rtiA9 or Lsi ?

poopsquaddle

I just bought the RtiA9's i havent got them yet but i got an incredible deal on them and could not pass it up. I was wondering who has them and if im doing mainly two channel listening are they gonna sound as nice as say the Lsi9's. Just looking for a little advice I am new to the audio game. I'm sorry if this has been covered but this is my first time posting and my first time on this forum. thanks in advance!

McLoki

Depends on what you listen to. The A9's will be great speakers for rock\metal. LSi - Jazz, classical, and vocals (ok- pretty damn good rock as well)

Usually for 2 channel most would recommend the LSi's, but give the 9's a listen at least. You may like their sound a little more - who knows. They really do sound very different from the LSi's, only you can decide which is better.

Michael

poopsquaddle

McLoki wrote: »

Depends on what you listen to. The A9's will be great speakers for rock\metal. LSi - Jazz, classical, and vocals (ok- pretty damn good rock as well)

Usually for 2 channel most would recommend the LSi's, but give the 9's a listen at least. You may like their sound a little more - who knows. They really do sound very different from the LSi's, only you can decide which is better.

Michael

thanks i am going to give them a try i was just kind of wondering some peoples opinions and what their expirence is with the two different speakers. I want whats best for music but what is comparable for around the same price as two a9's.

fossy

Hello -- poopsquaddle -- did you get the good price on them at retail level ?? if so , share share please

poopsquaddle

i would help some people out but it wasnt retail

treitz3

Give what you have coming a real listen before you go listening to the web. Your own ears are what you want to pay attention too. Trust me.

Oh, my manners. Welcome to the forum.

Bass_Pedal

Speaking noob to noob,

I owned a pair of RTiA7's for almost 5 months, I started a thread asking for help as I thought they were too bright for my musical tastes. After much tweaking I came to the conclusion that they were bright by nature (IMO) I then started looking for a pair of LSI9's. I found a pair on the local used market and after replacing the A7's the difference was truly night and day. I know that phrase gets thrown around allot sometimes but in my limited experience in home audio equipment (about 8 years or so) I have never heard a more significant improvement in my rig. So to sum up, if you are serious about music I would STRONLGY suggest going with the LSI9's they provide the smooth highs, rich mids and punchy bass that I enjoy. While the A7's seemed tailored to a more mass market audience, concerned more about home theater gun fights and explosions than a good old fashioned trumpet solo. I know not everyone will agree but I would venture to say that the majority would.

VXR8

Totally agree with Bass_Pedal. I too had the RTi10s (and still do) and my mix is 80/20 music/HT. I now have the LSi9s and it is like night and day the difference. The tweeter on the LSi9 makes a huge difference over the RTi tweeter. I still have the RTi10s and only recently did and A/B comparison with music. The Lsi tweeter has all the "S" and "T" sounding like these in vocals and not so accentuated like the RTi tweeter does.

If the RTi series had the same tweeter as the LSis, I believe it would make their sound with music that much better. The RTis bass is sensational and as a HT speaker, you really cannot go past them, but if music is your domayne, then LSi is the way to go.

JohnLocke88

Just out of curiosity's sake, what did you pay for them for the pair? I realize it wasn't retail, but I'm curious.

leroyjr1

has anyone ever try to switch out the rti tweeter?

poopsquaddle

thanks for all the help and yeah i decided that once i get them i am going to sell them and purchase the Lsi9's. I have a ps3 so i am going to purchase some sa-cd's and i just dont need towers. All of the reviews I am reading just say the Lsi's are wonderful but it only makes sense that if I would prefer to have a pair to own bookshelfs, i could save more money, and they sound better, that i should go with them. I plan on going to fry's and listening and comparing them before i for sure do it but im 95% sure i will.

JohnLocke88 wrote: »

Just out of curiosity's sake, what did you pay for them for the pair? I realize it wasn't retail, but I'm curious.

I work for Circuit City and polk is one of our vendors that we can go directly to them and get a discount so i dont think i can say how much i get it for, it probably goes against some agreement. sorry

F1nut

If you want to get into SACD, get a real SACD player. Oh yeah, the LSi 9's would be the better music speaker.

McLoki

**** - where are you located? (and don't say just floatin' around... )

Once you get the A9's maybe someone close to you with LSi's will let you give a listen to the music you like on them.

Also the A9's and the LSi's both really like external amps, or a higher-end avr. (Think B&K, Sunfire or Arcam not just a more expensive yamaha or Whatever) If you like the sound through an average AVR, you will love it with an amp.

Good luck in your search.

