just depends on what you're in the mood for. Satriani,Steve Vai (who Satriani taught how to play ) use Ibanez exclusively--I also believe that Satriani was Eddie Van Halen's guitar teacher also-- He had a shop on the Sunset strip in the 70's...
the old Angus is great also --songs like Beatin' around the bush is tight jammin'

bigsexy1

GR, he also taught Kirk Hammett of Metallica (who uses ESP guitars), and the guy in Testament, whose name I can't recall right now, Alex something or the other I think.


My personal favorites in no particular order are, Ted Nugent, Jimmy Page, Angus Young, and Ace Frehley (who was admittedly a big Jimmy Page rip off, but hey, if you're going to steal, then why not steal from the very best?). Out of all those, about the only one who kept "modern" and "up to date" by evolving his playing style to incorporate into some of the newer shredding (Van Halenesque) techniques with finger tapping (or two handed "hammer ons"), whammy bars, etc. was Ted, although Ace's mid 70s pick tapping solos was the precursor to Eddie's finger tapping (also, on ZZ Top's 1973 Beer drinkers and hell raisers, you can clearly hear Billy Gibbons finger tapping during the lead break solo).


I just realized that all my favs play Gibsons. I guess I just like that fat, heavy tone better than Fender's bright, biting tone. About the only true heavy metal band I can think of off hand that used Fenders is Iron Maiden, who have a very distinctive tone. David Gilmore also uses Fender and has a very distintive tone as well that I like.


BTW, what model Bryston amp do you have?

RVJII

Originally posted by bigsexy1
BTW, what JBLs did you have? Reason I ask is because a neighbor of mine just this last week got a set of new JBLs studio series. 38s for mains (on stands), 2 pairs of 26s for surrounds (hung on walls), and the center channel speaker. He got all of them for like $750 new, and I was impressed, not only for the price, but for any price. They really sounded great. His receiver is a Denon 3802, with a M&K sub. Nice little system.

I've been using a pair of JBL940's for about the past 15 years. They were great and I loved them...but these 12's are amazing.

Emlyn

Finally got a chance to test out a pair of the new RTi12s at Circuit City last night for half an hour. In short, I won't be buying them but here's my opinion on their pluses and minuses.

The cabinets are very well put together, considerably deeper, taller, and a little narrower than the RTi150s. These speakers are huge. The look of the new RTi line is growing on me a little. The grilles on the RTi12s are affixed at multiple points and look pretty durable until they're taken off and flop around. The new speakers do look considerably better with the grilles off than the RTi150s do. I see nothing to indicate that the work put into building the speakers is lesser than the previous line, but the external decorative parts could have been done better with metal instead of painted plastic. The drivers all look high quality.

The Circuit City set-up was their standard--Onkyo receiver and DVD player. This of course means there's not enough power to fairly drive the speakers. The bass was almost completely lacking. I ignored this and concentrated on the top end. I listened to a pair of RTi8s last week and wanted to hear the RTi12s to see if my opinion of the new tweeter would change. It hasn't. The tweeter sounds too bright to me. Of course, the speakers are straight out of the box but I doubt that breaking in the speakers will make that much of a difference. I prefer the smoother sound of the tweeter in the RTi150s. The clarity of the new tweeter is very good and very revealing. This may make equipment matching more difficult with the new line. The midrange sounded fine. I was considering taking a pair home to test in the right environment, but at 88 lbs each it wasn't worth the effort to me. I'd suggest testing the new speakers out before trading in previous-line RTis if you like the previous speakers a lot. Newer isn't always better in all situations.

And, I've never seen a hot sales lady working at any Circuit City store near me. :mad: