New to Polk!

Yashu

I am basically new to Polk Audio, I just picked up a set of RTi4s for my desktop music system.

First a bit of background.

I have an NAD c350 integrated amp, and I pretty much use my PC (with fairly decent sound card) as the source these days, though sometimes my modded Toshiba 3960 for CDs, and a low end NAD tuner. I used to live in a bigger place and had been using a pair of PSB Alpha Ts as my main listening speakers, but now in my smaller apt. I wanted a good bookshelf speaker.

The Polks seemed to be a great value and I am pretty impressed with them so far, however I thought I would ask you guys your thoughts. Considering that half my source material are Mp3s (192k and above), do you think the RTi4s are an overkill? I am just breaking them in now and the highs are still a little sizzly, and I saw the Monitor 30s for a bit less money... but they seemed to use the same silk dome tweeter... so I figured if I was going to go with that I would get a speaker that did better in the mids and lows. I just hope these don't end up so revealing that mp3s, even at the high bitrates, become unlistenable.

Actually... I could upgrade to the LSi7s too in about 6 months, boy that is an attractive speaker... but I figure they would reveal even more of the problems with MP3 compression.

I also compose music as a hobby, and the RSi4s seem to be as good a monitor as any for the price... This aspect I am very happy with.

Does anyone here do alot of listening from the PC? What kind of setup do you have? Is there a polk speaker out there that would mate better with my setup? (aside from the little blue powered nearfield ones)

Impressed with Polk so far!
-Yashu

ledhed

First, welcome!

If you are going to be using your PC most of the time then go ahead and re-rip everything into a lossless format at least. Any decent speaker will instantly reveal all the horrible nuances of a compressed format. Also, if your budget permits, a great way to integrate a PC is by using a soundcard with digital out along with an outboard DAC. The lesser option is a high quality soundcard like the M-audio audiophile series (which starts at $100)

Also, I have no clue what the little blue speakers you speak of are.

Yashu

The little blue ones are the Atrium series... 45p and 55.

Hmm... It's been a while since I looked into an outboard DAC, That is a good idea!

I agree with the re-ripping. *looks at my cd towers* as much as I would love to do that I would have to upgrade my RAID5 array for more storage... hehe...

I like the outboard DAC idea, though... is there a decent one that can do upsampling that doesn't cost more then a couple hundred dollars? I can do digital out no problem, but I want to keep my NAD so the DAC is the best bet.

The thing about "any decent speaker" I think applies less to some speakers then others. I consider PSB speakers to be decent but they are not nearly as revealing as these polks are...

george daniel

Welcome aboard

G-2

Welcome to the madness...

Yashu

Thanks. It may be a maddening hobby but I still love it.

ben62670

Look for some used monitor 5's, and 4.6's. You can get them off ebay for about $125-150 shipped, and you will be amazed at the sound they reproduce.
Ben

Yashu

Older speakers are a no-no for me. I need something magnetically shielded. I use a pro 21" mitsubishi CRT. I actually have an older set of JBL monitors (before JBL started to suck) that sound great but aren't shielded so they are sitting in the closet.

I am considering calling my dealer guy and just plain asking him if he has any other comparable bookshelf options... even slightly used. These polks are so bright I am not quite sure I will fall in love with them like I have other speakers in the past.

I have never used my tone controls on my NAD before but actually taking the trebel tone knob and turning down one notch seems to settle some of the sizzlyness. Once the polks break in over time I will probably be able to enable the tone defeat again.

When I play CDs on my PC using digital extraction, the sound is most excellent. The toshiba 3960 is a bit more laid back but also very good. I will probably be frequenting the CD store alot more now.

Yashu

Well polkies, I just could not fall in love with those RTi4s, and I returned them and picked up a set of PSB alpha Bs from another dealer and am glad to be back to the PSB side of things... no offense to polk, though. I was impressed with many aspects of the speakers... and the LSi series look like great speakers for the money... but I am sitting here listening to my new alphas (that match my poor neglected alpha towers) and can easily hear why these are the best match for my system.

Appreciate the help and good words, though... and I will probably stick around the forum too (I see others here without polks in their systems).