LSi's and Onkyo

kmartin971

I have recently been serching for a receiver. I eventually elected the Onkyo SR803 to replace a yamaha 700 series receiver.

The increase in performance is amazing.

In fact, I talk with both Yamaha and Denon customer service reps and told me to stay away from their receivers because they were not made to handle the 4 ohm load. A rep from Denon actually sugested going to Onkyo or Marantz. I am glad he did!

By the way, all discusssions I had with Yamaha, Denon, HK, and Onkyo were confirmed with a polk rep prior to making the decision to go with the Onkyo. It pays to do your homework.

I can not wait to upgrade again to the TX-NR1000!

The Onkyo and LSi match sounds significantly better than the Denon and Yamaha setups I tested at Tweeter.

cammrit

kmart,
Are you serious that Onkyo will drive that LSi package. I just received the exact speaker config as you except I have little LSi15's instead . I am attempting to get mine hooked up right now but have been warned about the massive power requirements of the speakers especially with the 4 Ohm load. How long have you had the reciever hooked up?

Cammrit

kmartin971

You can go seperates and spend lots of $$$ I have done extensive research in this. If you are not going with seperates and are going with an AVR receiver go with Onkyo or Marantz.

I am a big Yamaha and Denon fan both they do not work well with 4 ohm loads. I have confirmed this with tecnical reps from both Yamaha and Denon. I have also read all owners manauals for all top receiver from Denon, Outlaw, Marantz, Yamaha, and HK. After all this research I am exhausted but very happy with my selection for under $1,000.

I had a Yamaha 700 series hook up the the LSi and at full power the speakers were not returning what I had experienced when demoing them at the store, with the change to the 803 they now sing!!

Dennis Gardner

The 15s are harder to drive than the powered 25s.

Be careful with multi channel music driven hard with any receiver. Music is much harder on the power supply of a receiver than a movie since all channels can have full sound for long periods of time instead of the occasional explosion or loud passage. More receivers than we care to mention, here on the forum, have gone into protection mode trying to drive the LSi series.

kmartin971

i am going to test the new receiver with music tomorrow night. I do not expect a problem with the 803 after talking to the Onkyo technician.

kmartin971

Zero:

Valid post if I were supporting enough sound for small auditorium!

VR3

I must just push my speakers hard....

But I run out of juice with a seperate amp and 300 watt 6 ohm speakers when Im REALLY rocking out for short periods of times.

One thing you learn FAST in this hobby...you can NEVER have enough power. Or should I say, current.

BTW, if I was a manufacture, OEM, talking to a guy that probally dosnt fully know what speakers you're talking about or anything - and you're sitting there and just asked him... "Hey, will your receiver push my speakers?" - That guy is going to automatically say, YES it will, and he's not lieing to you. While the receiver can push your speakers, it will NOT be to their potential that they possess.

There are not many receivers in that price range that can adequately drive the LSi line.

Dennis Gardner

kmartin971 wrote:

i am going to test the new receiver with music tomorrow night. I do not expect a problem with the 803 after talking to the Onkyo technician.

I'm not trying ot rain on your new parade, and I am glad you did some homework before buying your equipment, but the fact remains, that the LSi series of Polks are the hardest to drive speaker Polk has ever marketed.

You will find a few members here on the forum use their LSis with a Denon, HK, Onk or Yamaha receiver, but you will find a much larger contingent 80-90% of those with experience with the LSis stating that the LSi series is more likely to send your receiver into shutdown when driven hard.

Sound&Vison Receiver Tests

Above, is the Sound & Vision chart from their testing and you can see even the latest model of Onkyo they tested, the TX-NR901 only produced 50 watts into 4 ohms rather than the rated 110wpc they claimed. Receivers marked in blue reached their claims, those in red didn't. Those marked in bold red like the 901 fell far short of the claim.

I wish you luck, and just remember that many around here use receivers as a preamp with outboard amps driving big RTis or LSi Polks so that option is always there with your new 803.

