Legend L800 vs. SDA-SRS 1.2TL...

Hermitism

Polk's interpretation of the Human Centipede.

msg

dammit, stop that! I just got over that disturbing imagery.

nooshinjohn

txcoastal1 wrote: »

Do you have the Santana Abraxas SACD? or a good recording?

The quick run through I had with the L800's this was most impressive

Abraxas on MoFi One-Step is one of my go-to LP's, and it was a no go.... the CD Ultimate Santana was very good. I am still trying to wrap my head around vinyl sounding bad but digital sources sounding better all the time.

txcoastal1

10-4...and it was not an SACD, as you mention...it was the Mofi CD of Abraxas

treitz3

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Abraxas on MoFi One-Step is one of my go-to LP's, and it was a no go.... the CD Ultimate Santana was very good. I am still trying to wrap my head around vinyl sounding bad but digital sources sounding better all the time.

What this tells me is that you have an issue with your vinyl rig. (Don't shoot the messenger)

Your vinyl should sound sublime with these speakers. Digital (depending on your source and upstream/downstream components) should come in a very close second to very subpar.

Tom

treitz3

John, take the time to listen and describe what "sounds bad" on vinyl. You know I have respect for you and your ears but the things you have presented us tonight make no sense.
The one thing I have learned is that (through discussion) you can learn from others what you may not know (or have heard before). Something here isn't making sense. Something is amiss.
Now, it could be that the speakers are in that "weird" phase of break in to where the sounds are literally all over the place. It could be that you disturbed something else within the system. I don't know, nobody knows but you.
I am NOT being confrontational (and if I seem that way, this is NOT my intention) but it seems as if something is amiss IME/IMO.

Tom

nooshinjohn

Nothing else in the rig was mover or otherwise touched when installing the L800's, But my table has been silent for a month. It sounded better than digital back then, and inspection of the Goldfinger shows it is in perfect shape stylus and cantilever wise.

The only thing that comes to mind is as you said, break-in, or my analog ears are simply not intended for the digital world.

I ran the L800's in my HT side of my setup, and they blew the TL's out of the water.

audioluvr

I think the new Legend series is voiced to enhance digital recordings whereas the SDA's are voiced more for analog. I know my SDA's match well with LP's.

BlueFox

audioluvr wrote: »

I think the new Legend series is voiced to enhance digital recordings whereas the SDA's are voiced more for analog. I know my SDA's match well with LP's.

Out of curiosity, how does a speaker be voiced between an analog or digital source? The signal reaching the speaker is analog regardless of the source.

audioluvr

In todays music only the signal from the amp to the speakers is analog. Everything else is recorded, mixed, produced, mastered, distributed and processed digitally. Just like everything audio has a sound signature, speakers are developed to produce sound based on the designers and engineers perception of ideal. A speaker designed in the 80's when digital was just getting started and most of us still had turntables and tape will have a different sound signature.

TroyD

Not really buying any of that...

Look, I’m of the opinion that from what is being described......something is broken.

There is no way, IMO, on Gods green earth that an mp3 is going to deliver decent resolution/sound on a decent rig. And while I’m a break in believer......I’m reasonably skeptical about wild and chaotic mood swings. It’s generally pretty linear and incremental, in my experience. Not discounting that some days the rig sounds better than others and all that but all of my experiences tend to reinforce the linear and incremental theory.....like a day that the rig is just meh, it usually everything sounds meh. Not, well if I play an mp3 of this, great but the LP sounds awful when yesterday the reverse was true......unless something was not operating as it should.

Now, voicing speakers....sure, as technology changes things move in that direction. Back in the Golden Age of HIFi.....high frequency response was limited in speakers which was fine because recording technology also limited frequency response and as the recording process improved, so did playback capabilities......and every designer designs with certain goals in mind....but what’s being floated above doesn’t hold much water....

Now, I have been known to be given to hyperbole from time to time out of sheer excitement and I’m not casting aspersions or doubting sincerity......but none of this makes any sense.

mhardy6647

treitz3 wrote: »

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Abraxas on MoFi One-Step is one of my go-to LP's, and it was a no go.... the CD Ultimate Santana was very good. I am still trying to wrap my head around vinyl sounding bad but digital sources sounding better all the time.

What this tells me is that you have an issue with your vinyl rig. (Don't shoot the messenger)

Your vinyl should sound sublime with these speakers. Digital (depending on your source and upstream/downstream components) should come in a very close second to very subpar.

Tom

Or it could be that the L800s reveal the LF and HF limitations of... yes, it is true... the LP record.
Lots of moving parts there (so to speak) to compromise reproduction from an LP -- foremost above them being thr RIAA curve itself and the rolloff and summing to mono of bass below (usually) 50 Hz on AFAIK all LPs to avoid issues of rumble, platform instability, and system resonances. Neither of these limitations exist in the digital domain -- which (sad but true) is why a properly mastered digital recording , yes, even a redbook CD, really and truly could sound better than an LP.

