RTi 12 Speakers, thinking of buying

stvans

I am thinking about purchasing a pair of RTi 12 Speakers.

Can any owers of RTi 12 Speakers please give me any feedback about the speakers.

Thanks

Steve Van Schultz

RVJII

As anyone here will tell you, what matters most is how they sound to you. You should try and find someplace to audition them.

Having said that, I am VERY happy with mine. (I picked them after hearing the LSi15's, which sounded rather "flat" to me.) Once they were broken in the mids seemed very smooth/open and the bass is tight and hits hard. Some people say that the highs are too bright but they sound just fine to me. (one of those subjective things) I originally was driving them with my receiver (110 watts per) and was very happy. I did notice though that adding seperate 200 watt mono blocks caused them to sound even better. Not sure if it is individual PS's, more headroom, etc but it did make quite a difference. I guess that my advice is to just make sure that you have a high power/high current source to really take advantage of these. (Otherwise you might go for the 10's or 8's with a sub.)

From a looks/construction they are very well put together. (mine are cherry) They are extremely solid and very stable despite their height and width.

If I can give you anything more specific let me know.

stvans

Thanks your your reply.

You mentioned that you need plenty of power to drive these speakers.

My current reciver is the Harmon Kardon AVR520 which is 80 watts per channel in 2 channel mode and 75 watts per channel in 5 channel mode.

Harmon Kardon is very conservative in rating their recievers and probably this is the equivelant of a 100 watt Sony, JVC, Yamaha, reciever, etc.

With your experience with the RTi12's, do you think this reciever is powerfull enough to drive these speakers.

The other speaker I was looking at was the Paradigm Monitor 90P V2, which has a powered subwoofer built into the speakers.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Steve Van Schultz

brettw22

Steve,

It's not that your receiver won't run the 12's, but it's not going to run them as well as something like a seperate amp or a receiver with a bunch more juice.

RVJII

I am very familair with HK as I've been running them since 1988. (I have been very disappointed in their products over the last few years, which is why I made the switch to Onkyo 6 months ago.)

Anyway, as Brett said your HK will run the 12's but you really aren't going to be taking full advantage of them. There are people here who would tell you that even with 200 watt mono blocks I am still a bit underpowered on mine. (At one point I actually considered getting an Outlaw 755 and using 4 channels to bi-amp them, which would have been 400 watts per.)

Like I mentioned in my fist post, my receiver did run them and they did sound very good. When I added the seperate amps though there was a noticable difference. The bass improved quite a bit and the overall sound seemed somehow "smoother". (not sure if that makes sense) Someone here once used an analogy of a 4 cylinder vs. an 8 cylinder engine...they'll both do 60 but the V8 is not straining and has plenty of resever power for quick acceleration. (Also, don't forget that seperate amps tend to have much larger power supplies than receivers even if they have the same wattage rating.)

My honest feeling is that if you plan to stay with just the receiver then you might be happier going with the 10's or 8's and a powered sub. My own experiece tells me that you'll never reach the full potential of the 12's with a receiver.

nico

:cool: I agree with you RVJII I have the older model RTI50's and I used to run them with just the SONY 4ES receiver it sounded nice but like he said you need to give it real power to fully take advantage of its capability. I now have the EARTHQUAKE 5 channel amp 300x5 running them and it really opened up even more. I was thinking of trading mine for the 12's at CC but I'm happy with the RTI50'S right now.

Airplay355

i had the rti150s and ran them off a receiver and they sounded perfectly fine. do not think that if you get those speakers you WILL need an amp because its not true. an amp is an option and is not needed to enjoy these speakers. you can still enjoy them running them off a receiver but if you can afford an amp then it will make them much better.

do not be afraid to buy them because you cant get amps. listen to them on a receiver and decide how you like it.

nico

:cool: True that:cool: like I said, I was running mine with my SONY 4ES AND THEY SOUNDED FINE but I wanted to take some of the workload off of the receiver and I had some money to spend so I bought the amp:D the bass is a lot tighter and I don't have to turn it up a lot to feel it anymore. Right now the receiver is only powering the 2 back surrounds and maybe in a couple of months or so I'm going to upgrade to a ROTEL 1098 pre/pro or the new SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE pre/pro:)

nico

Does anyone here have any opinions about the HOME DEPOT 12G speaker wires? Are they as good as any, are they worth buying? How are they compare to MONSTER, AUDIO QUEST etc?