LSi listening questions ~

cokewithvanilla

Alright, I have not had a chance to upgrade from my lsi25's, but since I had to put together an extensive playlist, I was able to listen to quite a bit of music on them, and I have mixed reviews.... I was wondering if anyone noticed the same thing...

If I put on anything from Dire Staits "Brothers in arms", I am amazed. Especially the intro to "Money for nothing"... but other things I am wondering why it sounds like its coming from the speakers on my laptop... I was listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and it made me so mad that I decided to post this. Especially the ending, with all the cannon... there is no depth whatsoever. I thought it might be the recording, so I put in V for Vendetta, which has that portion of the overture, and it was also lacking.

I find it odd how the speakers can produce wonderful sound for some things, and terrible for others. Explosions and other loud bangs are not even worth listening to on these speakers... they sound small and muffled.

After listening to hundreds of songs, I guess I am mostly happy. However, most of these songs were classic rock, or some sort of rock music. For the most part they sound good... but I really hate being shocked when I put in a movie, or a soundtrack, or classical music, and thinking there is something wrong with my equipment.

Has anyone noticed this? I am trying to figure out if it is just those specific recordings. Everything I am listening to is ripped from a cd in FLAC or straight from a dvd. They are all listened to from my computer, that has an old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs soundcard that is connected to the 8 channel in's on my Emotiva DMC-1 by way of a $2 mini to phono cable bought at best buy. For amplification, I still have my B&K 7270 (although I only use two channels on it...) and the speakers are LSi25's.

A lot of people have urged me to connect a cd player directly to the preamp with better cable... which I have done at one point or another with expensive cable from...god I forget the site, but it was recommended by many users here... and I have noticed no difference.

Does anyone know of a good recording that uses cannon shots or some sort of explosion so that I can test the speakers out a bit more?

cokewithvanilla

oh, by the way, I moved the speakers into a different room. It is 13.5 by 11, with a tile floor. The speakers are 1 foot 9 inches from the side walls and 10 inches from the back wall. They are about 5 foot 4 inches apart, and I sit about 9 feet 10 inches away.

I don't know if any of this matters, but I decided to include it.

Hawkeye

Welcome to the world of compressed (poor) recordings. I've found that rock and other popular venues have been manipulated in the studio to sound good on Ipods and the car stereo. As soon as you play them on a revealing system the manipulation becomes apparent. I've pretty much given up on listening to new and remastered classic rock at home because my system is so revealing it is almost impossible to listen to at home.

When listening to classical or nicely recorded jazz, your probably hearing authentic bass which you may not be accustomed to. The bass at a Tool concert will blow away the bass at the symphony because it is manipulated there also.

On another issue, do you have any bass traps or room treatments installed? Peeks and nulls are in every room and bass trapping the 4 corners will smooth out the bass. Can you try moving your chair/couch to 38% from the front or rear wall? There is some very good info at RealTraps about room set up that may be of interest to you.

Gordon

Hilbert

Don't know if it's relevant, but my LSi9s didn't start to image properly until they were about 6.5 feet apart.

I too have noticed some recording sound awful, but it's usually older mono tracks---"Songs for Swingin' Lovers" and the 2 or 3 earliest Beatles singles come to mind.

Re classical music, have you tried listening to small combo recordings? I'm thinking 1 or 2 instruments. If recorded recently, since 2000 or so*, they ought to sound fantastic. If not, then simpler recordings might be a good place to start tweaking.


(*Not that you need suggestions, but two such CDs are Paul Lewis's recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas, volume 1, and Hillary Hahn and Natalie Zhu doing Mozart violin sonatas. Another is Joshua Bell's recent Vivaldi Four Seasons CD. I'm talking recording quality; one may or may not like the music.)

SEH

I think it's the room, or lack of room in the room. Really, that close to the corners with that spacing is not justice for LSi25. Maybe you'd be better with LSi bookshelves in there. Just my opinion though.

BigMac

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

Does anyone know of a good recording that uses cannon shots or some sort of explosion so that I can test the speakers out a bit more?

-For explosions I would suggest the movie U-571 or Pearl Harbor - Oklahoma Explosion of battery

-For cannons I would suggest Master and Commander

-And for everything together I would suggest Lord Of the Rings- The Return of the King (the end battle scenes where the HUGE elephants come thundering into action) or the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

Hilbert

Opening scene in Saving Private Ryan?

BigMac

Hilbert wrote: »

Opening scene in Saving Private Ryan?

The first 10 minutes of the movie where they are storming the beaches. All the gunfire,explosions,whiz-bys, etc.

Pepi28

I have the LSi'15's and listen to tchaikovsky's 1812 overture every once in a while and I absolutely love it. Must be the recordings that you are listening to.

