Would a CSiA6 center speaker sound right with vintage Polks for HT?

Tacitus86

I recently upgraded my living room TV to a 75" and no longer have a place to put the single SDA CRS I have been using as a HT center speaker.

Would a CSiA6 center speaker be a reasonable match sonically for HT use with SDA SRS fronts, RTA-15TL rears and Monitor 5b surrounds?

If not, any suggestions on a good but similarly sized center speaker that would be compatible would be appreciated, thanks.

boston1450

I have no idea about that one-honestly. Have you thought about a cs400i. I used one on 1c's & it was very good. They can be had minty for around 75-100.00 +shipping usually ive seen & bought even on the bay

Nightfall

Would a Monitor 4, 4.6, or 5jr be too big?

CS400/CS400i is usually quoted as being a pretty close match. @nbrowser uses a CSiA as a center and I think I remember him saying it wasn't a good match with his SDA's.

Monitor 5jr

Tacitus86

That's 2 votes for a CS400(i), will look into that. The new speaker will have to go under the TV on the front of the stand, I can raise the TV on blocks or something 7" or so to fit something like the CSiA6 under it but would prefer not to go much higher.

Nightfall

Tacitus86 wrote: »

That's 2 votes for a CS400(i), will look into that. The new speaker will have to go under the TV on the front of the stand, I can raise the TV on blocks or something 7" or so to fit something like the CSiA6 under it but would prefer not to go much higher.

You could set the TV ontop of a full size Monitor 5. That's what I did, but I used them both instead of one.

boston1450

^^^^ i always enjoy see'n that picture. Sweet

littlewoodboats

I would also vote for the CS400i. I have used mine with SDA-2A's and now with Monitor 7 series II with nice results.

westmassguy

The CS350LS would be my choice. It was Polk's TOTL back in the day.

Dabutcher

I use a CSiA6 as my center. Sounds great to me? I have five Jr.s and monitor 7a pair to use .sounds like a Kool idea? How do you hook up two centers to same amp connector? Good luck. D

Nightfall

Depends on the impedance of the speakers you're talking about and the quality of your amplification.

boston1450

Dabutcher wrote: »

I use a CSiA6 as my center. Sounds great to me? I have five Jr.s and monitor 7a pair to use .sounds like a Kool idea? How do you hook up two centers to same amp connector? Good luck. D

ya run them parallel

xjghost

boston1450 wrote: »

Dabutcher wrote: »

I use a CSiA6 as my center. Sounds great to me? I have five Jr.s and monitor 7a pair to use .sounds like a Kool idea? How do you hook up two centers to same amp connector? Good luck. D

ya run them parallel

Out from amp in to speaker then out from that speaker in to other speaker?

westmassguy

An AVR might have problems in Parallel. Try Series 1st

Dabutcher

Had a emotiva xpa-3 driving center and rears 200x 3. Now have my new to me B&K AVR5000 running rears and sides and center If I remember right 125x5. I would love to try my pair of Monitor 7a's I am not using . Thanks. D

boston1450

westmassguy wrote: »

An AVR might have problems in Parallel. Try Series 1st

thats what i ment. You advised me of that a couple years ago when i used the 5's on my Yamaha rxv1 worked great too

helipilotdoug

I have used the CSIA6 center with SDA2A's, SDA2B's, and SRS2's. The CSiA6 works great with all the vintage speakers I've tried it with. It is really an excellent center speaker.

jeremymarcinko

There used to be an article on the preceding Polk website (FAQ's) that listed which center and surrounds were best matched with vintage Polk loudspeakers. IIRC it was in fact the CSiA6 that was recommended to be used with SDA's and Vintage Monitors.

Found it...

Tacitus86

jeremymarcinko wrote: »

There used to be an article on the preceding Polk website (FAQ's) that listed which center and surrounds were best matched with vintage Polk loudspeakers. IIRC it was in fact the CSiA6 that was recommended to be used with SDA's and Vintage Monitors.

Found it...

Thanks for this info Jeremy!