Michael

poopsquaddle

McLoki wrote: »

**** - where are you located? (and don't say just floatin' around... )

Also the A9's and the LSi's both really like external amps, or a higher-end avr. (Think B&K, Sunfire or Arcam not just a more expensive yamaha or Whatever) If you like the sound through an average AVR, you will love it with an amp.

Good luck in your search.

Michael

thanks for that info. I'm having a new Onkyo 606 shipped to me. I realize that i can benefit more from an external amp and it would sound a lot cleaner but its still going to be used for movies every once in awhile. My buddy has a pair of Veritas 2.2's on an older HK so i'm thinking that my onkyo SHOULD be ok.. Oh im located in Tacoma washington by the way.

JoshParsons84

For front bookshelves LSi9 or LSi7? And what about for HT, how do they sound?

Devlon

I would like to make a comment about the difference in the sound that I experienced between the Rti6's, and the Lsi9's, especially as it relates to the tweeters. Up until recently I owned a pair of Rti6's. I have replaced them with a pair of Lsi9's.

Before I begin, I am going to make the assumption that the tweeter design in the Rti series is basically the same in that all the tweeters in this series use a 1" Silk Dome tweeter. Likewise, I am going to make the assumption that the tweeter design in the Lsi series is basically the same in that all the tweeters in this series use the 1" Dynamic Balance Ring Radiator. I apologize now if my assumptions are wrong. But, because it's after midnight, I am not going to take the time to research this right now (some of us gotta work!). But if my assumptions are correct then you might apply some of the things I am going to tell you across the board as it relates to the differences between the two series.

The Rti6's have amazing clarity, and detail. They articulate even the smallest, or faintess, of sounds such as a finger squeak on an acoustic guitar, or the breath of a singer inbetween words with stunning precision. The sound from these speakers are largely open and transparent, meaning that the sound does not sound like it was coming out of a box, but rather like you were listening to it as if you were in the studio as it was being recorded. The Rti6's especially sounded like being there to me on live soundtracks. I could close my eyes, and feel like I was right there in the audience at the concert! But the tweeters are way too bright in my opinion. At first, I assumed that it was my room acoustics. I moved things around. Changed speaker position repeatedly....nothing I did helped calm down those bright tweeters.

Later I took the Rti6's over to a friend's house whose living room layout was quite different from mine. Additionally, there was more furniture to absorb the highs. We tried everything, but again, they were way took bright! We then nick named these speakers "The Screamin' Tweeters". Everyone that heard them said almost the same thing in that the tweeters almost made their ears bleed! And I am not talking about at an ear shattering volume here!

Because I loved the sound of these speakers so much, except for the over accentuation of the highs, I was determined to figure out something to help them:

Experiment #1: I removed the grills from the speakers. I took two empty CD cases and taped the lower edge of the CD case, wide ways across horizontally, between the tweeter, and the speaker on each of the Rti6's. Then I taped a piece of thread to the top of each CD case, and leaned the top of each case at 45 degrees backwards towards the center of the room, and then taped the other end of the thread to the top of each speaker cab to hold the CD cases in this position. So, what I ended up with here was 2 deflectors that blocked the direct high frequency path to my ears, and deflected the highs towards the sides of the room, and 45 degress upwards to the ceiling which bounced the highs around the room before they reached my ears.......ahhhh what a difference that made! This not only took the edge off the tweeter volume, but also in my opinion, it actually improved high frequency imaging and dispersion, however.......it just looked like hell...lol!

Experiment #2: I took some Foster tweeter diaphragms, and taped one each of the these to the inside of the Rti6 grill cloths where they would be directly in front of the tweeters once the grill was put back on. These inexpensive diaphragms are used in lower end speaker cabinets that are sold in musical instrument stores that sell PA. The Fosters are a piece of dome shaped plastic with a flat edge around the bottom of the dome, and overall about the size of a silver dollar. Face the center or peak of the dome towards where the center of the tweeter would be. The flat edge on this diaphragm makes in convenient to use double sided tape to attached it to the inside of of the grill. These diaphragms blow fairly easy. Ask your music store for blown ones. They will probably give them to you. There is absolutely no reason at all to get new ones. Those of you that are experiencing the same "too bright" problem with the Rti series this is your easiest, and least expensive fix.

