Harman Kardon sound bad on old Rti Series?

Lowell_M

heiney9 wrote: »

Perhaps if a_mattison sees this thread he'll chime in. he has RTi 70's and an HK AVR which he runs and is extremely satisfied. He has since added an external amp, but not because he was unhappy with the sound he wanted more power.

What do you think it sounds like? That's all that matters. I've never heard anyone say that HK and Polk RTi aren't a good match.

H9

I've been too distracted with job issues and summer activities and haven't been around much, but just ran accross this thread.

I'm extremely happy with the HK running my RTi70's! I've since tweaked my setup a little bit by adding external amps, DAC's and such, but it is just a matter of tweaking.

The Hk AVR's are very powerful with good separation and imaging at their pricepoint in my opinion.

Lowell_M

dbaldus wrote: »

I guess the word "mono" in the name monoblock should have given it away

Well, would you recommend getting a 2 channel amp like the ones you mentioned or just two Marantz MA500 monoblocks (if I could find a pair of them for cheaper than buying a two channel amp)?

And would I end up wanting to run external amps to all five of my speakers, or just the fronts (the Rti70s)? Remember, my other speakers are R15s!

I'm running my RTi70's off an ADCOM GFA-555 and the HK powers the other channels. I may add an amp for the center channel, but really, I'm quite happy with the theater experience at the moment.

Also keep in mind that different amps have different characteristics. I am by no means an expert on different brands of amps, but have listened compared Outlaw monoblocks, Parasound HCA-1000(I think) and ADCOM amps a couple of times in different combinations of gear and the ADCOM is always a standout for me. The Outlaws didn't offer much improvement to the HK AVR to my ears and the Parasound was very nice... detailed and smooth, but lacked "slam" in the lower octaves.

What I am getting at is if you are going to add amps, try to get your ears on a couple different brands in the same listening session. You may meet some people on here willing to give you a demo, or you could buy a few (used) and resell the ones you don't want to keep.