Everyone's comments have been helpful, will start with a demo of the CSiA6 since it's the only one suggested that's still in stores to see how it sounds.

indyhawg

I use the CSi A6 with my 3.1TL's with good results. Has anyone ever A-B'd the CSI A6 and the CS400(i)?

PolkieMan

That's what I have.

RandyCroissant

That is a fine looking rig, looks like it could bring down the house If you weren't careful.

PolkieMan

Thanks, I had a Cs2 Series2 it didn't sound right. Subs are only used for movies (receiver's crossover 120hz) that way I take all the low end noise and explosions off my babies.

RandyCroissant

PolkieMan wrote: »

Thanks, I had a Cs2 Series2 it didn't sound right. Subs are only used for movies (receiver's crossover 120hz) that way I take all the low end noise and explosions off my babies.

I like your idea of having the subs doing all the heavy lifting for special effects. Not sure though If I understand how you accomplished that, I might give that a shot with my rig. Thanks for the idea

boston1450

PolkieMan wrote: »

Thanks, I had a Cs2 Series2 it didn't sound right. Subs are only used for movies (receiver's crossover 120hz) that way I take all the low end noise and explosions off my babies.

A few years back i used the Cs2 with some R30's on F & 15's on R & the Cs2 sounded pretty darn good

RandyCroissant

I took another look at my settings based on what Polkieman did and found that all my speakers were set to the large setting. I reset them to the small setting and re adjusted my sub I understand this is the right thing to do per other posts I read here on the forum. My understanding is by running my mains and center on the small setting the receiver will divert more of the Bass to the sub and make life a little easier for the amp, any thought on this?

PolkieMan

Yea cause your right the deep bass is what eats up your power besides let the sub handle all the the rattling.

RandyCroissant wrote: »

I took another look at my settings based on what Polkieman did and found that all my speakers were set to the large setting. I reset them to the small setting and re adjusted my sub I understand this is the right thing to do per other posts I read here on the forum. My understanding is by running my mains and center on the small setting the receiver will divert more of the Bass to the sub and make life a little easier for the amp, any thought on this?

Tacitus86

To wrap up this thread I was able to demo the CSiA6 and liked the way it sounded, so I bought one in the cherry finish and it seems to fit in well with my overall system for home theater use.

The tonal match is good with the older speakers, and driven with 200 watts it produces clear and accurate (at least to me) center channel sound at any reasonable volume. Now if the movie sound editors could do something about the mismatched volume levels during the action sequences...

Thanks again for everyone's input on this topic.

boston1450

Congrats. Im sure shes purdy & it sounds like your feeding it well too. Enjoy your new center speaker

Nightfall

Tacitus86 wrote: »

Now if the movie sound editors could do something about the mismatched volume levels during the action sequences...

That's called dynamics. Something music has been lacking lately. I don't know about yours but my Yamaha AVR has a setting that limits that sort of thing if you'd rather an explosion be the same volume as a conversation. I only use it at night, along with the bass turned all the way down to -6 and the dialog lift on maximum - to be kind to my fellow apartment dwellers.

Tacitus86

Nightfall wrote: »

Tacitus86 wrote: »

Now if the movie sound editors could do something about the mismatched volume levels during the action sequences...

That's called dynamics. Something music has been lacking lately. I don't know about yours but my Yamaha AVR has a setting that limits that sort of thing if you'd rather an explosion be the same volume as a conversation. I only use it at night, along with the bass turned all the way down to -6 and the dialog lift on maximum - to be kind to my fellow apartment dwellers.

I'm using an older Yamaha RX-V3000 that I bought new which allows you to set the front L&R main speakers to a maximum of -10db for surround programs, these are where most of the increased volume comes from. There's no capability to raise the center levels.

I set the center and main speakers as 'small' to offload the very low frequencies from these 3 to the subwoofer.

The sub itself is set to 0 gain, and the output level is set to about 2 (out of 10).

This is everything possible with the current setup, but when an action sequence kicks in the volume on the front L&R speakers is still much higher than the center channel that I would prefer.

The newer AVR/preamp/processors seem to have more capability in terms of customizing individual channels and Christmas is coming, maybe Santa will bring something.