703s or 705s as surround speakers? (For 707 mains)

Landmonster

So I went a little crazy with the current sale. I have 2 707 towers, and 2 705 towers coming tomorrow. I already own 2 703s, and 1 706c.

I don't think they will ALL fit in the same room, necessarily, but if I can find a way to do it, I would like to. But they could be divided up into different rooms, or the 705s returned, or 703 sold.


So my question is, if you can only fit 5 LSiMs in the same room....

1) Which speakers sound better as surround speakers with 707s as mains, and a 706c: 703s or 705s?

I will do fairly careful testing myself, I just wondered if anyone here had experience with this.


Assumptions:

• The 703s have the same size woofer as the 707s... but people have said the mid bass is ported differently than the towers.
• I can set the 703s on stands to make them nearly exactly the same height as the 707s, while the 705s are slightly shorter... if that matters.
• All 4 speakers will be powered by a Denon receiver, for at least a few months.
• The only other speakers I could fit in this room would be in-wall, or in-ceiling speakers, due to space limitations.

rburgess714

Congrats on your recent purchases. Now that you will have them all you can decide on what sounds good to you and works well in your room. Don’t overthink it but do start looking for an amp.

jeremymarcinko

Use 707s 706c and 703s. Use 705s in a two channel application in another room.

Landmonster

rburgess714 wrote: »

Congrats on your recent purchases. Now that you will have them all you can decide on what sounds good to you and works well in your room. Don’t overthink it but do start looking for an amp.

I know, I will almost definitely need an amp next. At least to make them sound their best.

Landmonster

jeremymarcinko wrote: »

Use 707s 706c and 703s. Use 705s in a two channel application in another room.

That was a definite option. Or use the 703s in another room?

marvda1

good thing polk doesn't make amps.

diverdog

707's and 703's sounds like a nice combination. I just bought 3 707's and 6 703's for my new theater room

mdaudioguy

jeremymarcinko wrote: »

Use 707s 706c and 703s. Use 705s in a two channel application in another room.

In 5.1 applications, it's generally recommended to position the surround channels a foot or two above ear level at the listening position, so this makes the most sense to me.

Landmonster

Hi guys. This is just a quick update to this thread.

So, I have good news, and bad news.

The good news is that I received all 4 tower speakers very quickly. Sadly, out of the 2 707s and 2 705s that I received, only 1 707 was pristine.

One 707 had a scratch on it, and one of the 705s had the feet/base completely broken off. The other 705 had a leg knocked off the unit. ( I screwed it back in, but it made me question the integrity of this speaker) So I had to return these 3 to Adorama.

I do have some observations with my brief time experimenting with them. I am not a "trained and certified audiophile", so these are just my unofficial observations.


Interesting observations:

1) The Denon x4500h, contrary to my prior assumptions, is actually a beast. It was easily able to run 2 707s, 2 703s, and 1 706c without any obvious stress. It didn't feel strained, and never overheated... it felt like it could have powered even more of these speakers. In fact, this receiver had plenty of room left in it... it would definitely play much louder than I ever asked it to.
*A caveat -- I cannot say how much cleaner or better this system would have sounded with a true dedicated amplifier, but the idea that a "receiver cannot power the LSiMs" is false. Maybe the Denon X4500 is more powerful than the average receiver users are attempting to use with these?


2) The 707s rock! The 707s kick the ever-loving **** out the 703s. I had the 703s as mains prior to this, and I gave them about 3 months of fairly critical listening. Within the first few notes of the first song on the 707s, it was very obvious that the 707s are in a different realm. These speakers are not even broken in yet, but it was like a night and day difference transitioning to the 707s up front. Music sounds much more full, much more rich (for lack of a better term), and obviously more bass. The soundstage was much wider, taller, and everything sounded more "real".


3) I cannot say this for certain without more experimentation, but it appears that the 705s blend more seamlessly with the 707 than the 703. I cannot say for sure why this is so... and I wish I could better elaborate on this. I had expected the 703 to blend better, since all its drivers are supposedly the same as the 707.

As I mentioned above, I only had 1 705 to connect to my system since the other was completely broken. Because of this limitation, I experimented with running a left surround 705, and right surround 703, and vice versa, to see how they sounded with 707s up front.

My testing methodology was to play some Dolby Atmos 4k Bluray movie scenes, and listen to the same scene over and over with 2 703s, and again with the 705 on the rear left, and again on the rear right, in case there was some variation in the movie surround channels. I also played some Tidal FLAC music in "Multichannel stereo" mode, with all 5 channels driven equally.

For whatever reason, the 703 kept drawing more attention to itself. Whichever side it located was on, the 703 seemed to provide less complete sound, and kept drawing my mental attention to its output. It definitely sounded like I was hearing a "surround speaker", which I did not like. The sound did not quite blend 100% seamlessly with the 707 front stage. Whichever side the 705 was on, seemed to provide a more seamless transition from front to back. There was also more bass, which was nice.

Perhaps this is cognitive bias. I had my wife listen to the same test, and she said "I don't know, this side [with the 705] is louder with more bass"


Thoughts or ideas?

