Pure disapointment.........Polk LSi15

cfrizz

He is one of a whole batch of newbies who picked them up cheap from Fry's clearance sale. He got them cause they were at a good price & didn't bother to research them to find out how to make them sound their best even though he's been here a month.

Now like others he's finding out his receiver doesn't have what it takes, but he's the first one to pack them up & send them back. Hopefully they will go to someone more deserving & better prepared & knowledgeble.

danger boy wrote: »

so you had them in your house for how long? 1/2 day and you decided to return them? I can see a person not liking a certain sound, but man give it time to burn in and show you what it can do at least.

cfrizz

:D:D Brad, thanks for giving me a huge laugh tonight!!! CLASSIC!:D:D:D

Early B. wrote: »

Let's coin a new phrase for whenever a newbie doesn't power his speakers properly -- "audio impotence." How about "flaccid speaker syndrome?"

george daniel

just scrolling thru rhis thread. Having owne 15's before,,and felling somewhat disappointed,I did,,purchase a amp with high current/high power,,then I twealed the room placement,,,not completely satisfied, I then invested in a quality source and pre,,and you know what,,I was 95% of the way there,, looking back,, a few room trearments would not have hurt. Good luck,, listen to some of the advice given,,and don't give up..:)

mightymouse

Don't send them back!

They are mine if you want to return them.

mightymouse

What didn't you like about the 15's?

george daniel wrote: »

just scrolling thru rhis thread. Having owne 15's before,,and felling somewhat disappointed,I did,,purchase a amp with high current/high power,,then I twealed the room placement,,,not completely satisfied, I then invested in a quality source and pre,,and you know what,,I was 95% of the way there,, looking back,, a few room trearments would not have hurt. Good luck,, listen to some of the advice given,,and don't give up..:)

be83663

See! I told you so, Hyper Lite83.

sucks2beme

What hurts is when I go looking for LSI's on sale, I can't find zip.
I've got amps, what I need are LSI's, damn it.

MillerLiteScott

Rookie

ben62670

Ugly thread.

danger boy

cfrizz wrote: »

He is one of a whole batch of newbies who picked them up cheap from Fry's clearance sale. He got them cause they were at a good price & didn't bother to research them to find out how to make them sound their best even though he's been here a month.

Now like others he's finding out his receiver doesn't have what it takes, but he's the first one to pack them up & send them back. Hopefully they will go to someone more deserving & better prepared & knowledgeble.

Cathy, I think you're right.

BottomFeeder

Ok, so, if a guy was to have an Adcom GFA 5500 (Card carrying 200 wpc club mbr. / 350 wpc @ 4 ohms), an NAD cd player & an NAD C320Bee IA as a pre...AM I GOING TO LOVE THE LSI15'S THAT I'M THINKING OF BUYING???

Well? Am I? Huh?

Monster Jam

dorokusai wrote: »

I'm glad you returned them and would suggest checking out Klipsch products, and their respective user forum. Problem solved.

I second this opinion. I wonder if this guy auditioned the speakers?

ben62670

Monster Jam wrote: »

I second this opinion. I wonder if this guy auditioned the speakers?

Its not blatantly obvious that LSI's need an amp to really sing. IF you walk into a store, and see a $1850 pair of speakers marked down to $800(I don't know the latest prices), and an $1200 pair of speakers for $600 which speakers are you going to buy? 90% of consumers are going too jump on getting the "better speakers". Seeing that I have been in the hobby a bit more I understand what ohms mean. I understand what efficiency means. I had to learn these things. I would love to own some LSI's(9's), but I understand more than the average guy that walks into the store to check them out. Polk needs to revamp their LSI series to be a little more receiver friendly, and some efficiency wouldn't hurt either. Forget trying to educate salesmen. They just want to grab their sale. The OP is probably pretty pissed as most people would be thinking hey wow $1850 speakers have to sound better in my system than the ones that came with my receiver. I am sure he thinks they sound better, but not for the price with the equipment he is using. Not a very friendly welcome to Polk. Even though Polk has the best CS of nearly any large corp out there, and excellent bang for buck he is probably been pushed back even further by remarks here on this thread.

dorokusai

He'll be ok, I'm sure he's a big boy.

danger boy

BottomFeeder wrote: »

Ok, so, if a guy was to have an Adcom GFA 5500 (Card carrying 200 wpc club mbr. / 350 wpc @ 4 ohms), an NAD cd player & an NAD C320Bee IA as a pre...AM I GOING TO LOVE THE LSI15'S THAT I'M THINKING OF BUYING???

