Could use some advice/tweaks on my set up - RTIA5's coming today
AR2186
Posts: 4
Last year I realized I was missing out on a lot of the Home Theater experience due a very budget speaker set up, so I endeavored to upgrade. Living in NYC where square footage is at a premium and my neighbors are exceptionally pesky about bass, I went with 2 TSi100's as my front left/right and a CS10 as my center channel to compliment a VSX-1022k that connects to a PS3, Xbox360 and HTPC. All of these connect to my microserver that houses blu-ray rips of movies so I can stream in high quality. Last week I finally figured set about configuring the HTPC to bitstream to the receiver and set up some very old Sony flatpanel speakers as my rear surrounds. It was astonishing how much better things sounded with DTS/AC3, and I can imagine DTS-HD/Dolby TrueHD sound even better on the right hardware.
Long story short, I decided I needed better speakers and after doing some research settled on the RTiA5's, which are arriving today. While I am no novice with technology, I have very little experience with audio and was hoping for some advice on how to tweak the system to get the best sound. The A5's are going in the front, with the TSi's going in the back. I have tried to do some research on bi-wiring and bi-amping but am still unclear as to the benefits, especially when you consider my receiver can only support bi-wiring. I would love some feedback / advice from you guys, thanks a lot for the help.
Long story short, I decided I needed better speakers and after doing some research settled on the RTiA5's, which are arriving today. While I am no novice with technology, I have very little experience with audio and was hoping for some advice on how to tweak the system to get the best sound. The A5's are going in the front, with the TSi's going in the back. I have tried to do some research on bi-wiring and bi-amping but am still unclear as to the benefits, especially when you consider my receiver can only support bi-wiring. I would love some feedback / advice from you guys, thanks a lot for the help.
Samsung 42" 120hz LCD
Pioneer VSX-1022
RTIa5 - Front Speakers
CS10 - Center channel
TSi100 - Rear speakers
PS3/Xbox360/HTPC
Pioneer VSX-1022
RTIa5 - Front Speakers
CS10 - Center channel
TSi100 - Rear speakers
PS3/Xbox360/HTPC
Post edited by AR2186 on
Comments
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Welcome to Club Polk! Don't worry about biamping/wiring, just hook it up normally and calibrate all your speakers. If your receiver has preouts, then sometime in the future you can start thinking about getting a separate amplifier to ensure that all your speakers will operate to their full potential.Marantz AV-7705 PrePro, Classé 5 channel 200wpc Amp, Oppo 103 BluRay, Rotel RCD-1072 CDP, Sony XBR-49X800E TV, Polk S60 Main Speakers, Polk ES30 Center Channel, Polk S15 Surround Speakers SVS SB12-NSD x2
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Thanks a lot, definitely something I will do later on. Will just enjoy for nowSamsung 42" 120hz LCD
Pioneer VSX-1022
RTIa5 - Front Speakers
CS10 - Center channel
TSi100 - Rear speakers
PS3/Xbox360/HTPC -
Run the calibration, then tweak by ear. Sit back and enjoy.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
You will need to upgrade your center channel first. The CSI A4 does pretty good with the A5's, but the A6 would be better. Don't know what your budget is though. You will also need a good sub. The A5's do a fairly good job on mid bass, but 30 to 50 Hz range, the start to struggle. I really don't think they could go below about 30 Hz, unless you have some great acoustics in your room.
Those would be my first 2 upgrades, your ears will tell you which is more important. -
Thanks for the feedback, I installed last night and they sound awesome. However, I definitely need to upgrade my center channel. Given that I live in NYC and the room isn't that big, will the CSI-A4's be enough or is it worth it to upgrade to the A6's?Samsung 42" 120hz LCD
Pioneer VSX-1022
RTIa5 - Front Speakers
CS10 - Center channel
TSi100 - Rear speakers
PS3/Xbox360/HTPC -
Thanks for the feedback, I installed last night and they sound awesome. However, I definitely need to upgrade my center channel. Given that I live in NYC and the room isn't that big, will the CSI-A4's be enough or is it worth it to upgrade to the A6's?
How does it sound to you? If you sit close and the room is on the small side I would think the 4 will be fine.Speakers: SDA-1C (most all the goodies)
Preamp: Joule Electra LA-150 MKII SE
Amp: Wright WPA 50-50 EAT KT88s
Analog: Marantz TT-15S1 MBS Glider SL| Wright WPP100C Amperex BB 6er5 and 7316 & WPM-100 SUT
Digital: Mac mini 2.3GHz dual-core i5 8g RAM 1.5 TB HDD Music Server Amarra (memory play) - USB - W4S DAC 2
Cables: Mits S3 IC and Spk cables| PS Audio PCs -
I'm not all that confident in my ears, but the RTI's sounded much fuller when i isoldated them in stereo mode, and they were certainly louder (though i could always adjust the center volume). I'm probably 10-12 feet away from the tv, so i would think the smaller center would be ok, but I also want to make sure I have all the speakers match as best as possible (there was a subbtle but noticible differnce in the sounds between the center and the A5's, I believe the "timbre"). I am going to move next year, so I'm ok having "too much" sound for now, if the difference between the centers are noticible enough and its worth itSamsung 42" 120hz LCD
Pioneer VSX-1022
RTIa5 - Front Speakers
CS10 - Center channel
TSi100 - Rear speakers
PS3/Xbox360/HTPC -
the A6 is the better choice, if you have room and is within your budget. I currently run the A5's with the A4 center,and Ypao set them within 1db of each other at about 14 feet. The A4 is a very capable speaker with the A5's. I would guess that it would be a challenge for it to keep up with the A7's, and too small for the A9's.
The A6 is a pretty big speaker, so if you have room, I would probably go with it.
