Can you use RTi10 as surround speakers for HT?

trevize

Can you use RTi10 as surround speakers for HT?

Using RTi12 as fronts, CSi5 as center, Velodyne DPS-12 as sub and Pioneer VSX-84 as receiver. Normally use Boston A-100 bookshelf speakers as surrounds but can pick up a pair of perfect condition demo RTi10's on sale for $400. Do you think the RTi10's worth it, too expensive or just not good as surrounds?

RuSsMaN

It would be a phenomenal setup, with front and rears set to large. You can get $120 or so for A100's on the used market if the foam is good, so you are net around $280 on the RTi10's.

Cheers,
Russ

*Do you have Boston A-70's? They were the largest shelf speaker of the bunch, the A-100's are a 10 inch 2-way with a dome tweeter in a sealed, floorstanding configuration.

trevize

Thanks RuSsMaN

The RTi10's sounded sweet as fronts for action movies in store but I wasn't sure if they would also sound good as surrounds.

I didn't know the A-100's would sell for so much. I replaced the foam surrounds on their woofers 2 years ago because they had decomposed. Their vinyl exteriors have some minor scratches/marks. Is that on the EBa site or somewhere else?

Yes, I also have A-70's which sound good too and whose vinyl exteriors are like new, but the A-100's sound is better dispersed with better bass.

MikeC78

RuSsMaN wrote: »

It would be a phenomenal setup, with front and rears set to large.

Russ,

I curious as to why you seem to always recommend setting speakers to LARGE in an HT environment? For two-channel music, that's a different story.

RuSsMaN

Why have all those dedicated bass drivers, and run small? RTi12's and RTi10's? Come on now.

2ch - I have no settings in that rig.

Cheers,
Russ

MikeC78

That's the issue, those "bass drivers" can't hit the low octaves like a dedicated HT subwoofer can. That's the reason you'd cross them out, and use a dedicated subwoofer that is made to hit 20hz and below.

Go ahead and play a DVD like Blackhawk down, flight of the phoenix, etc, at reference levels, and see how long those speakers last. I've heard of people blowing out speakers in a "small" setting crossed out at 80hz.

MikeC78

BTW, I have LSi15 as surrounds, guess what they are set at?

Small and 80hz. The SVS Ultra's take care of the rest. Why strain the speakers and equipment?

The information that is put out on a DVD can hit the octaves as low as 5hz, something that is a rare case with music. You don't want that kind of information being set to any Polk speaker.

RuSsMaN

I've never had any issues, and have run speakers that are much smaller (physically). Then again, I don't watch movies at 115db either - not saying you do, but I know some do.

LSI 15's crossed at 80Hz, a waste of a speaker. Now if you crossed at 40 - just to keep the low low special effects bass out - I can see that. 80hz on pretty much full range speakers? A waste in my opinion.

I don't know, if you feel your gear is being strained or stressed in any way, maybe you need better gear? Not trying to be a smartass, 'I'm just sayin'.

Cheers,
Russ

Shizelbs

I run RTi70s as my rears. A huge upgrade from smaller bookshelves as surrounds? No. But the difference is there. I enjoy having the greater range in the surrounds. I find its particularly useful for positional effects in video games.

Anyways, you've got the cash, the desire, why not? Go for it.

MADGSF

I also run my RTi-10s as large with a crossover at 80Hz. The only step down from there on my AVR is 50Hz and I did not like the sound for HT. I found the impact from bass hits much better and prefer the overall sound with them set as large. I don't listen at very loud levels either and my amp has never clipped. I never worried about them trying to reproduce very low octaves and being hurt as they have a natural roll over frequency.

Systems

I ran my auto speaker config setup on my Onkyo 805 last night and it automatically set my Xover to FULL on all of my 7.1 speakers. That’s kind weird since most people tell you to keep it at 80. I was playing around myself with the setup before that and was seting my xover to 40 and on my rear rt12's to 60. At 80, they just do not produce any Bass out of the woofers.