LSI15's 2 or 4 speakers for stereo?

Ginn

Hey guy's

Been a polk fan for years. I currently have a full set of RTia9's with the surround and centre speakers sitting in my warehouse all boxed up since I got a full set of LSi's.
At my office I have a set of LSi15's with a Peachtree amp and preamp. Sounds amazing.
At home I have LSi15'a as my front's a LSiC as my centre and a set of the LSifx's as my surrounds for home theatre and music. I also have a set of the LSi9's at my dads house hooked up to another peachtree amp.

Right now I'm running my home theatre through an Onkyo 3008 which puts out 115wpc. However I'm using a 5 channel Emotiva amp to power all the speakers.
The Onkyo amp gives me many options to listen to music. My top 3 are Pure Audio, Dolby PLII Music, and Dolby PLII Music THX Music.
I do enjoy the Pure Audio the most but sometimes with certain songs the other 2 options are better.
What would happen if I brought the other 2 LSi15's home and ran all 4 in stereo or pure music mode? I can use a splitter from my onkyo to the emotiva and run all 4 speakers off 4 channels, then use the 5th channel for my centre and just run my surrounds off my onkyo.
Would this increase the volume or add more dept to listening to music in the pure audio mode, or am i just wasting my time?

Thanks

hertz9753

I had phase problems when I tried to run 2 LSi9's as a center channel with a Adcom GFA 5400 amp. I used a splitter from the center channel RCA output but I could never get it to sound right.

Ginn

I actually used 4 of the channels from the Emotiva amp to power 2 RTia9's before I purchased the LSI's. I got 2 really good splitters and took the jumper bars out of the pack of the polks. The RTi's needed more power at 8ohm than the LSi's do at 4ohm. So I know I can do it with the 4 speakers but I just don't know if it'll be good to do.

mdaudioguy

You want 2 each on the left and right? I'd say no to that.

tonyb

Wait...what ? What am I missing ? You have a 5 channel amp and you want to run 4 lsi 15's and a center channel.....why do you need a splitter at all ?

I would not run 2 LSI's off one amp channel.

Ginn

So what I've done in the past is use a single RCA to a Double RCA to take the front left signal from the Onkyo and split it into 2 channels on the Emotiva amp. That allowed me to power my old RTia9 with one channel for the top half of the speaker and one channel for the 3 - 7" woofers on the speaker which sent 500w to each speaker.
So I'm thinking about doing the same but instead of sending the power from 2 channels off my Emotiva to one speaker, send it to 2 speakers. So 2 front lefts and 2 front rights.

mdaudioguy

Still doesn't make sense. One well-powered speaker on each side should be sufficient. What are you trying to achieve?

Nightfall

mdaudioguy wrote: »

Still doesn't make sense. One well-powered speaker on each side should be sufficient. What are you trying to achieve?

Ginn wrote: »

Would this increase the volume or add more depth to listening to music in the pure audio mode, or am i just wasting my time?

Is this like the modern day equivalent of "stacking" back in the day?

You're wasting your time. You'll destroy the ability to image and create a soundstage. If looking like this is your goal...



...maybe look into a pair of Klipsch or Cerwin Vegas.

Ginn

LOL Nightfall. I was just looking for a balanced way to increase volume without messing up the imaging. Guess this is not the way to do it.

F1nut

In that case, get a man's amp.

mrbigbluelight

A little off topic, but are those JBL's in Nightfall's pic up there ?
(foam grill)

rooftop59

Ginn wrote: »

LOL Nightfall. I was just looking for a balanced way to increase volume without messing up the imaging. Guess this is not the way to do it.

No this is not. You could try using the emotiva to bi-amp the lsi15s, but I don't know how much that would help either.

I think you should either a) do as @F1nut says and get some really ballsy monoblocks or a 300 wpc amp from say b&k or rotel, or perhaps b) the lsi15s aren't your cup of tea. That are a bit laid back and don't have the slam of the rtia9s. If you miss that slam then you should look at different speakers...

Ginn

Don't get me wrong I really like the LSi15's I just have an extra set at the office I could play with. The clarity of the speakers are amazing and I really like the sound, but they are lacking a little aggression when it comes to certain types of music. Just thinking that trying different configurations might change things up.

tonyb

Yep, that's just the character of the speaker your trying to change. Won't happen by adding more of the same speaker. Put the RTIA9's back in and get a warmer amp, maybe re-evaluate the cables your using too.

K_M

My thoughts.....

Cue up Diana Krall "Love Scenes" on ONE pair of Lsi15's to realistic levels, and sit back exactly between them about 7-8 feet away and realize, nothing will image or sound better!!

tonyb

"nothing" ?? Bit of a stretch there.

What this comes down to is, you like certain aspects of the LSI's and some you don't. Speaker configuration isn't going to change that. The speaker simply isn't designed to be aggressive. Look for a different speaker, or maybe change up it's playmates a bit but your not going to turn the LSI's into an aggressive animal to the extent of say the RTIA9's.

Finding a speaker you like, completely, is the journey most take and years to fulfill. It's an evolutionary process because your preferences also change over time. What you thought sounded great 5 years ago, may leave room for doubt today.

pitdogg2

DSkip wrote: »

It's not going to beat you up and take your lunch money.

No we leave that to Tonyb.....

K_M

tonyb wrote: »

"nothing" ?? Bit of a stretch there.

What this comes down to is, you like certain aspects of the LSI's and some you don't. Speaker configuration isn't going to change that. The speaker simply isn't designed to be aggressive. Look for a different speaker, or maybe change up it's playmates a bit but your not going to turn the LSI's into an aggressive animal to the extent of say the RTIA9's.

Finding a speaker you like, completely, is the journey most take and years to fulfill. It's an evolutionary process because your preferences also change over time. What you thought sounded great 5 years ago, may leave room for doubt today.

Haha! yes I was exaggerating a bit for fun, glad you got it.

At times on certain music I can also feel our rti6 or rtia3 speakers sound better than the lsi15, so I think I know how he feels. Certain vocals and mostly acoustic stuff.
We run them all with a sub at 80hz anyways.
The rtia3's are even another notch too trebly than they Rti6.

Certain aspects of each are very good, but neither is perfect.
The Rti are a bit too forward and stong, and the Lsi are a bit too laid back.

There is a middle ground that is perfect, that neither have exactly.

tonyb

I believe that middle ground between the lines was created in the LSIM series, check 'em out.

Ginn

I have to agree with everything everyone is saying. I've had an old set of RTi8's which were very bright, then RTi10's which I had for 2 weeks so I really didn't get a chance to listen to them before getting my hands on a set of the RTia9's. Used those for about a year before I was able to score a set of the LSI9's which I used as office speakers and then I fluke'd out and scored 2 set's of the LSi15's. So I've had my fair share of polk speakers. I'm using my LSi15's as a home theatre set up and I'm very happy with them.

I love all different types of music and yes @K_M said Diana Krall "Love Scenes" sounds amazing as well as any Nora Jones, John Mayer, Chris Botti, etc., anything acoustic or something with mostly vocals makes these speakers purr. However when you crank a little classic rock, grunge, even r&b the RTia9's just had that punch in the face that you could feel go right through you. To bad the wife won't let me have more speakers in the house that I could bounce back and forth with.

I'm having a few of my buds that are also music enthusists over for a day of loud music plenty of booze and some good food. Just want to have the speakers set up in the best way. And yes I'm using 12 gauge speaker wire and all good cables.