Rti better than Lsi FOR ROCK MUSIC

knownalien_

organ wrote:

OK, back to audio...

I like both lines very much and can't really say which is superior. I've owned a pair of RT800i and now the LSi9. I had both before selling the 800i's. I loved my RT but had no choice. I needed cash for a pre amp at the time.

When powered by a tube amp the RT's sounded so sweet. This is where the LSi is lacking with my tube amp. But give me a SS amp and I'd take the LSi. Both speakers are wonderful.

Maurice

since you own a tube amp, what are the advantages and disadvantages between that and solid states?

knownalien_

scottnbnj wrote:

sorry if i didn't make myself clear ka. my room acoustics threw off the in room frequency response of my lsi's (along with other problems that aren't worth going into here). my point was that some rock tunes just shined a spotlight the problem. preset eq trims just brought the tonal balance closer to what i knew it should be.

if it helps you to understand that what i've written isn't just a personal preference, hearing deficiency or playing with knobs and buttons thing... i was curious to see what was going on, so i dug my real time frequency spectrum analyzer (rta) out of the closet. it pretty much agreed with what i heard [heh,heh. ok okay. and, maybe a showed me couple of things that i didn't identify by ear. ok. several. my ears aren't that great].

i thought my experience with adding eq might help some understand how rti's tonal balance might sound closer to what someone knows to be the truth than lsi's in a particular room. i could be wrong (it's been a while since my short rti demo), but it's my impression that rti's are voiced in a similar direction to my lsi9's with the added eq trims.

anyway, as i said, bass traps and wall treatments cured the problem. now, eq does not make the tonal balance of those tunes closer to what it should be, it makes them sound worse.

)

i see your point. for me, I can see where on some audio recordings the engineers engineered extremely flat music. when that happens, i am not so sure how much is the speakers' fault or the engineers' fault. But puting that aside, I am kinda hoping that the seperates I am about to purchase will do things that playing with the eq might also fix. It's ust a hunch on my part really.

reeltrouble1

knownalien_ wrote:

for what it's worth, I listen to music "flat." Denon calls this "Direct." I want to hear as little embellishment as possible (because you audition the speaker and not the amp). I suggest others do the same when auditioning. It seems odd to me that, when it comes to music, one would want to hear it with all kinds of gimmicky additives that many receivers do.

Alien,

Ya think!!!!

Welcome to our Club. Please note this is an advanced part of the forum, the people you are talking to in this thread are well versed in elemental audio reproduction, gear setup, demo's and so on. This is just a friendly reminder as you are a new member.

Hearing all the nuances descibed with your Denon 2100 series and DVD player the LSI's have found a synergy in your rig.

Seperates are a different game. Many of us are using tube pre's and ss amps. If you choose this route its a whole new level. There is alot of gear to choose from. There are alot of threads describing what members have discovered in their system which go into detail. The ss amp guys (like me) enjoy the dynamics of the ss amp, tube amp guru's have much less impedance matching problems (hum) and enjoy that little extra liquid sound the amp gives, however, the preamp seems to have the greatest effect on sonics within the system.

Well thats a start and again Welcome to CP.

RT1

ND13

Well put Ted. And I'll add that even the most minimal of tubes pre, the Dodd ELP, transformed my 2-channel system. Took it several steps in the right direction. If any of you that haven't yet had the experience, I suggest you try it out whenever you get the opportunity. It's the best sub $500 upgrade that one could do for their rig.

Make sure that you start out with a pre that uses either the 6DJ8/6922 or the 12AX7 tube variants. Those are the most common and readily available tubes. Makes for alot of fun discovering which tubes sound best with each type of music that one listens to.

knownalien_

reeltrouble1 wrote:

Alien,


Hearing all the nuances descibed with your Denon 2100 series and DVD player the LSI's have found a synergy in your rig.

Seperates are a different game. Many of us are using tube pre's and ss amps. If you choose this route its a whole new level. There is alot of gear to choose from. There are alot of threads describing what members have discovered in their system which go into detail. The ss amp guys (like me) enjoy the dynamics of the ss amp, tube amp guru's have much less impedance matching problems (hum) and enjoy that little extra liquid sound the amp gives, however, the preamp seems to have the greatest effect on sonics within the system.

Well thats a start and again Welcome to CP.

RT1

well, I just ordered a pair of Outlaw 2200 mono block amps. I am curious, what is a nice cheap tube pre-amp?? (also aimed at ND13)

ND13

knownalien_ wrote:

well, I just ordered a pair of Outlaw 2200 mono block amps. I am curious, what is a nice cheap tube pre-amp?? (also aimed at ND13)

Those will be a great start. Go to Tweek Geek's site, they have the Dodd ELP on sale at below cost for $389. That's a steal for a used one, but these are brand new. There's also the Dared SL2000, there's a Radii, an AES, and many more. If you don't mind used, check out Audiogon. They have several pages of tube pres to check out.

cfrizz

However, at least let him get his amps & check out the sound with his Denon before you start pushing tubes on him.

knownalien_

ND13 wrote:

Those will be a great start. Go to Tweek Geek's site, they have the Dodd ELP on sale at below cost for $389. That's a steal for a used one, but these are brand new. There's also the Dared SL2000, there's a Radii, an AES, and many more. If you don't mind used, check out Audiogon. They have several pages of tube pres to check out.

personally, I don't like to buy used. The only exception to that is buying stuff with transerable warranties OR buying floor displays which carry full warranties. How are tube warranties? Denon offers 2 years. Kinda low. Some ss manufactures offer like 10 year warranties! At a premium price, ofcourse.

