A lucky LSi encounter

shack

Both of my daughters play competitive fastpitch softball so I get to travel quite a bit on the weekends. I was with my 17 year old's high school team in Chattanooga TN for a tournament while the other daughter was in Pigeon Forge TN (about 150 miles away). After playing until late Fri. night we get up to a 2-hour downpour on Sat. morning. We hang around the motel a while until they cancel the tournament. I call my wife and it looks like the bad weather there is just starting there and they are delayed but they think they can get the fields ready in about 5 hours to resume. Since there is nowhere in Knoxville where I live to see the LSis, I check out the phone book for local audio shops that carry Polk. Found three listings....one was closed, one had moved. The third was way out of the way out in a rural area and was called Satellite Direct. I almost passed since I wanted to get to the other tournament (this happens a lot that they are in different cities so I want to take every opportunity to watch them). But we still had about 2 hours to kill so I decided to check it out since I knew exactly where it was. I am glad I did. They had all of the LSis except for the 25s set up. First off we got to listen to the 7s and 9s hooked up to a Denon 3802 with a PSW650 sub. VERY, VERY nice. We played around with and without the sub. The 9s delivered some very nice bass without the sub. Either way Polk has taken a step up here. I have the rt55is and love them but the 9s are definitely better. A little more crisp in the midrange. I would love to do an A/B test with the two to see how much better the tweeter sounds on the LSi9.

He also had some Klipsch hooked up. Just so I could compare apples to apples I did an A/B test with the LSis and a pair of Reference RB 5IIs. The Klipschs had a definite edge in clarity in the upper range and tended to reproduce the sound extremely accurately. But after a relative short period of time the sound just seemed too "bright?" for lack of a better term. The best comparison was probably the LSi7 and the RB 5II since each had a single driver and a single tweeter/horn and the msrp was about the same. I could have gone with either one and been very happy. I really liked the LSi9 better than the Klipsch but it may not have been a fair comparison due to the two drivers and ports etc..

Next I checked out the HT system he had set up. The LSi15s with the LSiC and LSiFX along with a PSW450. Again this was a very sweet sounding system. This may have been due in part to the fact that this was set up with a Pioneer Elite VSX-49TX. Check it out
HERE . I think a set of Bose may have sounded great with this receiver. Polk has done a good job with the LSi series. This HT setup was as good as anything I have heard for this price range.

As much fun as all of this was the LSis, The Klipschs the Elite Amp was not the high point of this visit .....
THIS WAS....
This is the Pioneer Elite Reference 64 inch widescreen. I need to sell the cars, mortgage the house, get another job (well...maybe not this), put the kids to work and get me one of these! This is one "awesome" (as my 17 year old put it) unit (and it should be for $8,300). Even more "awesome" according to my teenager was the $17,500 50" plasma screen monitor. They had both of these hooked up to their top-of-the-line DVD player and I have never seen an image to rival what I saw. This has to be one of the best RP monitors on the market. The owner said that this one has been ranked best in the industry by several sources. I believe it!

Guys get out and check out the LSis and especially the Pioneer Elite PRO-720HD RP monitor. I’m glad I had the time to go to this little out of the way shop and see this stuff.

PS I did finally get to Pigeon Forge, watched two games and got home around 1:00AM. Rain cancelled out the games today.

dean/klipschead

Your description regarding the comparison between the RB5 II's and the LSi9's is exactly what I would have expected.

Klipsch Reference definitely fairs better with tube gear. There is so much clarity that the top end can seem a little 'too much' after a while (with solid state). Accuracy can be brutal to a fault as they will reveal any short comings in the downstream components.

I have a Bryston 3B-ST that I really don't want to sell because it's so nice -- and I'm thinking those LSi9's are probably just the ticket.

Thanks for the info.

TroyD

man....forget the LSi...

Buy yourself some more Klipsch and cut me a deal on that Bryston.

Whaddya say?


Troy

I didn't think so

mantis

Klipsch and tubes......interesting...I would like to hear the new ref series with a good tube amp.I liked the way they sounded with the Denon 5800 and the B&K 307(I used to work for tweeter).I like Polk but klipsch does rock really well.
Dan