Experiment #3: I went to a 30 year established, locally owned, Hifi Store where the owner was reputed to be quite an audiophile. He took up a lot of time with me, and was very interested in my experiments with the Rti6 tweeters. He loaned me a special type of volume attenuator that had a transformer built in. He explained to me how to hook it inline to the tweeter terminals only. This device was really cool in that the transformer in the attenuator kept the ohms the same to the receiver. Otherwise changing the volume, and the resistance would affect the ohms produced by the receiver and thereby affect the overall sound. This one device could control both Rti6s. The volume knob on the attenuator had 10 detents so that it could lower the tweeter volume in 10 increments. This was awesome! I found that backed down to about "6" on the volume knob the Rti6's sounded the best to me...actually pretty dang awesome!

I don't know why Polk doesn't lower the tweeter volume on the Rti series as this is a consistent complaint with them. Anyway, Best Buy, or Circuit City, Tweeter, etc., will have no knowledge of this volume attenuator, or what you are even talking about. You will have to go to a "serious" hifi shop. I would have kept the Rti6's after using this attenuator, but then there was a "too good to be true" price on Ebay on a pair of Lsi9's. I was lucky, and won them. Because I didn't have to use an attenuator on the Lsi9 tweeters I decided to go with them.

It is now almost 1:30am, and I am too tired to continue writing. But check back here for Part 2 where I will talk about my Lsi9's, and how they compare against the Rti6's that I had. See ya!

F1nut

Adding a .5 ohm to a .75 ohm resistor in series with the tweeter will also tame down a, "too hot" tweeter.

poopsquaddle

BOOM! look what i got today as well as the CSiA6

ben62670

Congrats, and enjoy.
Ben

maximillian

Congrats, show some pics outside the boxes.

broncsrule21@

I'm jealous....

poopsquaddle

im trying to get rid of them now ill start a new thread for unopened polk rtia9's

treitz3

Huh?

fossy

Ill come on by & pick those up -- don't know why but ever since i laid my eyes on the A9's --- i would love to have them hooked up with 400wpc B&k amp -- its just a thing

Norm Apter

treitz3 wrote: »

Huh?

My thoughts exactly. What happened?

Midnite Mick

He wants Lsi9's

mantis

No out of the box pic's? No room pic's??? come on man let us see them.

poopsquaddle

mantis wrote: »

No out of the box pic's? No room pic's??? come on man let us see them.

im getting rid of them because i would rather have the lsi9's. If anybody wants to trade plus cash on top let me know unopened!

Gadabout

poopsquaddle wrote: »

thanks for that info. I'm having a new Onkyo 606 shipped to me. I realize that i can benefit more from an external amp and it would sound a lot cleaner but its still going to be used for movies every once in awhile. My buddy has a pair of Veritas 2.2's on an older HK so i'm thinking that my onkyo SHOULD be ok.. Oh im located in Tacoma washington by the way.

Not sure about your choice of the 606 and the LSi 9's.

The LSi's are 4 ohms and the Onkyo 606 is only rated down to 6 ohms. The 606 only offers a sub pre out. You might want to step up to the 705. It offers 4 Ohm setting and also offers 7.1 preouts should you decide to add an amp later for the LSi 9's

Sorry to throw a monkey wrench into your plans.

Scott

poopsquaddle

Gadabout wrote: »

Not sure about your choice of the 606 and the LSi 9's.

The LSi's are 4 ohms and the Onkyo 606 is only rated down to 6 ohms. The 606 only offers a sub pre out. You might want to step up to the 705. It offers 4 Ohm setting and also offers 7.1 preouts should you decide to add an amp later for the LSi 9's

Sorry to throw a monkey wrench into your plans.

Scott

no no thats good i need to hear things like that im only 18 and this is my first audio setup. I am learning as i go. Do understand though i just dont go out and waste money, I got extremely great deals on all of these things and thats why i am where i am with my setup. I need all of the help and suggestions i can get thanks

Norm Apter

Newb to Newb:

Scott's absolutely right. You don't want to be running 4-ohm speakers with an amp only rated down to 6-ohms. You certainly won't be doing justice to the potential of the Lsi9s and, from what I hear, you could do long-term damage to your receiver. You just got the 606, right? Can you return it without a hitch?

A few months ago I picked up a pair of Lsi9s, which I use for 2 channel use (not HT). Originally, I was running them on a Yamaha RX-797 receiver. Its integrated amp (a so-called TOP ART high current amplification) has 4-ohm capability. But more important, the Yammy is equipped with PRE OUTs. The Lsi9s sounded very good, to me, running off the Yamaha. But the folks here persuaded me to get a separate dedicated (more powerful) amp and now that I have one, they sound EXCELLENT. In sum, its a good idea to at least have the option for the future, even if it means getting lesser of deal in the short run.