RTi12 power need

Yosh53

I have Marantz slimline NR1403 receiver 50W x 5 channels. Will this receiver be sufficient to run these speakers?

zane77

These are an older version of the RTi-a9's. 50 watts will make sound but those things (like the 9's) like to have power behind them to wake them up. You you would really want to get an amp to drive those for best performance probably a minimum of 200 watts or better.

deronb1

zane77 wrote: »

These are an older version of the RTi-a9's. 50 watts will make sound but those things (like the 9's) like to have power behind them to wake them up. You you would really want to get an amp to drive those for best performance probably a minimum of 200 watts or better.

+1000....The 12s love a lot of good clean power.

Inspector 24

Something like this would be optimal for the 12's:
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?137112-Parasound-HCA-2003-High-Current-220w-x3-Amp
/shameless promotion

nhhiep

you can biamp your amp to get 100WPC. try it. keep the vol down though. 50W for 2 mids and tweeter should be pretty decent. I have the same speaker, you won't get much bass out of it until you give me some Watts and current.

Irrenhaus

Hi
I have the same speakers and had a Parasaound 2125 125w/pc drive them and they sounded okay. Now I replaced with a Adcom 585 and they went from okay to big big wow....

naturallight

I have the same speakers. With the amp your trying to run...you can get some sound out of them. But don't try and turn the amp up much. You will just damage the speakers. You need at least 150watts per to make these speakers worth while..200watts would be better. Plus it needs to be a high current amp. Pretty much you can't run these speakers on an AVR..they just don't have the power and work well. You need a seperate power amp, for these speakers.

snake1

Is the adcom a 'warm' type of amplifier??

ravaneli

no, it is not. The term 'warm' is an insult to the accuracy of reproduction of the amplifier. Adcom makes good, accurate amps. if you want warm, you need some out of spec tube.

Inspector 24

Accuracy and tonal quality of the sound do not necessarily go hand in hand.

snake1

ravaneli wrote: »

no, it is not. The term 'warm' is an insult to the accuracy of reproduction of the amplifier. Adcom makes good, accurate amps. if you want warm, you need some out of spec tube.

Pardon me for asking, but many here have informed me that with Rti12s and A9's, a 'warm' amp is good/preferred because of the tone quality of the speakers.

Inspector 24

Snake, to provide some hopefully useful information, when I was running the A9's on just a Yamaha HTR-5990 140wpc, they were very forward sounding, very in your face, harsh and pointed at any volume which caused listening fatigue pretty quickly. My first Parasound mellowed them out a lot. Suddenly I could listen for an hour or two, no problem, and got MORE detail at lower volume, as well as more power at higher volumes, all the while they were much more laid back sounding.

Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to compare and Adcom, kinda waiting for one to pop up locally for a good deal.

snake1

I've read the very same things and thats why I was curious about Adcoms. Thanks for the info!

cstmar01

snake1 wrote: »

Pardon me for asking, but many here have informed me that with Rti12s and A9's, a 'warm' amp is good/preferred because of the tone quality of the speakers.

There are people like the one you quoted who do not believe an amp will make a difference in sound. There are several others (myself included) that do.

I had the A9's and ran them off Emo gear. For HT it was fine for 2 channel it hurt my ears as it was too forward sounding for my taste.

I had them hooked up with an Adcom and it was better, also my Parasound I had the HCA2200 was better still for sound IMO.

ravaneli

the only way for an amp to mellow the sound is to attenuate the high frequencies but that would be captured by the distortion ratings and visible on the frequency response curves. Adcom and especially Parasound have ruler-flat response curves. They reproduce the recording without any audible alterations. They are near perfectly transparent amps. They will not mellow recording regardless of what you hear here. They will do nothing at all to the recording, and you will hear it as it was recorded.

Inspector 24

The A9's also have frequency response curves which don't suggest they are a bright or forward speaker but countless individuals and reviews indicate the sound bright and forward. http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-rti-a9-speaker-system-page-2

Same thing for amps. Perhaps you need to spend time listening I stead of staring down specs and measurements? And if you don't hear differences then your decisions are much easier than others. In the mean time I'd suggest you stop telling people their experiences are not real. They are their own, you did not and can not experience them from their perspective, to suggest otherwise is quite rude.

ravaneli

the A9s are better than the A7s.. Perhaps due to the dual mid driver and different cabinet.

Also the alteration that the average speaker does to the signal is something like 100 times that of the average (SS) amp. So differences in speakers are absolutely and immediately obvious to human ear.

Amps on the other hand, even those from the mid price range like Parasound and Adcom, pass the signal through virtually unaltered.
I am doing plenty of listening, every day. Come to my house and do a blind guess between my B&K amp and my pro amps when you have that great ears. I for the life of me can't tell the difference, other than the fans of the pro amps, but I put a controller on those, so i can turn them down or stop them completely.

nwohlford

Inspector 24 wrote: »

The A9's also have frequency response curves which don't suggest they are a bright or forward speaker but countless individuals and reviews indicate the sound bright and forward. http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-rti-a9-speaker-system-page-2

The frequency curve of the A9 does suggest a bright speaker. Look at the frequency response around 10KHz (there are peaks just below and above).

http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-rti-a9-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures

Compare this to the LSi speakers.
http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-lsiii-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures

cstmar01

Once again, do something for yourself and discover your own path. Listening to people like R who never have tried anything for themselves gets people no where.

