Update on LSi15s

jnkennedy

I have had this beautiful speakers for quite a while now and played close to 200 hours already. I must say for the price I got them, they are a bargain. But there is one thing I have observed from this speakers. They are not very forgiving speakers. Excellently recorded SACD albums like Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue, James Taylor Hourglass, Pink Floyd's DSOTM, Diana Krall's When I look in your eyes, Herbie Hancock's The Piano, Hiromi's Brain, Alison Krauss + Union Station New Favorite and many others all sounds I am hearing all these albums for the first time. They sounded real good with excellent imaging and soundstage. The highs are top-notch. I am not a bass freak so since getting the 15s I stopped using subwoofer for music. Even then I still could feel the bass plenty enough for music. But here's what I am concerned about. With bad recordings, they really sound bad. Billy Joel's stranger SACD was listenable in my old system, but it seems to be harsh with the LSi15. A lot of my non-audiophile quality, run-of-the-mill CDs sound quite bad. Not so bad, but bad nonetheless. I have been told that the LSis are designed for hi-resoultion audio and as such they tend to bring out all the things that is in the CD where other speakers cannot resolved. With this characteristic, they will sound glorious for excellently recorded CD but will sound unforgiving for bad reproductions. Is this true? has anyone experience this?

Overall, in my current application- I am very well pleased. Thanks to all of the guys here who vouch for the goodness of the LSi15. I have found speakers that I will be keeping for a very long time.

polkatese

yes, LSi15 will definitely takes you to the next level, in terms of appreciation of high-quality recordings for your CD/SACD collections. I too have experienced this problem. Your tolerance to bad recordings will get worse...

Ever since I have my LSi15 system, I have separated my collections into two groups: good to best recordings, and bad recordings. One solution for you is to get a modded/tube CD player, which will hopefully enhance your bad recordings CDs to be more bearable to listen to. Welcome to the "money pit" of Hi-Rez audio hobby...

jnkennedy

great suggestion on segregating the good and the bad recordings, I might just do that when I find the time. The problem with me is I tend to listen to most of my good SACDs/CDs most of the time. Since I got the Lsi15, I couldn't bear to listen to my crappy CD any longer.

Good recording sounding good and bad recording sounding bad, is this the same as saying that the LSi15 are accurately reproducing the sound without any coloration? I hear the term"accurate" quite a lot in AVS and HTF being non-audiophile, I can't seem to get what they are talking about. So if this is what accurate meant, then, hell, yes- I like "accurate" even at the expense of may not having to listen to my bad recordings ever again.

2+2

Hi guys....I am in the same boat and in full agreement. Before LSi15s, I listened to my 120+ classical CD collection and whereas I can tell some were recorded much better than others, the differences could be overlooked. Now, I can honestly say about 25% of the collection is not listenable, 25% are mediocre, 25% are good and 25% sound fantastic..(Even many DDD recordings suck) ....this pisses me off to no end because not only do I have to now look for the right orchestra, right conductor, right performance...but also the right sound engineer???!! Although I did not segregate the CDs, I now listen to only the good recordings in my main, and the other CDs in my 2nd system in my office.

I did notice that going to a single wire (from a bi-wire) set up helped a bit in making poor CDs sound better without objectionably impacting the better CDs so you may want to play with that. Biwiring gave too much "airy" laid back sound with the orchestra sounding like it was on a stage that was 100 feet deep on some recordings.....

jnkennedy

I am currently running on single wire but since it is recommended by Polk to bi-wire, I'll be doing that when I get my bi-wire cables.

jnkennedy

Originally posted by 2+2
Hi guys....I am in the same boat and in full agreement. Before LSi15s, I listened to my 120+ classical CD collection and whereas I can tell some were recorded much better than others, the differences could be overlooked. Now, I can honestly say about 25% of the collection is not listenable, 25% are mediocre, 25% are good and 25% sound fantastic..(Even many DDD recordings suck) ....this pisses me off to no end because not only do I have to now look for the right orchestra, right conductor, right performance...but also the right sound engineer???!! Although I did not segregate the CDs, I now listen to only the good recordings in my main, and the other CDs in my 2nd system in my office.

I did notice that going to a single wire (from a bi-wire) set up helped a bit in making poor CDs sound better without objectionably impacting the better CDs so you may want to play with that. Biwiring gave too much "airy" laid back sound with the orchestra sounding like it was on a stage that was 100 feet deep on some recordings.....

I agree with you completely. I am not very familiar with classical SACD or CDs but when shopping in acousticsounds, I always make it a point to know the conductor or the orchestra and even the label of the disk. For jazz, I always make it a point to know who is the mixer. Seems weird but as I go along, I am having less and less CDs/SACDs that are unlistenable because I tend to go for the mixer, conductor or orchestra I am familiar with.

F1nut

As the quality of ones set up increases, the easier it is to notice things like bad recordings. Sometimes I think I was better off with a lesser set up.

Along with Polkatese's excellent suggestion on the tube CD player, I would recommend a tube pre amp and to forget the bi-wires. Get some real nice single runs and swap out the stock jumpers with the same quality speaker cable for jumpers.

madmax

I used to have RS Mach One (or Two, I forget) and they made everything sound great. Sometimes I wonder if I am really upgrading.

madmax

B3Nut

If you're feeling masochistic, try spinning John Mayer's "Heavier Things" on CD...easily the worst recording of 2004. It's a damnable crime what the worthless label mooks forced Bob Ludwig (an otherwise highly-respected mastering engineer) to do to John's music. The label execs should be in prison for this record.

You will hear just how bad modern production techniques have gotten...make it LOUD at the expense of everything else. It's so compressed the audio is audibly distorted.

TP