Cheers,

Dennis

heiney9

Kmartin, I hope you've set aside some extra cash to replace the drivers on your Lsi's. Because if you run all channels for music to even a moderate level you risk damaging your speakers. Hopefully the Onk will go into protection before any damage is done. Receivers are not designed to drive the type of load the Lsi's present to a high level for any period of time. What else do you think and Onkyo rep will say? "No don't buy our product it won't work". Certainly having the Lsi 25's helps as the they are powered, but be careful as you don't need the volume "to fill an auditorium" to do some damage.

YMMV

H9

kmartin971

This was confirmed with a polk rep not just the Onkyo rep. BTW, the nice thing about the Onkyo is that it also supports peramps for 7 channels.

I am still struggling with many posters cliam the LSi need more power than the 803 provides. Granted the NR1000 wuld be a much better fit.

In all likelyhood I will be adding a 200 watt plus amp to drive the towers.

The receiver has yet to shut down. The Marantz and Onkyo top of the receivers all support 4 ohms and are high current receivers. I watched Gladiator, Pirates of the Carribean, and Star Wars episode 1-IV. No shut downs. The detailed was vary impressive. Sound was set to half vol! A very loud level.

No where in the HK manual does if ever make the claim that it supports anything below 8 ohms. I have talked to an HK tech and read the AVR 7300 and AVR 740 manuals. The new 800 series which are Ultra 2 certified may but their manuals are not available on the HK website.

sickicw

I have the Onkyo SR703 with lsi speakers, but only use the onkyo to power my rear speakers. I would be very carefull about useing it on more than two 4 ohm speakers. If you decited to turn up the volume too much running with 5 to 7 4 ohm speakers, you might just find yourself with a blown tweeter. Also take a look at the spec sheet. It is only rated at the advertised power driving 2 8 ohm speakers, not 7, 4 ohms ones.

kmartin971

Sick:

What amp are you using to drive the towers?


The specs for the 802 clearly indicate they support 4 ohms. All channels are individually powered in the 803. Rating is 170w per channel. if you look other speakers they either have an inpedence switch they will only go as low as 6 ohms or no switch at all. When using the 803 you must change the inpedence setting to 4 ohms.

I did ask the Onkyo tech to provide ratings for this receiver at 4 ohms and compared it to other receivers. If you ask they will provide ou with the data although its not pubished in the manual.

All I'm trying to say is its very telling when both Denon and Yamaha recommend HK, Onkyo, and Marantz and admitted their receivers were not acceptable for the 4 ohm load.

Power Output
TX-SR803/803E:
2 channels driven: North American:
105 W + 105 W (8Ω, 20 Hz–20 kHz, FTC)
European: 140 W + 140 W (6Ω, 1 kHz, DIN) Others: 170 W + 170 W(6Ω, 1 kHz, JEITA)
TX-SR703/703E/8370:
2 channels driven: North American:
100 W + 100 W(8Ω, 20 Hz–20 kHz, FTC)
European: 130 W + 130 W (6 Ω, 1 kHz, DIN)
Others: 160 W + 160 W(6 Ω, 1 kHz, JEITA)
Dynamic Power TX-SR803/803E:
240 W + 240 W (3 Ω, Front)
180 W + 180 W (4 Ω, Front)
125 W + 125 W (8 Ω, Front)
TX-SR703/703E/8370:
230 W + 230 W (3Ω, Front)
170 W + 170 W (4 Ω, Front)
115 W + 115 W (8 Ω, Front)
THD (Total Harmonic
Distortion) 0.08% (Power Rated)
Damping Factor 60 (Front, 1 kHz, 8Ω)
Input Sensitivity and Impedance 200 mV/ 47 k (LINE)
2.5 mV/47 k Ω (PHONO MM)
Output Level and Impedance 200 mV/ 470 Ω(REC OUT)
Phono Overload 70 mV (MM 1 kHz, 0.5%)
Frequency Response 10 Hz–100 kHz/ +1 dB-3 dB (LINE)
Tone Control ±10 dB, 50 Hz (BASS)
±10 dB, 20 kHz (TREBLE)
Signal to Noise Ratio 106 dB (LINE, IHF-A)
80 dB (PHONO, IHF-A)
Speaker Impedance 4 Ω or 6 Ω

Dennis Gardner

The point being made is that receiver rating watts aren't accurate most of the time. They are inflated at best and outright lies on some. (Refer to my previous test chart).