Sami

Don't those 25's have powered woofers? Wouldn't they also then have amps with volume control then that you can adjust? Maybe the woofers are not working or are not calibrated correctly? Just a guess but I was happy with 15's bass production when I had them on 2ch config. You still need a separate sub for movies with loud low fr bass.

satire

I, too, am guessing that it's some combo of the room and the recordings.

That's an awfully small room for those speakers, and they're too close to the back wall and the side walls, and too close together - or so I'm guessing.

On some recordings, the room is too small to allow those speakers to properly propagate bass waves. As someone else mentioned, have you considered smaller stand-mounted loudspeakers? Better to have less bass of a higher quality that your room can actually support, than the irregular bass you're getting now?

F1nut

You've got your work cut out, for sure. To start, the room is probably too small for those speakers, but on the other hand, I've heard much bigger speakers in about the same size room sound great. The tile floor isn't helping, at all. You need a large carpet on the floor. What's on the walls? Are there substantial curtains on the windows? Your set up is far from ideal, the speakers are too close together and you're sitting too far away. Get to work on a better set up.

They are all listened to from my computer, that has an old Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs soundcard that is connected to the 8 channel in's on my Emotiva DMC-1 by way of a $2 mini to phono cable bought at best buy.

I don't know a lot about computers as a source, but I know sound cards can make or break the sound. Face knows a lot about that stuff, so ask him.

BTW, I'm sure that your $2 mini to phono cable is not helping matters.

Does anyone know of a good recording that uses cannon shots or some sort of explosion so that I can test the speakers out a bit more?

That's going to be a waste of time at this point. Your problem is not the recordings. It's the room, the gear, the set up, etc.

Getting good sound is a lot like cooking. You have to have all the right ingredients and go though a bit of trial and error before you hit the right combo. However, once you get there, it'll be worth all the trial and tribulation.

dudeinaroom

run a digital signal out of that computer, The audigy can do it. that Emotiva should have a digital in on it.

cokewithvanilla

the room they are in is temporary. And I have had them hooked up with an expensive digital coax cable and it sounds the same. Due to this, I am going to be the last one to spend $700 on an interconnect.

The room has no windows, nothing on the walls and is pretty empty of things otherwise. It just has a desk with a monitor and a laptop.

They do have powered woofers....and the bass isnt the problem here... I sometimes run them with the woofers turned off and they still don't sound good. I dont believe that cannon fire, or at least the sound that I am listening for, comes from the 10 inch woofer... it comes from the 5.25 inch driver... and its not sounding right at all


What do you think the ideal room size and speaker placement is?

and should I really sit 4 feet from my speakers? isnt that a little close? what if i had a 60 inch tv in the middle?

RutgersFTW

You should definitely "downgrade" so to speak to a non-floorstander if you're going to be that close. Consider a LSi7 if you're going to stick with Polk Audio or another monitor armed with a 5 1/4" to 6 1/2" woofer and you'll be MUCH happier, I think.

cokewithvanilla

interesting... even though my current room is not the room they will remain in.

However, I am in the market for a pair of bookshelf speakers. I was going to buy a pair of LSi9's, but because of the 25's performance I was looking for suggestions on a different speaker. I can get some 9's for 550 (used, and I don't care to have them new), so I wanna make that my highest price. Any suggestions?

sorry to hijack my own thread, but no one is responding to my other one

dorokusai

I'd go with the LSi7....LOVE that lil' SOB.

RutgersFTW

Yeah dude, if the LSi7s are still $349 from Polk Direct you should grab a pair. They're a remarkably wonderful value at that price.

cokewithvanilla

arent the 9's better than the 7's? I hear a lot of talk about the 9's, not so much on the 7's

F1nut

the room they are in is temporary.

Well, that's a good thing because nothing is going to sound good in a room with tile floors and nothing else in the room to speak of. You have what is called a hard and/or a live room, meaning it sucks for audio. Let me repeat, no speaker is going to sound good in that room.

I have to wonder why are you even asking for help at this point? When you get them set up in their permament location is the time to ask for help.

dorokusai

F1nut wrote: »

Well, that's a good thing because nothing is going to sound good in a room with tile floors and nothing else in the room to speak of. You have what is called a hard and/or a live room, meaning it sucks for audio. Let me repeat, no speaker is going to sound good in that room.

I have to wonder why are you even asking for help at this point? When you get them set up in their permament location is the time to ask for help.

The description of your "temporary" room sounds like a jailcell...or some variation of subterraneum habitat. A cooler word is basement.

Why do you have them connected with "expensive" digital coax?

You're losing bass response in a completely open room? No ****.

satire

I have LSi15s set up in a 13' x 20' room. They're about 3' from the side walls, 4' from the back wall (to get them to image properly and to give some depth and complexity to things like your explosive sounds!), and 7' apart.

I sit about 8' from them, in close to the center of the room.

The room is carpeted. The small window has curtains. The entire floor and the entire back wall are carpeted. The floor carpet has heavy padding as well. All of the furniture is cloth. Behind the speakers are sound-absorbent panels, attached to the wall.