Keep in mind, I am not running a dedicated subwoofer in the system, and everything is being powered by a Denon X4500h. I suspect it might change with a sub, or greater amplifier power.... but the 703 still probably has inferior output to the towers.

Landmonster

One note:

With the 707 mains, 706c center, and 705 side of the surround mix.... some combat scenes from "Hacksaw Ridge" on 4k UHD Bluray were utterly ridiculous.

The .50 cal machine gun produced room pressuring reverberations without even a subwoofer attached, or amp being used. I imagine I had a 2nd 705, and every channel were driven by 250+ clean watts, it would be pretty awesome.

cfrizz

What you are hearing is the difference between a bookie and a tower speaker. Naturally the towers are going to sound better as they should because they are bigger.

This is why I prefer towers over bookies. Size does makes a difference when it comes to sound quality in speakers.

Landmonster

cfrizz wrote: »

What you are hearing is the difference between a bookie and a tower speaker. Naturally the towers are going to sound better as they should because they are bigger.

This is why I prefer towers over bookies. Size does makes a difference when it comes to sound quality in speakers.

Yes it does seem that way. I thought that the 703 might be fine in surround mode for a couple reasons that some people always recite:

• " The surround channels never get much signal anyway"
• "Towers are overkill, you just need to integrate good subs"
• "not much bass is sent to surround channels"
• "The 703 has the same drivers as the 707"
• etc

I mean, I guess it depends on the content too. I listened to some Netflix shows like "Last Chance U" on the 5.1 mix, and they barely had any surround signal. It had occasional sound effects, or music effects playing. However, 5.1 "Stranger Things" had lots of surround effects.

On 5.1 Hacksaw Ridge on a 4k disc, the surround channels produce deep bass from guns and explosions.

pitdogg2

Landmonster wrote: »

One note:

With the 707 mains, 706c center, and 705 side of the surround mix.... some combat scenes from "Hacksaw Ridge" on 4k UHD Bluray were utterly ridiculous.

The .50 cal machine gun produced room pressuring reverberations without even a subwoofer attached, or amp being used. I imagine I had a 2nd 705, and every channel were driven by 250+ clean watts, it would be pretty awesome.

Be very careful. Helicopters and gun fire can easily destroy tweeters and mid driver's. Do not ask how I know

Landmonster

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Landmonster wrote: »

One note:

With the 707 mains, 706c center, and 705 side of the surround mix.... some combat scenes from "Hacksaw Ridge" on 4k UHD Bluray were utterly ridiculous.

The .50 cal machine gun produced room pressuring reverberations without even a subwoofer attached, or amp being used. I imagine I had a 2nd 705, and every channel were driven by 250+ clean watts, it would be pretty awesome.

Be very careful. Helicopters and gun fire can easily destroy tweeters and mid driver's. Do not ask how I know

Easily, eh? What kind of volume levels?

pitdogg2

Landmonster wrote: »

Easily, eh? What kind of volume levels?

Just on the cusp of WTH then it's the OH SH%t moment you just found out....

txcoastal1

It’s not necessarily how loud but also how long. Once the crossovers heat up the right bass drop especially on an under powered system can easily smoke tweeters or crossovers in a blink of an eye

Landmonster

txcoastal1 wrote: »

It’s not necessarily how loud but also how long. Once the crossovers heat up the right bass drop especially on an under powered system can easily smoke tweeters or crossovers in a blink of an eye

Well that sucks. I mean, I was playing about -20 db on the Denon control.

Is it safer to run the same volume with a high powered amp? Or equally dangerous?

txcoastal1

Yes it’s safer

There have been dozens of people who come on this forum with RtiA9 speakers with blown tweeter/crossover issues

Our first question to them is what the were running them with.....ding ding ding yep you guessed it, AVR

Landmonster

txcoastal1 wrote: »

Yes it’s safer

There have been dozens of people who come on this forum with RtiA9 speakers with blown tweeter/crossover issues

Our first question to them is what the were running them with.....ding ding ding yep you guessed it, AVR

Good to know. What is the mechanism why an AVR is so dangerous? They cause more strain to the crossovers?

What typical volume level is known to be dangerous?

BlueFox

The issue isn’t volume (mostly), but distortion. Low powered amps have more distortion at higher volume levels.

Geoff4rfc

Much safer to run the mains on an amp. I've owned two pairs of RTiA9's now for around 10 years and still going like the champs they are.

To address your OP, I've had very satisfactory results running my second pair of A9's in the wide channel and also in the rear channel. I've tried towers in the surround spot and wasn't all that impressed.

Congrats on all of your towers Sorry about the damage....I'm hoping my 707's will show up in undamaged condition next week. Once they go to the main spot, the A9's will move to the rear channel.

Landmonster

I didn't really want to derail the whole thread to discuss AVRs. My current decision was whether to use the 705s or 703s as surround speakers. I would just try all 6, but I only have room for a 5 channel setup, not a 7 channel in this room.

The Denon is adequate for now, but I guess I have to be careful on the volume.

The next decision will be what amplifier to choose. Brand, wattage, and how many channels will all be key considerations.

Geoff4rfc

Landmonster wrote: »

I didn't really want to derail the whole thread to discuss AVRs. My current decision was whether to use the 705s or 703s as surround speakers..

I just addressed your original post, look above your last