And, mind you, I am an LP guy -- but I also have an LP/analog friendly hifi system, tailored (although not specifically by design) to the limitations of analog reproduction.

Pretty safe to assume the older SDAs were, ahem, voiced to the sources of their time.

tratliff

John, can you put the 1.2's back in just to confirm everything is good? Then at least you would know the vinyl side of the system is still performing as expected.

SeleniumFalcon

Olympic speaker listening team.

nooshinjohn

tratliff wrote: »

John, can you put the 1.2's back in just to confirm everything is good? Then at least you would know the vinyl side of the system is still performing as expected.

It's a PITA to do, but yes I can. I want to give them some more time to burn in first before swapping things around. To those that say something must be broken, that is absolutely not the case.

motorhead43026

Any chance you will be returning these?

nooshinjohn

motorhead43026 wrote: »

Any chance you will be returning these?

Way to early to tell yet.

ZLTFUL

I seem to remember some extensive conversation about these.
And lots of poo pooing about how they were definitely set up wrong and that it definitely couldn’t be the shortcomings of the speakers themselves.

Not saying you have them set up wrong…more implying that maybe they actually aren’t a worthy successor to the classic SDAs as some of us had suggested.
🤷‍♂️

Clipdat

It could be a speaker setup/placement issue. Or poor equipment matching/system synergy. Or you received two L or two R speakers instead of L and R. Or you hooked them up wrong.

But it's certainly not the speakers themselves. Nope, no way.

Emlyn

I think the real power in the L800s is as home theater speakers which is why they have the Atmos module option. The two channel performance is well above anything Polk has produced in the last 20-25 years and to me an added bonus. The SDA is fun but is more pronounced on the L800s than on previous SDA models. That could be what some are hearing in their systems especially with room and furniture interactions taking place.

The $6K MSRP on these is fair IMHO if they're just used in a two channel system but I think they were designed for more than that.

The pair of Magnepan 1.7is I have do stereo imaging and wrap around effects even better than the L800s but they lack dynamics without fast subwoofers added. That just proves there's no perfect speaker.

nooshinjohn

As I said above in a comment, these smoke the 1.2TL's in the HT realm. I did also get the L900 modules and they blew me away at how much better they are. My rig is used 85 percent of the time as a two-channel however, and I am not that much into HT.

nooshinjohn

I moved them off the back wall a couple inches, and moved them 18 inches closer to each other. The improvement is noticeable. I will get them spiked this afternoon and see what that does to the sound...

I am also going to wire the L900 to operate in stereo mode and see of that gives me anything. I think one of the things I am really missing is the sense of scale the TL's provided. In my room, the TL's were almost a line source, and perhaps the Atmos modules can project that.

Emlyn

What I've found is placement is far more forgiving with the L800s in a home theater setup than for two channel music. It's the two channel that's more difficult than usual. For two channel these sound best to me when I'm sitting up and forward and dead center on the sofa. For home theater they sound fine on all three sofa spaces across from the TV. I didn't think the Atmos modules would make much a difference but I find them to be well worth the extra cost.

VR3

Based on my experience at troys, placement and room design is everything with these

Clipdat

nooshinjohn wrote: »

I am also going to wire the L900 to operate in stereo mode and see of that gives me anything. I think one of the things I am really missing is the sense of scale the TL's provided. In my room, the TL's were almost a line source, and perhaps the Atmos modules can project that.

Emlyn

I'd recommend caution with the power going to the Atmos modules if driving them full range. The drivers are smaller and they don't produce much below 150 Hz. Peak handling is only documented as 100 watts but they do still need a relatively high current amp.

nooshinjohn

Polk's advice was not to run the L900 in stereo mode, so I won't be trying that...

nooshinjohn

An update... Playing around with the room and speaker placement, and much of my earlier difficulties appear to be moving behind me as I begin to get acclimated to the new speakers. The one niggling little issue is that the L800 do not really generate that "wall of sound" presence the 1.2TL's had. They are far more accurate, incredibly fast and detailed, but just cant seem to elevate themselves above about 6 feet. whereas the TL's were simply huge in that regard.

TroyD

As has been eluded to, room placement with the L800's appears (at least it was at PF) much more critical and has a far more pronounced effect than with previous SDA models.

In terms of the soundstage height.....pretty simple, the 1.2tl is a helluva lot taller so that makes sense. The SDA effect was different from model to model in the old SDA lineup (I think the 2B and CRS's were the sweet spot and the SRS 2's were probably my fave..) so, again, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the presentation is going to be different. I agree, the image specificity and focus with the L800 is very impressive.

EJMiller

Am I clear that you are driving your L800s with mono blocks? All the experts reviews that I have read say do not even use your balanced connections use unbalanced connections for the best results. The SDA's need the unbalanced signal for sda to function optimally. I have had my L800s for a few months and still waiting on my anthem 70 processor to balance the complete system