Receivers and Polks

madmax

I had a strange experience the other day. I sold one of my friends a pair of 1C's awhile back and he hooked them up to a Sony 100W per channel receiver in the mean time untill he gets a real system going. For the fun of it I had him play some stuff for me because I have never heard my beloved polks on anything other than separates, (great pre-amps and amps) etc. The interconnect cable and all else was connected properly.

No soundstage. Lifeless. Dull. Harsh tweeters. Terible bass. No midrange. Not defined at all.

Might as well have been listening to a pair of torn sunsoaked Kraco 6x9's mounted in a big box hooked up with phone wire to a mono table radio with half blown output transistors while sitting in a garage.
madmax

Aaron

That just goes to show you that SDA's aren't all that!

Aaron

axeman

That just goes to show you that SDA's aren't all that!

This is true only if you do not have good enough equipment driving them.........................You suprised me with that one Aaron:eek:

Joe

avelanchefan

Hey man Kraco rocks! How can you knock them? LOL:) I was actually cracking up when I saw you had wrote that.

Do they still make Kraco? Or is that an off shoot of Audiovox? Or is Kraco distrubuted in places like K-Mart only?

madmax

Aaron,
No, That just goes to show that Sony Receivers arent all that:o Or, receivers in general?

Aaron

Heehee, I crack me up.

Aaron

wolfeman7

Well I guess I'm the guilty party in this scenario
The Sony unit was a home theatre unit and was a 120 watts not that it matters much. Madmax was absolutely correct. It sounds like crap. I do have a nice Carver PM1.5 to drive everything with and a nice Carver 26 V preamp. All I need is time to build my subwoofer and I'll hook everything up proper then. My deepest apologys to Madmax for insulting his ears so badly. ( He asked to here it I didn't volunteer).
Wolfeman7

madmax

Everyone please welcome one of my best friends! Wolfeman7. New to Polks but very knowlegable on most topics including precision machine work, firearms, anything mechanical or cutting edge,hunting of all styles, champion marksman, car audio, 4-wheelers, whew... you name it.
madmax

mantis

Receiver's and seperates.
Only very few receiver's can sound as good as low line seperates.And even fewer can exceed low end seperates.There's ony 3 to 4 receiver's on the market that sound really good.
Now that doesn't mean that receiver's suck or anything, but you can't compare them to seperates.
OK here is the list of receiver's that can perform almost as well as low end seperate's.
1)Denon avr5800
2)Rotel rsx1065
3)Marantz 5900(**** I forget the model number but it's there top of the line.)
4)Pioneer Elite vsx49tx
Thats it!! Now the only other receiver on the market that can sound as good if not slightly better than low end seperates is..............The B&K avr307.
It's the only one that can Play 2 channel music and just about fool you into believing your listening to a 2 channel pre amp and amp.I'ts close but B&K ref220 and the PT3b sound much better.
Seperates are good for a 2 channel only system.Buying seperates for theater can get real pricey.Rotel and Adcom make entry level seperates for theater around 4500.00 for both a 5 channel amp and a pre amp processor.
Then you move up to B&K around 5600.00.There are some other's around this price range, then it jump's up to 10 grand.
When you build a theater and music system,receiver's do extremly well.Sony's line the onlt line thats worth owning is the ES line.Good power, sound's nice and is competive with other's in it's own price class.
The other receiver that is nice for comming close to seperate's is the Yamaha rxv1.I know you can argue that point as it is a bright receiver,but it has one hell of a dynamic range, that can't go unnoticed.
Dan

arnoldz

In my experience the sound quality of Polks is very dependent on the amplifier feeding them. I have had my RT16s hooked up to Carver and Yamaha receivers, and the Yamaha pre-amp section feeding a Rotel amp. In all cases I have not been happy with the sound - very harsh and brassy and actually irritating at high listening levels.

The best sound I have achieved with Polks is with a Denon 3802 receiver. Quite a difference. You still have to watch the volume but they do play quite a bit smoother and less harsh with the Denon.


Used with an incompatible amp Polks are not fun.

joe logston

i have a yamaha rx-v1 and run a aragon 4004 mark2 amp out of the mains, run a denon poa-2400 amp modafied, out of the surounds and its not bright at all just clean and deep and wide sound stage. on some software it is absulute awesome.

and i welcome wolfeman 7 to the polk forum