I think I am moving in the direction of the little man. the speakers I really wanted were the Orions. But you'd need $8000 for a pair. I don't have that kind of dough right now.

p.s. the amps should be here in 3 days, hopefully the interconnects from audioadvisor too!

dpowell

This really does boil down to personal preference. I've listened to the LSi's several times wishing I could like them enough to buy a pair. I even went to the local Fry's and listened to their HT demo room where they had the complete LSi HT speaker system set up. It sounded fantastic, however, for my ears, the RT line has a better sound on the high end. I like the "smoothness" of the LSi's but to me it sounds like something from the the old cassette deck (no offense to anyone who owns LSis) days where someone put Dolby B or C noise reduction on and lost the the high end for the sake of a cleaner sound.

knownalien_

^^ which RTi's?

as for me, I wouldn't classify the LSi's as smooth at all. Only clear. To me, real sound isn't smooth. They use the word transparent a lot, and that means that the speaker, to me, should "add" as little as possible to the sound. That's the $3,000,000 question. The Orions say they can do it. Even after fauning over the LSi15's for a couple of days now, I can hear their weaknesses. But I do not think it shall be enough to compel me to purchase another set of fronts for a few years.

Polk says they are introducing a new flagship line in 2007. I am willing to bet that they migrate to planars or ribbons. I myself came very close to purchasing a pair of Newform speakers except that out of the box their low end is really lacking.

p.s. now that the Outlaws are coming, I am quite curious what they could do to those RTi12's?

jdhdiggs

This thread really reminds me of an argument with a guy on another board claiming his "one note wonder" sub trounced the topped any SVS because it sounded better to him. What kind of music was he listening to? Come on, take a guess?

Yup, you got it-overproduced rap and rock. Some of the worst recorded material on the planet.

Take it in this example: Tequila may be hearing more details, transperancy, and a better presentation but he dislikes it because it unearths all of the faults in the recording and down stream electronics. The RTi's always seemed a bit bright and veiled to me. This could lead to poorly recording material sounding more transperent and detailed.

It doesn't suprise me when someone is listening to poorer recorded genres to prefer the lesser equipment that can hide many of the flaws in the source.

Tequila: This isn't a bash on the RTi's or your genre of music, just a perspective that I have seen happen several times. If you listen primarily to rock, rap, or HT, I would whole-heartedly reccommend any of the RTi series. Otherwise the LSi series would be superior (And much more $$$ on amps, source, and speaks).

Holydoc

knownalien wrote:

p.s. now that the Outlaws are coming, I am quite curious what they could do to those RTi12's?

If you want to hear what happened when I hooked up my Outlaw 770 (7x200watt) amp to my system, go read here:

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33040

reeltrouble1

Alien,

ND13 covered the entry tube bases for you, any of those brands will open a new chapter in your audio life. They should mate up with the mono blocks nicely.

RT1

jdhdiggs

All your tubes are belong to RuSs

Sami

jdhdiggs wrote:

Yup, you got it-overproduced rap and rock. Some of the worst recorded material on the planet.

Some of todays material is so poorly produced that I can only listen to it in my low-end car setup (Bose). "Goodies" by an artist I can't remember atm is a very good example, sounds decent in the car (if you like the song) but with LSi7's and SVS PCU absolutely terrible. I have to admit that my room isn't setup the best possible way right now but still it shouldn't be this bad. I think it is by purpose mixed for the target audience and for low-end systems.

audiobliss

ND13 wrote:

...the Dodd ELP....There's also the Dared SL2000, there's a Radii, an AES, and many more. If you don't mind used, check out Audiogon. They have several pages of tube pres to check out.

Just to expound upon what Noel said and offer some websites for your perusal:

Here's Dared's homepage:
http://www.daredtube.com/

Here's the homepage for Dared's US distributor:
http://home.sharednet.com/1stlook/pages/standard.cfm?url=zestek&a=0&other=9382

Here's a review on the Audio Experience Symphony (and Concerto):
http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/audio_experience_e.html

I can't find anything online about the Radii, but it may certainly be worth looking into.

Hope that helps.
audiobliss

Tequila

Thank you to everyone.

Eric W

Well better is a highly subjective term. What is better to one will not be better to another.

If you're goal is to reproduce rock music that you can feel at rock concert volumes, then yes the RTi12 would be "better" at doing so. It is a more efficient speaker, with more drivers, higher power capability with a larger cabinet and is able to move more air and ultimately play louder. It also has a slightly brighter but less detailed top end vs the LSi and a warmer, slightly colored midbass, which some may view (hear?) as better on stuff like rock and pop, where there isn't much detail in the upper end.

The LSi series is by no means a "cranker" or "blaster" set of speakers. Its lower efficiency, smaller drivers require power to sound their best. Its primary emphasis is on accuracy, clarity, transient response, detail, naturalness, and imaging. It is not for everybody, if a listener is one to like music with the bass and treble turned up then the flat response of the LSi will most likely seem "boring". Although once most people hear the amazing detail, imaging and accuracy of the LSi series, it is hard to go back to the "thump" and "boom" of cranker speakers.

Bottom line... different strokes for different folks .

B3Nut

Nothing like a good accurate loudspeaker to reveal just how bad most pop productions are...though there are many fine recordings in the rock genre out there. Mark Knopfler's Shangri-La comes to mind, also Bruce Cockburn's stuff. Shangri-La sure sounds nice flowing from my trusty 7B's...

Todd in Beerbratistan