The Fry's Experience

gregure

Set foot in a Fry's Electronics store for the first time the other day. Not sure if the ones in CA are similar, but the one in Tempe AZ has a whole room dedicated to Polk Audio speakers. It was a dream come true. Made me wish I had a lot more money than I do. Went there to audition the Lsi 9/7's for a friend, and I was blown away.

They had the full Rti line, the full Lsi line and the full Monitor line on display, running all of the demos off a HK 7300. Even Fry's doesn't sell separates that I could see, but the HK did a great job, even w/ the Lsi's, although I wouldn't run that line off a receiver.

I just stood in there for awhile, watching "Driven," a crappy movie, but the surround sound was pretty cool. I asked the sales rep to demo the LSi series w/ 9's for mains, and the sounds was very impressive. He then demoed the 9's alone for me playing the live version of Hotel California, and the acoustic guitar intro sounded amazing. I am definitely a fan of the LSi speakers. No plans to upgrade right now, but eventually I'd like to go that route, and I will be recommending the LSi's to anyone I know who has some coin to invest in a system.

Funny thing, the 9's are a lot bigger than I thought, while the LSiC is a lot smaller than I thought. I was expecting it to be as big as the CSi5, but it isn't. The black laquer finish on the LSiFX and LSiC were very attractive.

On a more discerning note, the subs did not sound very good. They sounded over-driven and they bottomed out a lot, even the largest of the subs. They did not have a LSiW from what I could see, but it's obvious that the constant strain put on these display subs had diminished their performance. Only servded to solidify my resolve to use HSU or SVS over Polk subs.

Anyone who has Fry's nearby who hasn't gone in should, just for the fun experience of seeing the whole Polk product lines display. It was awesome.

brettw22

You're here in Phoenix? I thought from your location you were up in San Fran.....

gregure

I'm in Scottsdale for two weeks, in training for my job. I still live near San Francisco.

brettw22

Ah.....fun fun......

I work in Scottsdale too.......Gotta love our 100+ days........

Mazeroth

I went to Scottsdale for vacation last year. We stayed at the McCormick Ranch. When I got off the plane in June, it was 118 degrees. I almost crapped my pants! :eek:

audiobliss

I love to listen to the guitar on Hotel California, too. It really is amazing how some good quality equipment can make the music come alive. I really love the way the drums near the end of the intro are broken into the left and right channels; that amazes me everytime I hear it.

danger boy

Originally posted by audiobliss
I love to listen to the guitar on Hotel California, too. It really is amazing how some good quality equipment can make the music come alive. I really love the way the drums near the end of the intro are broken into the left and right channels; that amazes me everytime I hear it.

are you talking about the 16bit CD version or the DVD version of HOtel Calif?

audiobliss

I assume I mean the 16-bit CD version; all my stuff is on regular CDs. I can't even imagine how DVD-Audio and SACDs would sound.....

drool

Sami

Originally posted by gregure

They had the full Rti line, the full Lsi line and the full Monitor line on display, running all of the demos off a HK 7300. Even Fry's doesn't sell separates that I could see, but the HK did a great job, even w/ the Lsi's, although I wouldn't run that line off a receiver.

My H/K 7200 doesn't even break a sweat driving a full LSi surround setup consisting of LSi7's. I haven't heard any difference with my experiment of separate amplifiers (Rotel, H/K, Parasound, Samson ranging from 100WPC to 500WPC). Wel, I have to take it back, Samson S1000 didn't sound very good with the 7's.

How good was the H/K with 9's? I might score a pair of cheap 9's but I don't want to move one of the amps for HT duty as I need one for dual centres. 7's are easy to drive with a receiver but the 9's might be already a different story.

gregure

I thought the 9's sounded great running of a HK 7300. They did sound a little constricted, which leads me to believe they would sound better w/ a high quality amp. Plus, the sub they paired it with sounded harsh and kept bottoming out, which distracted me a bit, so it's hard to make a completely impartial decision.

I've also been enjoying Scottsdale quite a bit. I feel like I'm on vacation, even though I'm here for business. The restaurants (the the waitresses) are of the highest quality.
Truthfully, the desert heat doesn't bother me that much, even on the 100+ days, although this weekend, and much of the two weeks I spent here in August, were cloudy and rainy, which really lowers the temp. You just have to avoid the metal in your car when it's a real scorcher.