At the levels you listen, you may get along just fine with the big Onk receiver. Just keep in mind that if you start having problems with thermal shutdowns or speaker failure, it would be the receiver behind the issue not those wonderful LSis. A real test for multi channel music is the DTS version of Eagles-Hell Freezes Over, I've put a receiver into thermal shutdown with this on 8 ohm Polks.

Glad you are happy so far,

DG

kmartin971

Agreed. Then I will have to go buy the outlaw 200 watt 7 channel amp!

I do think that adding a high powered two channel amp for the towers will remove some of the load from the receiver.

All in all a reasonable sound levels you can drive the 4 ohm load and make the spaeker perfrom they way they were intended to.

I can tell you that I noticed a condierable differene between the Onkyo 803 and my yamaha 700 series.

The unit is not shutting down and still loud enough to scare my german sheppard!

The real lesson is stick with Polk RTi (8ohm) series unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money!

jrlouie

For what it's worth, I ran my Lsi's for quite some time with just an Onkyo. I thought it sounded good. Even detailed.
For experimenting purposes I hooked up a power amp, and whoa, now they were nice and full sounding. Made my Onkyo sound harsh, empty, and I'd even say disorted when at high levels (I didn't know I was hearing distortion until I cleaned it up).
My only point is that a person can probably get away with the Onkyo, but not great perfomance and I didn't know it until I tried otherwise. In my case, ignorance was bliss I guess.

Oh yeah, my Onkyo never shut down but I think that's because I never drove it to hard. In my case distortion (because of over-worked amplification) would come into play before this would occur, and I'd turn it down a little.

I'd also say that if I had a party and cranked it a little, I'll admit it would make me nervous. Now that I have seperate amps, the nervousness is gone.

sickicw

Oh yea one more thing about the Onkyo. Since it is a class A/B amp, if you dont wire it to any speakers, it will get very very hot. not sure how bad this is, but before i used it for my rear speakers, it did shut down once after running it about 8 hours as a pre-amp at very high volumes (high amp bias). After all, all of that unused current has to go somewhere.

audiobliss

kmartin971 wrote:

All in all a[t] reasonable sound levels you can drive the 4 ohm load and make the spaeker perfrom they way they were intended to.

The way they were intended to? With a receiver? Nope.

kmartin971

When I talked to Polk they recommended a receiver with power range of 125w to 200w per channel.

aaharvel

kmartin971 wrote:

When I talked to Polk they recommended a receiver with power range of 125w to 200w per channel.

great. Why don't you ask Onkyo how much current their amps are packing? :rolleyes:

Heiney, Dennis and Zero, Sick, Louie & Bliss warned you..

audiobliss

Ok. I think we may be coming off a little too strong here. I mean, you did just get your new receiver and are loving it, after all. Let me try and put it this way. If you just listen to the LSi25's for music off the Onkyo, you would probably get pretty good sound and it would probably power them just fine up to modest levels. However, when you watch a movie and are asking the Onkyo to support the load of 7 4ohm speakers, you're asking it do something that all receivers have a hard time doing. You won't be able to turn it up much at all without straining it, and you can forget approaching reference levels, I would think.

You very well may be experiencing much better sound than your Yamaha gave you. The Onkyo very well may be doing great in comparison. However, it is not, by any stretch, a good match for even a pair of LSi speakers, much less a full 7.1 LSi HT setup. If you're not asking more of the receiver than it can handle without going into safe mode, then great. Enjoy it and don't turn it up too much for both the receiver's and the speakers' sake.

