Rear Speakers

Silly Rabbit

I have had my Polk set up for about 5-6 years now. I have a pair of RT1000p for my main, cs245 for the center, and a pair of RT10 towers for the rear. I really don't have any complaints about the set up, but thinking about modifying it for a change. I've been eyeing the fx series for awhile. I am considering replacing the rear RT10 towers with fxi3 speakers. The majority of use is for TV and home theater. With my current set up, the rears are easy identified. I have used a sound meter to set up the levels and still have recieved complains from my better half because her normal spot is about 3 ft from one. The speakers are located slightly behind the seating location and being towers, the speakers are about 3' high, or just slightly lower than ear level. The main seating is about a foot off the wall, so placement behind doesn't work. I am considering placing the fx speakers in the same location on stands, sitting higher than where the towers are. Although I want the difused sound, I don't want to loose the impact of the rears that I get now with the RT10s. How much of a difference will the fx speakers make? The room is about 25' x 14' with the view area being the short side. So the fronts and rears are about 12-13' apart. I don't think I'm willing to fork out the money for the fxi5 to try the differnce. Also, the option of getting white helps with the WAF. Will the fxi3 be able to handle the job? My reciever is a Yamaha HTR5490, 6.1 @ 130 watts. Following this change, I also intend to upgrade the center to a cs400i or csi5 and add a sub at some time. The PT1000p do help the bass, but I've never really thought they were a true alternative to a sub.
If I do replace my rears, any ideas what a pair of RT10s are worth? Have manual, originals box and all.

landry_p2000

Silly Rabbit! Polk are for kids!
Hey man, and welcome to the forum. I had a pair of RTi4s for my rears at first, and I could pinpoint where the sound was coming from no matter how I tweaked my Onkyo. I ended up getting the FXi3s, and the difference was an improvement. IMO, getting the FXi3s should solve this problem. Hope this helped, and good luck on your purchase.

Landry

aaharvel

^ what he said

jfburke

Landry:

In what way are the FXi3's better than the RTi4's? I have a 5.1 system with RTi8 mains and R15 surrounds and was planning on upgrading the surrounds to RTi4's, but I'm thinking about the FXi3's now.

Any other comments on RTi4's vs FXi3's for surround channels?

landry_p2000

jfburke wrote:

Landry:

In what way are the FXi3's better than the RTi4's? I have a 5.1 system with RTi8 mains and R15 surrounds and was planning on upgrading the surrounds to RTi4's, but I'm thinking about the FXi3's now.

Any other comments on RTi4's vs FXi3's for surround channels?

IMO, the FXi3s opened the surround fields up dramatically, and with the dual 1" tweeters you get more of a full range surround effect from your rear soundstage. In your case, the sound would do you even more justice with the sound traveling in two directions instead of one. These speakers also have a switch to choose between a bipole/dipole setting for either rear or side mounting according to your room.

Check out this link: http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/products/individual/surround/fxi3/

aaharvel

I'm not a fan of monopoles for surround speakers. Monopoles are way too sensitive about placement, you have to put up with the precedence effect- which is an absolute distraction from the presentation itself and a major pain in the **** if you're not sitting perfectly still in the sweet spot.

I know many argue that using anything but monopoles for music, discrete formats such as DVD, SACD and all that jazz ruins what the sound mixer intended but I respectfully disagree. Last time I checked, the sound mixer didn't have the word "GOD" written on his nametag. For me, i'd go with a pair f/x's either in bipole OR dipole mode (your preference) on the side walls for a 5.1 setup. OR, even better, 2 pairs for a "7.1" presentation- both in bipole mode with 1 pair on the side walls, 1 pair on the rear walls.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/loudspeakers/25/index1.html

that's my advice. take it for what it's worth. A million bucks or absolutely $0.

Silly Rabbit

I ordered a pair of fxi3's from Crutchfield. Looking forward to playing with the new surrounds.

aaharvel

great! let us know how it works out. If you're doing a 5.1 setup you might be best to have the speakers on the side walls- and if it's mainly for movies then dipole will prob. be your best option. Regardless, experiment and have fun!

landry_p2000

Good deal Silly Rabbit. I hope you enjoy the FXi3s as much as I have. Like aaharvel said, play around and experiment with them to get the best sound possible out of them.