Well? Am I? Huh?

I think you will.. but it will certainly be different than vintage Polk Audio sound.. the LSI's are very pleasing and accurate sounding.. but they are not vintage sounding.. if that's what you hope to keep is that vintage Polk sound in a smaller footprint.. then you may not like them.

on the other hand, the LSi's are wonderful sounding speakers.. that's why they haven't changed them since they first came out.. except I think the LSi 7's did get some kind of minor make over a few years ago.

You got the power for em, that's for sure.

BaggedLancer

I don't think 200wpc is enough for the LSi's......It needs to be atleast 210wpc.....go big or go home I'm told.


Please, enough with the 200wpc crapola....everyone....it's nothing but a load of doodoo poopoo.

Face

cfrizz wrote: »

Dave, You chastise about us telling someone to get 200wpc at a reasonable price & then in the same breath push a Mac receiver that would certainly cost a lot more just because of the name.

Sorry that logic doesn't fly with me.

He's saying there's a 75wpc Mac receiver would smoke many 200wpc amps. What's so hard to understand?

I have a 30wpc amp here that would smoke most receivers. Advertised wattage doesn't mean diddley.

BottomFeeder

Well, doodoo poopoo or not, all I know is that when I went from a 50 wpc NAD to a 200 wpc Adcom, me likey mo' bettuh!

& How come "everyone" (not stacking the deck or anything) seems to think that the LSi15's need a lot of wattage?

Oh yeah, & since the LSi15's are 4 ohm (right?), the Adcom pushes 350 wpc, OVER the 210 you recommend.

So I got that goin' for me...

AudioFilet

I'm gonna get me one of those PS Audio GCC-500 amps.

1000WPC @ 4 ohms.

I'll find out what those LSi's are made of dammit!!

ben62670

I see where face is coming from, but I just have to have my 1000wpc of Adcom for me. I am sick, and demented. I don't know what else to say.

F1nut

danger boy wrote: »

so you had them in your house for how long? 1/2 day and you decided to return them? I can see a person not liking a certain sound, but man give it time to burn in and show you what it can do at least.

That's how I'm reading it. :rolleyes:

Not to mention everyone else is right, his AVR has no balls.

dkg999

I spent several hours listening to LSi15's, powered by a 120 wpc amp, and they were producing fantastic sound, with any kind of music, and at any volume you wanted to listen to them at.

george daniel

mightymouse wrote: »

What didn't you like about the 15's?

I could never get the bass quite right. For me it was just too flabby,,, but as I said earlier,,some room treatments would most likely have fixed that. One thing that I did discover,,was that when I had those babies pointed straight at me,,the imaging,,was incrediable,,,and the mids and highs were were very smooth and detailed.It's just not a speaker that you bring home,,take it out of the box, hook it to a yamadenokardon receiver and expect miracles. However, when "dialed in",,,,,X marks the spot.;):)

demaples

mantis wrote: »

I'm wondering with a guy who only has 6 posts that it's nessary to treat him this way. It sounds to me like he got a good demo and then flopped at home. I also feel it's poor judgement to speak to others in this tone. It also makes our forum look ugly.

Honestly dude many people who don't come to this forum or understand Ohm load have no idea that most receivers will not power a 4 ohm load speaker of any kind properly. I work in the industry and you would not believe how many people try and power nice speakers with receivers. It makes me sick to see it go but it's how it really is out there. It's a shame the Lsi's can't be powered off a wonderful receiver like the Pioneer Elite vsx92txh. It sounds awesome with Focal speakers which are as good or better then the Lsi series and they are 8 ohm load. Like B&W speakers which also sing with the Pioneer Elite receivers. Years ago I have Installed countless systems with Pioneer Elite receivers and B&W speakers. 8 ohm load all day long and sound wonderful.