Things sound super.

Getting new speakers won't help as much as getting a new room or fixing the current one..........

and getting a real front end/source.

A problem that Polk seems to have is that their customers tend to buy the Polk gear, and then short change it. Maybe they should charge more for it, so that people will take it more seriously!

Igo

Did I read this correctly? Are you feeding LSi speakers with MP3 audio through a computer sound card?

Igo

BigMac wrote: »

-For explosions I would suggest the movie U-571 or Pearl Harbor - Oklahoma Explosion of battery

-For cannons I would suggest Master and Commander

-And for everything together I would suggest Lord Of the Rings- The Return of the King (the end battle scenes where the HUGE elephants come thundering into action) or the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

You are dead on on all accounts. The neighbors will seak fall-out shelters. LOL

Igo

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

the room they are in is temporary. And I have had them hooked up with an expensive digital coax cable and it sounds the same. Due to this, I am going to be the last one to spend $700 on an interconnect.

The room has no windows, nothing on the walls and is pretty empty of things otherwise. It just has a desk with a monitor and a laptop.

They do have powered woofers....and the bass isnt the problem here... I sometimes run them with the woofers turned off and they still don't sound good. I dont believe that cannon fire, or at least the sound that I am listening for, comes from the 10 inch woofer... it comes from the 5.25 inch driver... and its not sounding right at all


What do you think the ideal room size and speaker placement is?

and should I really sit 4 feet from my speakers? isnt that a little close? what if i had a 60 inch tv in the middle?

One speaker out of phase? Check speaker wire polarity. and feed the amp a less compressed signal.

cokewithvanilla

Igo wrote: »

Did I read this correctly? Are you feeding LSi speakers with MP3 audio through a computer sound card?

Check up on FLAC, its a free lossless codec.


I don't have them connected with expensive coax.

I have them connected with $2 mini to phono. One member suggested connecting them with digital...which I have done, with a cable much more expensive than $2... and the sound is quite the same.

Everyone keeps mentioning the room.... but I have had these speakers in three rooms now. everyone is mentioning bass being too much... I am not talking about bass, I can turn the woofers off and I experience the same shortcomings in any room ive had them in. To me, it sounds like the full sound isnt coming out... I guess you would describe it as compressed. I would like to think the sounds on the recordings are better... I could be wrong.

I am just trying to find out if its a defect in my equipment, or poor recordings (this wouldnt make much sense for the dvd's), or just thats simply how the speakers sound.

I guess one reason for buying a new set of speakers would be that I can test them side by side to see if its just the room or whatever. Another reason would be to try out a different type of speaker, and another is so that I can use them as rears if I want. It seems that no one can figure out my problem…so it might just be my ears, and not the speakers

F1nut

I believe a lot of good suggestions have been made, but for some reason they don't seem to be getting thru to you.

Everyone keeps mentioning the room.... but I have had these speakers in three rooms now.

Well, the fact that you didn't realize that your current room and set up sucks for audio, I can only presume that the other two rooms and set up did also. Without a good room and set up, it's game over before it starts.

poor recordings (this wouldnt make much sense for the dvd's)

Huh? Not that poor recordings are your problem, but why would think that DVD's can't be poorly recorded???

Igo

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

..... I can turn the woofers off and I experience the same shortcomings in any room ive had them in. To me, it sounds like the full sound isnt coming out.....

You've got one speaker wired out of phase. I'll bet my bottom dollar on it. And You color coded a positive lead with black and a negative lead with red so you keep wiring one speaker out of phase everytime you move the speakers. I'll bet my bottom dollar on it.

Fatwalnut

If you provide a crap connection and signal, you will get crap sound. Come on !! You need to provide these LSi25's a clean, accurate signal so they will sound good. The one thing I am noticing about the people that are buying the 25's is that they are inexperienced in the proper set-up and usage of their audio equipment and speakers. Your amp and processor are good, BUT you need to connect them with decent quality interconnects. You also need to verify that your processor is configures properly for speaker size, distance, level, ect. If it is not, you will have crap sound. I have the LSi25s and I am very satisfied with them. I have a Yamaha Rx-V2500 as a pre, and a Rotel RMB-1075 as an amp, connected with Monster interconnect cables. Most everything sounds good, but some things sounds like du du. They give you what they get.

lumpy

I have the 25's hooked up to a RXV661 as the pre and driven by a niles 2125 and I have never been able to turn the woofer volume past half way before it got to be too much. These things make the end of the 1812 sound like someone is driving a truck against my house.

CaligulaPolk

lumpy wrote: »

I have the 25's hooked up to a RXV661 as the pre and driven by a niles 2125 and I have never been able to turn the woofer volume past half way before it got to be too much. These things make the end of the 1812 sound like someone is driving a truck against my house.

my kind of truck!