But keep in mind that the receiver is severely limiting your speakers' performance. And like jrlouie said, you just think it sounds good. You're probably hearing a fair amount of distortion and just don't realized it and won't until you add a stout amp to your system and 'make the spaeker perfrom they way they were intended to.'

aaharvel

exactly. They're nice receivers.
Get an external amp.

kmartin971

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/reviews/538999742

kmartin971

Using the 803 on screen setup I set the inpedence setting to 4. Some sites say leave the inpedence setting on 8 even though you can set it to 4 ohm, why? waht setting should be used when driving LSis?

audiobliss

kmartin971 wrote:

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/reviews/538999742

No thanks. Personally not interested in an Onkyo (or a receiver, for that matter). Thanks for the link though.

audiobliss

With receivers that have an impedance switch, what it does it limit the amount of current the amp section will push. For 8ohm speakers, there doesn't need to be a restriction because they won't draw more power than the receiver can provide (generally). However, 4ohm speakers can easily draw more than the receiver can provide, thus sending it into safe mode, at least until you fry it. So, when you switch it to 4ohms, it limits the current, thus making it 'safer'. However, this also hurts the sound quality. Leave it set to 8ohms and use your head when you turn it up. If it starts to distort and get hot, you're pushing it too hard and you should turn it down.

At least that's what I remember from previous discussions about the 8/4ohm switch. If I'm wrong, someone will correct me.

kmartin971

Who actually listens to movies at reference level? Proably because they already hearing impaired!

Any suggestions for a good amp?

heiney9

kmartin971 wrote:

http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/reviews/538999742

What's the purpose of the link........to convince us? It won't; I've been there done that and no matter how many testimonials you come up with it means nothing until YOU try it yourself. If you are happy with the performance of your set-up, that's all that matters. We are simply commenting about taking it to the next (better) level. We all have to start somewhere and you could have done a lot worse. So enjoy, but don't try to convince those of us WHO have experienced the "other" side to just agree with you. Receivers don't cut it with the Lsi's. You will never get anything close to the full potential of those wonnderful speaks unless you give them lots of current. And you don't get THAT kind of current from a receiver.

H9

kmartin971

Heiney:

What do recommend as my next purchase to get to the next level?

Actually I agree with you. The only point im making is for many people who do not want to spend 3-5k this an excellent alternative if you already own LSis.

audiobliss

I would personally look at B&K, Rotell, Outlaw, Carver, and Sunfire.

audiobliss

kmartin971 wrote:

Actually I agree with you. The only point im making is for many people who do not want to spend 3-5k this an excellent alternative if you already own LSis.

Perhaps it would be a good alternative if you already have LSi's. However, if you're not willing to spend the money necessary to buy good equipment to power the LSi's, you should not buy LSi's. It's a waste of speaker, could damage the equipment, and cheaper speakers matched with comparable equipment would sound better than poorly powered LSi's.

heiney9

kmartin971 wrote:

Heiney:

What do recommend as my next purchase to get to the next level?

Actually I agree with you. The only point im making is for many people who do not want to spend 3-5k this an excellent alternative if you already own LSis.

You don't need to sepnd anywhere near 3-5K if you are willing to buy used. Look at amps by:

Rotel
Parasound
Adcom (personal fave)
Outlaw (Club Polk fave)
Cineova (a bit more expensive)
Sunfire
Carver

You have a very nice start with the Lsi's, they are outstanding speakers. You may need to do what many here did and that is wait awhile and save your money if the budget is low or if you feel the need to purchase new stock rather than used. I know we come off sometimes as "up'ity" and most don't mean to. It's just this subject has been discussed to death and people are always trying to convince that there is no appreciable difference between running external amps vs. a receiver. In the case of the Lsi's no receiver is really a good match for top performance. Personally I would never run anything BUT seperates regardless of speakers. No receiver IMO, sounds as good. But that's my experience and my preference.

FWIW

H9