Lsi-15, how to improve bass response

trumpet1

Aplologies in advance for this lame question, but I find the bass response in my Lsi-15s lacking depth or deep resonance, (what are the right words?). They are sufficiently loud and boomy when cranking up the bass knob, excellent for classical and light jazz, but no better than my vintage (1985) Polk Moniter 7s. for traditional pop/rock. Currently they are bi-wired to a modern Onkyo high output low-impedence receiver, and I have also tried them with an older Adcom amp/pre-amp--not much difference. The room is 15' X 20', hard wood floors, sofa and a few chairs. Speakers are limited to being two feet from walls and ten feet apart, set in a corner. Have I done something stupid? Would a subwoofer help or hinder? Would anyone want to casually recomend a sub-woofer set-up if that would be recommended? I am an aging 54 year old audiophile and modern technology has passed me by. Any advice would be appreciated.

Rob

polkatese

Rob, welcome to CP! Yes, LSi15 by itself is lacking the tight, deep bass that you want. I paired mine with a REL Storm III subwoofer, to supplement and complement the low-end what 15 is lacking of. If I were you, I would experiment with amplifications first. There are lots of information in this forum on what Polkies use for amp. Do your search on. I use a Krell Integrated on my 15 setup, along with the REL, and been happy with it for the past couple years.

Good luck.

Frank Z

Location,Location, Location!

Get them out of the corners and forward toward your primary listening position. Report back after you play with placment and before you buy something you may not even need.

danger boy

try setting your Onkyo to large speakers and see if the bass increases... it should.

treitz3

First and foremost, welcome to Club Polk!

trumpet1 wrote: »

They are sufficiently loud and boomy when cranking up the bass knob....Any advice would be appreciated.

First off, try leaving the knobs alone. You are only boosting a particular frequency range all leading up to one particular frequency which leads to an overemphasis on particular frequencies and an omission of others. This may be what you are experiencing. Other than that, amplification.

Refer to FrankZ's 1st statement for instant change.

george daniel

Frank Z wrote: »

Location,Location, Location!

Get them out of the corners and forward toward your primary listening position. Report back after you play with placment and before you buy something you may not even need.

^^^^^what he said^^^^^^

I had a very difficult time with my 15's as far a getting the bass "right".Like Frank Z said,out of the corners,,,and I had to "aim" them straight at me,and had them a few feet from the rear wall as well. Good luck,,you'll know when you get em' "dialed in".

fatchowmein

Trumpet1,
How long have you had your 15's? It took almost a month for the bass on my 15's to improve. I did not play them constantly, 24x7.

Welcome to the forum!

RuSsMaN

Lots of great advice so far - I'll add a couple thoughts.

Swap the left and right speakers, try the woofs firing inward. Adding a sub will certainly help with low end response and impact in your room.

The only real 'upgrade' one could do to the 15's is replace the woofers. The DB series car subs should be drop in replacements (on paper) for the internal volume, port, and what the crossover is expecting- and will offer a lot better bass performance than the PSW250-ish drivers it has now.

Cheers,
Russ

Lowell_M

RuSsMaN wrote: »

Lots of great advice so far - I'll add a couple thoughts.

Swap the left and right speakers, try the woofs firing inward. Adding a sub will certainly help with low end response and impact in your room.

The only real 'upgrade' one could do to the 15's is replace the woofers. The DB series car subs should be drop in replacements (on paper) for the internal volume, port, and what the crossover is expecting- and will offer a lot better bass performance than the PSW250-ish drivers it has now.

Cheers,
Russ

Interesting tweak Russ. Do you know of anybody who has done this?

Lowell_M

trumpet1 wrote: »

Aplologies in advance for this lame question, but I find the bass response in my Lsi-15s lacking depth or deep resonance, (what are the right words?). They are sufficiently loud and boomy when cranking up the bass knob, excellent for classical and light jazz, but no better than my vintage (1985) Polk Moniter 7s. for traditional pop/rock. Currently they are bi-wired to a modern Onkyo high output low-impedence receiver, and I have also tried them with an older Adcom amp/pre-amp--not much difference. The room is 15' X 20', hard wood floors, sofa and a few chairs. Speakers are limited to being two feet from walls and ten feet apart, set in a corner. Have I done something stupid? Would a subwoofer help or hinder? Would anyone want to casually recomend a sub-woofer set-up if that would be recommended? I am an aging 54 year old audiophile and modern technology has passed me by. Any advice would be appreciated.

Rob

I'm guessing part of your weak link is the Onkyo. What ADCOM gear did you try? The setup in my sig for my 2-channel system has tremendous, but tight bass. I credit the ADCOM GFA-555 for a good portion of that response. I did hear a setup at Chicagoland Polkfest in which I thought the 15's were a bit boomy, but I feel that they are pretty solid with good "slam" in my living room.

RuSsMaN

a_mattison wrote: »

Interesting tweak Russ. Do you know of anybody who has done this?

No, it's just been discussed, not realized yet. Mark almost did it with his 15's, but ended up selling them to try something different. It's been kicked around with a couple engineers, not just a passing thought.

Cheers,
Russ

Lowell_M

RuSsMaN wrote: »

No, it's just been discussed, not realized yet. Mark almost did it with his 15's, but ended up selling them to try something different. It's been kicked around with a couple engineers, not just a passing thought.

Cheers,
Russ

:rolleyes::rolleyes:HMMMmmmmmm....... Just when I thought I was at a point where I didn't need to change anything for a while...

treitz3

RuSsMaN wrote: »

Swap the left and right speakers, try the woofs firing inward.

We tried this once on a pair of JBL side-firing speakers that closely resemble the LSi15's and the results added a discovery of a skipping CDP, and an extra [annoying] rattle coming from a loose piece of wood within the entertainment stand and added boom. Keep in mind, this was firing against a pretty big entertainment stand approx. 1 1/2' away from the stand that had a 2' wide side panel. If the scenario is the same, or close too it is not recommended for what you want to accomplish.

RuSsMaN

The 15's are no lease breakers, I'll think he will be ok.

Cheers,
Russ

Early B.

a_mattison wrote: »

I'm guessing part of your weak link is the Onkyo.

That's part of your problem -- running 4 ohm speakers off a receiver that is not designed to handle it. It's no surprise that your bass is a bit thin. Depending on the model, the Adcom you tried may not have been sufficient, either. You need a powerful separate amp to drive those 15's properly.

trumpet1

I want to sincerely thank each of you who took the time to respond. I relocated the speakers out of the corner, now playing off the same wall in the center of the room with the speakers reversed so that the woofers face each other....don't ask me, but to at least to my ears in this room the bass response is incredibly better with this arrangement. I'll experiment with my Adcom set-up again-- GFA-535 amp, GFP-555 pre-amp, (but no remote with the tuner). Maybe I'll try a subwoofer some day, but for now, what an improvement. You guys are the champs!

Rob

treitz3

Now is it just me, or was this an example of how a thread is supposed to go? No quibbling, lots of suggestions and solutions offered and the original problem presented improved, with more suggestions to try. The point stayed on track and was centered on what Mr. trumpet1 wants to accomplish.

Fantastic!

AndyGwis

Yeah, that went smoothly. . . a little too smoothly if you ask me. Besides Russ telling him to drop in some car subs, everyone gave him logical, practical tweaks. Surprised the usual suspects (you know who you are) didn't tell him he had to drop the oink immediately and get a 200+ wpc amp, or to dump the 15s and go with Tylers, or something along those lines

Well done, team. I love it when a plan comes together.