Sorry but I did own the A9's and ran them off different amps. I did hear differences regardless of what someone who never heard them states on the internet.

But once again, we must be graced with the all knowing one who claims to be the truth of audio. :rolleyes:

snake1

I think I started something....... I'll just go the safe route and find a good parasound when the time comes, that way I can't miss.

tonyb

ravaneli wrote: »

Amps on the other hand, even those from the mid price range like Parasound and Adcom, pass the signal through virtually unaltered.
I am doing plenty of listening, every day. Come to my house and do a blind guess between my B&K amp and my pro amps when you have that great ears. I for the life of me can't tell the difference, other than the fans of the pro amps, but I put a controller on those, so i can turn them down or stop them completely.

Nothing is unaltered......when doing your comparison between a B&K amp and a pro amp, did you remember to take the cotton out of your ears ?

Seriously Rav, maybe to you, you can't hear a difference and thats cool, but I'd argue the majority of folks can and not by any small measure.

Inspector 24

nwohlford wrote: »

The frequency curve of the A9 does suggest a bright speaker. Look at the frequency response around 10KHz (there are peaks just below and above).

http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-rti-a9-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures

Compare this to the LSi speakers.
http://www.hometheater.com/content/polk-lsiii-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures

Aaah, that makes it plain as day! Thanks for the comparo, I was basing my thoughts off what the reviewer said in the article:

"When I took some basic room-response measurements to try to pin this down, I didn’t see anything in the speakers’ response that suggested brightness. However, I did measure a nearly flat, uniform room response above 800 Hz, taken at 11 feet. This suggests that a closer-miked response might show a rising top end. "

Random info, looking at that again, for me Audessy bumps 1K to +1, drops 2.5K to -2, and rolls off at .5db increments at each step to 16khz. Made it sound pretty damn decent to my ear, and most importantly easy to listen to for a long time!

Come to my house and do a blind guess between my B&K amp and my pro amps when you have that great ears.

****-U-ME-ing that was directed at me, I don't claim to have great ears, though I'm flattered you think so. :redface: I only claim to hear the differences I hear.

I for the life of me can't tell the difference

Bingo. YOU can't tell the difference, someone else might be able to, might not. It doesn't matter. What matters is what someone likes the sound of which may be completely independent of what others consider right or wrong.

ravaneli

tonyb wrote: »

Seriously Rav, maybe to you, you can't hear a difference and thats cool, but I'd argue the majority of folks can and not by any small measure.

not with their eyes closed.

jaf09

i have the a9s with xpa and i like it i see the bright or warm side on speakers, but dont understand why most of people dont just adjust the sound they want from the receiver, i really dont know much about it, but i am not afraid to adventure tweaking the receiver and it makes huge difference in sound from warm to bright as you like.

naturallight

Well some amps, just play better with some speakers..don't really care what your "specks" say. It's all in the ear of the person listening. But that again is a problem, as 1 day they can sound great, the next day..not so much. If you listen to one setup too long, then you get used to that, so any difference in sound comes across pretty quick.



I have a set of RTi 12's and a set of SDA 1C's, i also have an Onkyo M-504 power amp and, also have a QSC GX 5.

Now for yucks, i tried the QSC on both sets of speakers.



Now the problem is...I don't have a switching system to try this out. It takes me a while to make the changes....so you can't hear the instant changes between the 2. But bottom line..the 12's don't like the QSC..they DO come across as too bright. The Onkyo..they don't. The SDA's in a strange twist..don't seem to mind the QSC that much. But it dose take me too long to make the changes, and depends on how long i was listening in the first place. All i can really say is the QSC dose not make the SDA's sound horrible. But if i had a switching system..could probably tell you the difference. Plus how much i had to drink while i was listening..LOL



Really all your "specks" and crap are useless, because it all comes down to the person listening....nothing more.

tonyb

jaf09 wrote: »

i have the a9s with xpa and i like it i see the bright or warm side on speakers, but dont understand why most of people dont just adjust the sound they want from the receiver, i really dont know much about it, but i am not afraid to adventure tweaking the receiver and it makes huge difference in sound from warm to bright as you like.

Tweeks to receiver settings can help a bit but not nearly as much as some good gear matching on it's own. The trick with receiver settings is to not lose any detail when trying to get a warmer sound. Some settings can do that and then mask itself as being warmer.

ravaneli

- 3 Db to the 10k + freqs will give u very warm sound. Very easy with preamp and most receivers

jaf09

tonyb wrote: »

Tweeks to receiver settings can help a bit but not nearly as much as some good gear matching on it's own. The trick with receiver settings is to not lose any detail when trying to get a warmer sound. Some settings can do that and then mask itself as being warmer.

oh ok, i see i wish i could afford better gear, but is just not possible, the good thing with my gear and tweaks i am happy!!:cheesygrin: