New surrounds for my SRT system

jsdeprey

Hello I have a complete set of SRT speakers.
I still have the old dipole back surround speakers that came with the SRT system, but they have been through some hell, so I recently ordered the FXi A6's to replace them (I will keep the older surrounds and can always get them reconed and fixed up I am sure)
I was wondering what the rest of the polk fans think about that replacement and if they will match up ok, the older surrounds I figured were always the weakest link in that SRT system, but I want to hear what you guys think.

BTW I am keeping it a 5.1 system

zingo

They will sound good as they are great speakers, but they won't be the perfect match to your SRT system. A timbre match, and the best choice IMO would be the f/x1000. It's a monster of a surround speaker from the same era to match your monster SRT speakers.

jsdeprey

zingo wrote: »

They will sound good as they are great speakers, but they won't be the perfect match to your SRT system. A timbre match, and the best choice IMO would be the f/x1000. It's a monster of a surround speaker from the same era to match your monster SRT speakers.

Thanks for the quick reply zingo, I will try to keep a look out for a set of fx1000's then, I have already ordered the FXi A6's and they should be here tomorrow. But I was very curious if they should sound ok, I really do wish I had gotten the fx1000's now but these will have to do untill I find a good deal on a set of fx1000's then.

I love my SRT's and would not trade them for anything, but I was curious if others had replaced the surrounds that came with the SRT set, since they seem like they are the weakest part of the set to me.
I will keep the old surrounds just to have the whole set, but I did not know if some people would have just repaired the old surrounds anyway, or replaced them with something like the fx1000's

I would be insterested to hear about anyone that has the SRT's and have replaced the surrounds, why they replaced them, and with what speakers etc still.

brody05

Hi there,

Your right, the original surrounds are like pissing into the wind when compared to the fronts (unless you get those mini SRT SDA ones that had 2 tweeters and four midrange in each one and ran of the control center like the fronts).

I have the FX1000s in the side's and a pair of RT3000s in the rear but before those I had Rt55i's in the rear with a 10" sub the worked quite well.

Might pay to mention I use a pair of RT55i's for the center channel too, works great!

jsdeprey

Thanks for the reply Brody, I wont be hooking up my new FXi A6's untill some work on my house to complete, they still in the box for now but I hope they will sound good. I wish I had gotten the FX1000's but maybe I will find some out there one day for a good price.
I am going to keep the center speaker for now also, it looks good witht he set and does what I want it to do, but I can see wheere the center could almost be bigger also, the fronts are just so big that they over power the rest of the system, but those fronts are just the best thing I have ever herd!
Thanks for shareing how you go yours hooked up! ill post a picture of my setup when my house constuction is complete just for kicks, it should look really nice.

bsoko2

There is a SRT center on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Polk-SRT-Center-Channel-Black_W0QQitemZ250335102759QQcmdZViewItemQQptZSpeakers_Subwoofers?hash=item250335102759&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A10%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318.

Bill

brody05

jsdeprey wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Brody, I wont be hooking up my new FXi A6's untill some work on my house to complete, they still in the box for now but I hope they will sound good. I wish I had gotten the FX1000's but maybe I will find some out there one day for a good price.
I am going to keep the center speaker for now also, it looks good witht he set and does what I want it to do, but I can see wheere the center could almost be bigger also, the fronts are just so big that they over power the rest of the system, but those fronts are just the best thing I have ever herd!
Thanks for shareing how you go yours hooked up! ill post a picture of my setup when my house constuction is complete just for kicks, it should look really nice.

Must be hard having stuff in the box waiting to get fired up.

There was a pair of FX1000's on our version of ebay over here and they went for $420- NZ which is about $250-USD, couldn't believe it, talk about cheap.

The SRT center keeps up well, I also had a RT1000p for a bit too which was pretty damn good as well. But all in all, the pair of 55i's is certainly my favourite.

Good amplification really opens the SRT's up too, for a long time I only had 250 watts going to them, now with the 600 their getting, well lets just say big improvements.

I think the SRTs are by far and away the best sounding speakers I have heard but we dont get a lot of other stuff here for ex SDA SRS ect.

Good luck with the build.

polkie4life

I currently use FX500i's, they do i ok i guess. I do occasionally look at them fearing they'll blow trying to keep up with the SRT's in full swing :eek:

brody05 wrote: »

There was a pair of FX1000's on our version of ebay over here and they went for $420- NZ which is about $250-USD, couldn't believe it, talk about cheap.

Um cheers for reminding me of that, i'd almost shed all regrets....

ESavinon

Where are you located?
The fxi-a6 should be adequate for the SRT. Surround speakers size should be based on room size.

brody05

polkie4life wrote: »

I currently use FX500i's, they do i ok i guess. I do occasionally look at them fearing they'll blow trying to keep up with the SRT's in full swing :eek:





Um cheers for reminding me of that, i'd almost shed all regrets....

Sorry Craig, have a bourbon on me when over next dude and I am sure it will all melt away with the new CD player - when it finally turns up......

I dont disagree with the room size thing but they can tend to get lost in the large soundstage of the SRT's.

tonyb

I used the fx1000's when I had my SRT's,and the timbre match was fine.They are great speakers,period.

jsdeprey

ESAVINON wrote: »

Where are you located?
The fxi-a6 should be adequate for the SRT. Surround speakers size should be based on room size.

I live in Charlotte NC, the size of the room is what got me looking in to new surrounds, I currently have a (16x25 or 400sf) room and it will shortly be a (28x25 or 700sf) room, its not really a theater room, its a living/dinning/kitchen kind of space, big it is going to get bigger and I wanted to upgrade the smalled surrounds that came with my SRT's

What is the general price of a used set a Fx1000's go for, maybe I could find someone that would try a brand new pairs of fxi-a6's still in box for a set? or maybe not.

jsdeprey

brody05 wrote: »

Must be hard having stuff in the box waiting to get fired up.

There was a pair of FX1000's on our version of ebay over here and they went for $420- NZ which is about $250-USD, couldn't believe it, talk about cheap.

The SRT center keeps up well, I also had a RT1000p for a bit too which was pretty damn good as well. But all in all, the pair of 55i's is certainly my favourite.

Good amplification really opens the SRT's up too, for a long time I only had 250 watts going to them, now with the 600 their getting, well lets just say big improvements.

I think the SRTs are by far and away the best sounding speakers I have heard but we dont get a lot of other stuff here for ex SDA SRS ect.

Good luck with the build.

Thanks again for the response Broady, I wish I could have got a pair of those Fx1000's for $250, that would have been sweet.

I used to run seperate ADCOM AMPs for each set of speakers, they took up half my rack, so I changed out to a all-in-one Dennon and its ok, think its around 600watts, but I am going to get something really nice sometime soon.


Does anyone know if it is possible to run 2 SRT centers in series or something, not sure what kind of stress that would put on the AMP, or if you would even get more sound with out adding more power to the center also.
Just a thought.

brody05

jsdeprey wrote: »

Thanks again for the response Broady, I wish I could have got a pair of those Fx1000's for $250, that would have been sweet.

I used to run seperate ADCOM AMPs for each set of speakers, they took up half my rack, so I changed out to a all-in-one Dennon and its ok, think its around 600watts, but I am going to get something really nice sometime soon.


Does anyone know if it is possible to run 2 SRT centers in series or something, not sure what kind of stress that would put on the AMP, or if you would even get more sound with out adding more power to the center also.
Just a thought.

An all in one Denon doing 600w sounds rather high.

I have the Denon AVCA1se (170 watts at 8 ohm per channel) and am running both RT55i centers off the same output without issue but then again I am not running anything out of the front channel outputs so it isn't doing a lot of work overall. Polkie for life might have more to add on running two centers as he is also doing it with SRT's.

I have a feeling the SRT centers are 6 ohms so what you are thinking would drop that to 3 ohm, the 55i's of mine are 8 so only drop to 4 ohm.

Not sure how it would cope with 3 ohm to be honest. My cousin is running 2 SRT centers but he has them amped seperately but it sounds pretty damn good.

polkie4life

brody05 wrote: »

Sorry Craig, have a bourbon on me when over next dude and I am sure it will all melt away with the new CD player - when it finally turns up.....

:cool: I'll bring some coke.

jsdeprey

brody05 wrote: »

An all in one Denon doing 600w sounds rather high.

I have the Denon AVCA1se (170 watts at 8 ohm per channel) and am running both RT55i centers off the same output without issue but then again I am not running anything out of the front channel outputs so it isn't doing a lot of work overall. Polkie for life might have more to add on running two centers as he is also doing it with SRT's.

I have a feeling the SRT centers are 6 ohms so what you are thinking would drop that to 3 ohm, the 55i's of mine are 8 so only drop to 4 ohm.

Not sure how it would cope with 3 ohm to be honest. My cousin is running 2 SRT centers but he has them amped seperately but it sounds pretty damn good.

Yea the Denon is only a AVR-2105 its 90 watts per channel, so I guess 450 watts all together?
I really am not that happy with this denon though, I would love to have 170 watts per channel just not sure if I would buy a Denon again, mine acts funny somtimes, I hear relays clicking between sound modes or something when changing channels on my settop box from 5.1 to 2 channel audio or something.

I would love to run two SRT centers, I would have to figure out how well they would fit there and how to feed them the right amount of power for sure, but I am sure they would sound excellent!

brody05

jsdeprey wrote: »

Yea the Denon is only a AVR-2105 its 90 watts per channel, so I guess 450 watts all together?
I really am not that happy with this denon though, I would love to have 170 watts per channel just not sure if I would buy a Denon again, mine acts funny somtimes, I hear relays clicking between sound modes or something when changing channels on my settop box from 5.1 to 2 channel audio or something.

I would love to run two SRT centers, I would have to figure out how well they would fit there and how to feed them the right amount of power for sure, but I am sure they would sound excellent!

Are you running the SRT's off 90 watts??? What are you using to run the SDA array, I am suprised you aren't cooking them from underpowering.

Buy a power amp and use the denon as a pre amp and run the rest of the system maybe before getting a second center. They will sound like different speakers with more power.

I have always rated the Denon's for music and HT blends, some do one better but not many do both well, mind you I have always had the higher spec ones.

jsdeprey

brody05 wrote: »

Are you running the SRT's off 90 watts??? What are you using to run the SDA array, I am suprised you aren't cooking them from underpowering.

Buy a power amp and use the denon as a pre amp and run the rest of the system maybe before getting a second center. They will sound like different speakers with more power.

I have always rated the Denon's for music and HT blends, some do one better but not many do both well, mind you I have always had the higher spec ones.

I am sure I am underpowering them... do you know the OHM's of the SRTs buy chance? mine are in my garage under blankets right now while my house is worked on, if the ohms are lower than 8ohm I would think I would get more than 90watts per channel?

I run the SDA right off the front L/R outputs

I would think underpowering the speakers would not hurt the speakers tehmselves, unless the amp starts to click at high volumes or something. But the AMP would get very hot and maybe hurt the amp?

I have some ADCOM power amps I got with the system that I do not run anymore.
GFA 545II - 100 watts x 2
GFA 5500 - 200 watts x 2
GFA 5800 - 250 watts x 2

I used to have them hooked up with the 5800 powering the fronts
1 Channel of the 5500 powering the center, and the 545 powering the surrounds.
Not sure if you can bi-amp the 5500 to get more watts and use both channels of that amp, but I have never had the balls to try in fear I would fry the amp.
But 2 things always bothered me with this setup, I used half my rack for the power amps, and ran out of room with all the sources I use.
And I really thought the center should be louder, and wished I just had a amp that delivered the same amount of power to each set of speakers.
I have thought over buying a new 5 channel amp from outlaw, or adcom, or there was a couple others I saw people were using allot here of the forums, but have not wanted to spend the money.

I might try hooking back up the ADCOM power with 1 channel of the 5800 being used for the center and using the 5500 for the fronts or something, what you think?

I really dont turn the system up that loud like I used to when I was younger and when my wife was just my girlfriend, I only sometimes wished I had more power to turn them up with on the curent 90watts per channel of the Dennon, but when I do turn it up, I bet it dont touch the sound of the ADCOMs, but its been really hard to A/B it, cause I am lazy and hate to climb back there and rewire it just to test it, then swap it back etc...

ben62670

Use the 5800 for the fronts. Also tie the grounds together on the amp. The Adcom's can handle nearly anything you throw at them. Just watch the distortion lights;)
Ben

brody05

jsdeprey wrote: »

I am sure I am underpowering them... do you know the OHM's of the SRTs buy chance? mine are in my garage under blankets right now while my house is worked on, if the ohms are lower than 8ohm I would think I would get more than 90watts per channel?

I run the SDA right off the front L/R outputs

I would think underpowering the speakers would not hurt the speakers tehmselves, unless the amp starts to click at high volumes or something. But the AMP would get very hot and maybe hurt the amp?

I have some ADCOM power amps I got with the system that I do not run anymore.
GFA 545II - 100 watts x 2
GFA 5500 - 200 watts x 2
GFA 5800 - 250 watts x 2

I used to have them hooked up with the 5800 powering the fronts
1 Channel of the 5500 powering the center, and the 545 powering the surrounds.
Not sure if you can bi-amp the 5500 to get more watts and use both channels of that amp, but I have never had the balls to try in fear I would fry the amp.
But 2 things always bothered me with this setup, I used half my rack for the power amps, and ran out of room with all the sources I use.
And I really thought the center should be louder, and wished I just had a amp that delivered the same amount of power to each set of speakers.
I have thought over buying a new 5 channel amp from outlaw, or adcom, or there was a couple others I saw people were using allot here of the forums, but have not wanted to spend the money.

I might try hooking back up the ADCOM power with 1 channel of the 5800 being used for the center and using the 5500 for the fronts or something, what you think?

I really dont turn the system up that loud like I used to when I was younger and when my wife was just my girlfriend, I only sometimes wished I had more power to turn them up with on the curent 90watts per channel of the Dennon, but when I do turn it up, I bet it dont touch the sound of the ADCOMs, but its been really hard to A/B it, cause I am lazy and hate to climb back there and rewire it just to test it, then swap it back etc...

I too would use the 5800 for the front left and right stereo arrays, the 5500 for the front SDA arrays and if possible the 545II in mono for the center or bi amp it with the two outputs, leave the denon to do the rest.

The SRT's are 6 ohm if amping the stereo and SDA arrays seperately, ie the stereo array without going through the control unit and the SDA array going through the control unit.

When asking too much of the denon with regard to 90watts (or at 6 ohm about 130watts) into speakers capable of 1000watts the risk is heating the coils on the drivers due to not getting a clean signal from the amp. I would be very careful running them with this, particularly if you are only running the left and right speaker outputs to the control center then running all four channels of the stereo and SDA arrays of both speakers out of the control unit. This is a very big ask of a little amp.

Hope this is of some help.

jsdeprey

brody05 wrote: »

I too would use the 5800 for the front left and right stereo arrays, the 5500 for the front SDA arrays and if possible the 545II in mono for the center or bi amp it with the two outputs, leave the denon to do the rest.

The SRT's are 6 ohm if amping the stereo and SDA arrays seperately, ie the stereo array without going through the control unit and the SDA array going through the control unit.

When asking too much of the denon with regard to 90watts (or at 6 ohm about 130watts) into speakers capable of 1000watts the risk is heating the coils on the drivers due to not getting a clean signal from the amp. I would be very careful running them with this, particularly if you are only running the left and right speaker outputs to the control center then running all four channels of the stereo and SDA arrays of both speakers out of the control unit. This is a very big ask of a little amp.

Hope this is of some help.

I used to just run the 5800 in to the SDA control unit, and then run out of the control unit to both the normal and SDA side of both front speakers.

I had never thought of running a bi-amp situation like you mention here, I guess you can bypass the SDA control unit for the normal front speaker inputs, and run the other amp to the SDA control unit and only use the SDA outputs of the control unit to the SDA inputs on the front speakers. I know the SDA control unit is just controling the phase of the singnals going out the SDA outputs anyway and probably leaves the normal outputs alone, so bypassing the normal outputs should work just fine?

I do not know if the 545II can even be run in mono, I dont think it will, never tryed to wire it mono or anything like that anyway.
I could try to bi-amp the center speaker and use both channels of the 545II, I have never done this before really, I guess you usese 1 channel for the mid inputs on the center and the other channel for the high inputs? the center speaker's crossovers will handle making sure I do not sending mid frequencies to the tweeters etc...

Either way, when I go to setup my system again here in a month or two, I will try to set it up in different ways, and see what I think sounds the best.

Thanks a bunch for the help guys, I am sure your input will help allot when It comes to setting this stuff back up correctly.

polkie4life

Yeah i run this way aswell, bypassing the control center directly feeding the stereo array.

If you put a splitter on the Center channel preout and run it to both inputs on the amp, then run one speaker output to the HF and the other to the LF, it should work....

polkie4life

ben62670 wrote: »

Use the 5800 for the fronts. Also tie the grounds together on the amp. The Adcom's can handle nearly anything you throw at them. Just watch the distortion lights;)
Ben

Do the grounds need to be tied together? Ed can you share any more info on this?

IIRC i read somewhere that the control center took away the need to do this?

PolkWannabie

That's correct ... No need for common ground ...

jsdeprey

polkie4life wrote: »

Yeah i run this way aswell, bypassing the control center directly feeding the stereo array.

Just to make sure I understand correctly, you bypass the control center for the NONE SDA side of the front speakers only, but still run through the SDA control center for the SDA inputs on the front speakers?

To do this I would split the preouts for both the left and right front outputs, I could then take one set of pre-outs to the 5800 AMP and then run straight to the normal inputs on the front speakers, I would then take the secound set of pre-outs and run them to the 5500 AMP then out of the 5500 and to the control center unit, then take the SDA output of the SDA control center and run them to the SDA inputs of the front speakers.
This would BI-AMP the front SRT speakers using the full watts of the 5800 for only the none SDA phased speakers in the fronts and the 5500 watts for the SDA phased speakers in the fronts.

The only problem I can see here is that the front L/R speakers might be REALLY loud compared to the rest of the speakers, and that would mean the effects channels when listening to 5.1 audio would be really loud and the center (where the voice is) would be low, I tend to think the center speaker should be louder than the L/R in most situations, but if you are mostly listening to stereo music out of the L/R speakers I can see where the above setup would rock pretty hard

brody05

Yes, the SDA channels on both sides must go through the control center.

The Stereo channels can go straight to the speakers.


To do this I would split the preouts for both the left and right front outputs, I could then take one set of pre-outs to the 5800 AMP and then run straight to the normal inputs on the front speakers, I would then take the secound set of pre-outs and run them to the 5500 AMP then out of the 5500 and to the control center unit, then take the SDA output of the SDA control center and run them to the SDA inputs of the front speakers.
This would BI-AMP the front SRT speakers using the full watts of the 5800 for only the none SDA phased speakers in the fronts and the 5500 watts for the SDA phased speakers in the fronts.


The set up above is correct but it does not bi amp the front SRT speakers, try to think of them as two seperate speakers in one cabinet (each side that is), when you run both SDA and Stereo arrays off the control center you are in effect running two speakers in series and putting a big load on an amp, running the above set up will result in significant gains on sound quality.


You will avoid any level differences between speakers by adjusting each level with a test tone and spl meter, remember, every time you double the power (watts) you only get about a 3db gain in volume, it is the quality of the signal that changes more than anything, so you will only need to make small adjustments on individual speakers such as rear and center to match up.

The center will sound great bi amped at 100watts per channel, it is still getting 200watts total, it improves signal quality and avoids back emf signals from the midwoofers and allows a single channel output on an amplyfier the duty of doing bass notes and delicate high frequencies at the same time. I have no doubts the above set up will work exceptionally well and look forward to hearing your results.

jsdeprey

Thanks for everyones input, It might be awhile yet before I get to plug my system back up, but I will let you know how it goes!

jsdeprey

I am seriously thinking about buying another ADCOM AMP just to match my others AMPS and that way I will not have to run the surronds off the Dennon at all etc...

Does anyone know if there is a big difference between a GFA-555II anda GFA-5500 like I have now?
How much would you guys pay for a used GFA-555II or a GFA-5500 or even another GFA-545II, I know that can be a hard question to answer, but it would help me greatly so I dont get ripped off, I have no clue what these things are worth used.