Give the guy a break, why not try and help him instead of kicking him in the pride. We all where rookies of audio at one time or another. Hell I have been an Installer for over 8 years, been into audio since the late 70's and I feel I learn something new each and every day.

Hyper_Lite83,
with the receiver you used to power the Lsi's, they where not powered correctly. If you run it long enough or loud enough, the Receiver will go into protection. It takes all of it's internal power just to handle to load the Lsi's give it. It's a miss match. The 92 receiver is designed to handle speakers 6 to 16 ohms. 4 ohm speakers suck the life out of the internal amps. If you add a seperate power amp like a B&K ref200.7 , you will now have plenty of power to drive them and hear what they can sound like. Also new speakers need about 1 month or so before they start to sound good. This is called break in. B&W speakers actually sound horrible right out of the box to the point that you would want to return then in 5 minutes of owning them.

I suggest you get a power amp or look for new speakers. Try the Focal 8 ohm speakers or anything else you like thats 6 or 8 ohms. Thats if you plan on owning the Elite receiver.

Good luck man,

Dan

Dan,
you said a mouthfull! We all have to learn, some qiucker than others, but there is absolutley no need to be ugly here.
Dennis

heiney9

BottomFeeder wrote: »

Ok, so, if a guy was to have an Adcom GFA 5500 (Card carrying 200 wpc club mbr. / 350 wpc @ 4 ohms), an NAD cd player & an NAD C320Bee IA as a pre...AM I GOING TO LOVE THE LSI15'S THAT I'M THINKING OF BUYING???

Well? Am I? Huh?

Yep, you'll be giddy with delight; atleast I was. If you are a person who thinks Cerwin Vegas sound good; then no. If you are very fond of the Polk vintage sound; then no. If you are smitten with SDA's; then to lesser degree.

LSI's are deceptively good sounding speakers and you need to spend some quality time with some quality gear to realize how good they really are. They can have some set-up issues in that placement to get the best sound can be tricky, but no trickier than say a pair of SDA's. The Vifa tweeter rules and is so smooth and effortless it seems like it has less accuracy than other speakers, but after through listening one realizes it's the other tweeters that are less accurate even if they play louder and are more strident, etc. The tweeter also has the uncanny ability to lessen some of the harshness, etc. of marginal recordings.

The main gripe (small) with LSi's is the bass. The 9's have a very noticeable and in many cases pleasing mid bass hump. The LSi 15's are hard to place to get dead on natural bass. The bass from modern Polks is much different from the vintage passive radiator based models. I have yet to hear a modern Polk have as natural, extended and undistorted bass as the SDA's.

Obviously the OP doesn't care and either posted to vent or to slam the product. If he truly was concerned we'd have heard from him in this discussion.

H9

engtaz

I agree with H9.

engtaz

Gaara

cfrizz wrote: »

He is one of a whole batch of newbies who picked them up cheap from Fry's clearance sale. He got them cause they were at a good price & didn't bother to research them to find out how to make them sound their best even though he's been here a month.

Thanks for that, I must have missed hearing about the sale. I now understand why there was that sudden explosion of LSi threads and Amps for LSi threads.

Audiofilet, if you are serious I would recommend you look elsewhere, the PS Audios are way overpriced IMO.

BottomFeeder

I just recently got to demo the LSi15's. The store was using a Denon IA w/80 wpc & the speakers just sounded fabulous.

I have vintage Polks (RTA12C's) and love them, but I liked the LSi15's much more. At least in the store! I think I'll be happy w/them!

donedroolin

When I first got my LSi15's I was trying to power them with a Sony receiver. Suppose to have been 100watt per channel. I did not understand the Ohm thing ethier. I had the RTi10's before the 15's and they sounded pretty good with the Sony. After readind Polk forums I knew something had to go. Like my Sony receiver. I got a Parasound A51 amp and C2controller and It was the best purchase I could have made with the LSi speakers. All I can say is NIGHT and DAY. Get proper amplification and you will not be sorry. You should have given the speakers atleast a couple days not just half. And if you can ADD a SEPERATE amp.

djlogix

To my defense as a noob, I registered far before the sales :cool: