time to upgrade to LSi9's ?

Swank

I have the urge to make the bank account shrink, and I'm considering moving to some LSi speakers with an Outlaw 7125 amp. My current configuration is as follows:

Yamaha HTR-5660 (6.1 speaker configuration)
Polk RT7 (Front L/R)
Polk CS350 (Front Center)
Polk RTi38 (Rear L/R)
Polk CS1 (Rear Center)
Velodyne CHT-15 (Subwoofer)

While I love the RT7's with the tri-lam tweeter, I'm just ready for more. Maybe I just have upgrade-itis after going HT shopping with my buddy to get him set up. It doesn't matter -- I've been bitten by the bug. The bottom line is that if I get LSi's I am going to need an amp to power them as the Yamaha probably isn't up to the task of driving both front L/R and a center channel at 4ohms. The manual even lists 6ohms as the minimum for the center channel and only the front L/R can be 4ohms. After searching the forums and browsing around, it appears that the Outlaw 7125 is a very good amp for the money. The first upgrade is to relegate the Yamaha as a pre/pro and use the 7125 to drive my current speakers for a short time before going after the LSi's.

I'm most likely only looking at only upgrading the front soundstage at this point, which means two LSi9's and a LSiC. I'll either move my current fronts to the rear or leave the rear as-is depending on which sounds best. From what I've read, the 7125 should easily handle the three LSi's plus more. The first question is whether the Outlaw can power both the 4ohm LSi's and my current 8ohm speakers without issue or whether I should leave the rear speakers connected to the Yamaha. If I leave the rears on the Yamaha, I would have 4 channels open on the Outlaw and I've seen that some folks bi-amp (?) their LSi's. Anyone want to chime in here?

Eventually I want to upgrade the rear as well, which leads me to another concern. I see that the LSi series was announced in early 2001 and available in November 2001. I'm not sure how soon I can upgrade the rears, so I'm worried about having Polk EOL'ing the LSi's and replacing them with a new line which may not be timbre matched to the LSi's. I'm not a used-market type of guy, so I'd rather avoid that issue. I'm basically trying to avoid the situation like I have now where I don't have exact timbre matching between the front and rear speakers.

Your thoughts?

markmarc

First, you will want to upgrade the amp. The yamaha just wasn't designed beefy enough to handle multiple 4ohm loads. The Outlaw will do just fine.

Secondly, just because Polk upgrades the LSi line doesn't mean anything. You'll be able to find new in-box units of the current series for many months. I would tell you to not worry about used, especially with speakers, as it's easy to tell if they are functioning properly, especially if you already have a set from the same line. Your ear will already be clued in to what the speaker should sound like.

ohskigod

Marc's right. I'll ad that I dont see an LSi upgrade too soon. but even if it does, there will still be a myriad of ways to get the LSi line at that point as well, besides, if your going to pop your used speaker cherry, it might as well be on surrounds as a worst case scenario.

that Outlaw will do the LSi's fine, but note the LSi's will have even more to give you if you upgrade amplification even further down the road. so youll be in a pretty good spot.

I'm wondering if getting 3 of the Outlaw monoblocks and running surrounds off the reciever would be more prudent though. dont worry, either way you wont go wrong.

the 3 mono's will throw more power the LSi front stage than the 7125 if I am not mistaken, which should pay dividends on overall sound presentation.

ohskigod

Swank wrote:

I'm most likely only looking at only upgrading the front soundstage at this point, which means two LSi9's and a LSiC. I'll either move my current fronts to the rear or leave the rear as-is depending on which sounds best. From what I've read, the 7125 should easily handle the three LSi's plus more. The first question is whether the Outlaw can power both the 4ohm LSi's and my current 8ohm speakers without issue or whether I should leave the rear speakers connected to the Yamaha. If I leave the rears on the Yamaha, I would have 4 channels open on the Outlaw and I've seen that some folks bi-amp (?) their LSi's. Anyone want to chime in here?



Your thoughts?

putting more thought to it, I am really feeling the 3 outlaw mono plan and powering the surrounds with the Yammy. it utilizes you amplification doller better. the biamping plan you outline is a solid plan, it will work, and work probably well, but I would go with the more powerful amp over the biamp plan all other things being equal.

just my .02, like I said, wont go too wrong wither way, so dont lose sleep over the choice.

cfrizz

Welcome Swank. You have a good plan, but as others have stated the more power you give the LSI's the happier they are. So go for the Outlaw 7500 amplifier.

You will be able to use that amp regardless of what other speaker you might decide to try out later on!

Swank

Thanks for the input. The only problem with going with the monoblocks is my space is available limited in my cabinet (only one 8.5x26x19 HxWxD spot left) and I'd be stuck after 4 of the 2200's with no room for expansion. I'm not sure if I have room for the 7200 due to depth, which left me at the 7125. I'd be in a pickle once I wanted to upgrade my rears to LSi's if I had the 2200's since the Yamaha can't handle 4ohm speakers on the rear outputs.

Any problems running 4ohm and 8ohm speakers off different channels on the Outlaw?

ohskigod

no probs at all, if it can run all channels on 4 ohms (and it can), then some on 8 and some on 4 will be less work for the amp.

(keep in mind those mono's are stackable, you can go three high on the smae shelp, you'd have to measure though to see if it would fit. Like I said, you aint gonna go to wrong either way.

if you did follow Cfrizz's plan of getting a 7500 amp, running all LSi's on it, with 2 surrounds (even LSi) as rear surrounds off the Yammy probably wont be a big deal at all as long as it is rated at 4 ohms (which i believe it is)

pblanc

I used an Outlaw 7125 to biamp a pair of LSi9 speakers with good results. You are right about not wanting to run LSis off the rear surround or side surround channels of your Yamaha receiver. I ran a pair of RT25s as surrounds off the 7125 along with LSi9 mains for a while, so that would work (8 ohm and 4 ohm in combination). I think going with the 7125 would give you the most flexibility. I have had a 7125 go into thermal protection mode when using it to drive an LSi9 with just one channel, however.

Swank

After having time over the holiday to think it over, I might just go with the three monoblocks from Outlaw (the 2200's). I'll drive the FL/FC/FR off of the Outlaws and leave the RL/RC/RR on the AVR. If I do this though, I won't upgrade the rears to the LSi series as the AVR may not handle them and the rear soundstage just isn't nearly as critical as the fronts for HT. Sure it would nice to have all 6 speakers timbre matched, but I don't think I'll notice other than during calibration using white noise. I'll just need to figure out which set of speakers to use as the rears -- my older RT7's+CS350 or the newer RTi38's+CS1.

If I find out down the road that I need to add another amp or more monoblocks to drive new rear speakers, I think the only place I will be able to put the new amps will be on the other side of the wall that my entertainment center is up against. This is the closet in one of my bedrooms that I use as a home office. I have made two pass-thru's between the closet and the HT for cabling for my HTPC. Am I at a big risk of ground-loop issues? I don't have any problems right now, but the only cables that pass through are a DVI cable to my TV and a Toslink to my AVR.

Thanks again for all the feedback.

edit: What do you recommend for the large/small speaker settings and LFE management for the LSi{9,C} speakers? If I set the LSi's to "small" and set the bass management to "subwoofer only" that one of the woofers would only reproduce 90-200Hz due to the speaker's crossover point (Driver 1: LPF at 200Hz 12dB/oct) and the AVR passing <90Hz to the subwoofer only. Should I select "large" for speaker size and "both" for LFE output with the LSi's?