Major Upgrade My 2 Channel System

AudioFilet

Reason being: Nice big fat bonus check from HQ. I wish I had got it sooner so I could have taken advantage of some of the holiday sales, but I had to be sure first.

Anyway, I like my LSi9s. and want to give them a shot with some new gear. If I need a speaker upgrade too, so be it. Right now, I am using them with the HSU sub for 2 channel (blasphemy, I know) and the Emotiva gear (MORE blasphemy!). It all sounds fine, and I like it. But right now, I can pretend that I am a branch of the US Government and throw a bunch of money at a problem that doesn't exist.

I would like to keep it below 10K though. Even though I don't have to. I've been wanting to enlarge my listening room, and figured the easiest way to do it would be to knock down the walls with the stereo system (just kidding, dammit).

I'm very attracted to Parasound gear for some reason. I like the Halo P3 preamp, and the A23 amp. The A21 amp seems to me like overkill for a pair of LSi9's. I'm going to lose the sub for the time being, to see how I like it that way.

Good choices?? Any suggestions are welcome.

Sorry for the long post.

NJPOLKER

Non of what you listed is over kill for the 9's.

BUY SOME TUBE GEAR, PERIOD

treitz3

When I first found out the there was this thing called a "forum", I threw out there a question along the lines of "What would you do?" concerning my recently upgraded [at the time] rig. While it wasn't on this forum, our resident President, F1nut chimed in and advised me to look into another pair of speakers.

That turned out to be excellent advice and I've been through 4 pairs since that first post after auditioning multiple hundreds of new and vintage speakers. That said, knowing what such good advice that was to me back then and knowing what I know now?

I personally would advise auditioning sets of full range speakers to where you would not want a sub. With that kind of budget, the road you choose has many possibilities. With the leftover dollars I would also suggest looking into some tubed gear. Whatever you choose, just have fun, do some good research before purchasing and get your ears on as many pieces of gear you are interested in that you can.

heiney9

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94173

This thread might help to show you that you can do better than Emo and that the LSi series craves better gear so I wouldn't discard the LSi's without serious thought.

A nice tubed pre-amp and killer amp will take you to heights you can't imagine.

H9

AudioFilet

I have a tube integrated amp setup in my front room. I like it a lot. It's a Chinese-made thing called "Music Angel". Massive transformers, the thing weighs a ton, uses KT88 tubes (4ea). It has a switch on the back to switch it from pentode to triode mode. I forget which mode does what, but one is 30wpc, the other is 65wpc. Sounds great, it's hooked up to a set of RTi6's. I have a Sony SACD player & a restored Dual turntable hooked up to it.

mshan242700

Galen Carol Audio is located in San Antonio: http://gcaudio.com/index.html

Perhaps schedule an appointment and see what total systems they can offer you at say $5000, $7500, and $10000 price points?

Also could see what source and amplification (and possibly cables) they could offer you to match your current Polks too.

Even if a dealer only can offer you a modest discount off of retail, it might end up being cheaper than getting on the audio merry go round of randomly matching whatever component happens to be getting great reviews at any particular time. You may find that you are happy with the sound of the system put together by an experienced dealer and not feel the urge to upgrade for years to come.

Good luck!

markmarc

If you want to keep your LSi9's, get the x-overs modified. Skiingninja.com makes a very nice upgrade that will take up the performance ladder. Or, you can research this forum to read about x-over upgrades.

As for amplification, a pair of Monarchy or Odyssey amps (either mono or stereo) paired with Conrad Johnson's just reissued Classic preamplifier. That will give you plenty of $$ remaining to search out a fine pair of speakers. Or, take a great vacation.

heiney9

markmarc wrote: »

If you want to keep your LSi9's, get the x-overs modified. Skiingninja.com makes a very nice upgrade that will take up the performance ladder. Or, you can research this forum to read about x-over upgrades.

As for amplification, a pair of Monarchy or Odyssey amps (either mono or stereo) paired with Conrad Johnson's just reissued Classic preamplifier. That will give you plenty of $$ remaining to search out a fine pair of speakers. Or, take a great vacation.

This is a great suggestion.........mod the X-overs and a pair of Monarchy's with a nice tube pre and you will wet your pants in excitement.

H9

dkg999

Great advice on the x-overs in the LSi9's. I would do that first, let them break in, then evaluate. I didn't see anything in the original post that said you were on a short time period to get this done. I would then look for a tubed pre. The Halo amps are a great choice due to the high current and dynamic reserves, however I would suggest pairing the Halo power amps with a good tubed pre. I would take your time, one change at a time, and then you'll realize the improvement of each change, or the lack there of.

sucks2beme

http://gcaudio.com/photos/Used/usedSpendorS8e_Pair_1_L.jpg

These would be a pretty good start on 2 channel.

AudioFilet

That's all excellent stuff guys, and thanks for the info on Galen Carol. I will have to pay them a visit when I return to the US next month.

I think I might just buy myself a set of LSi15's (I don't like the idea of the powered sub in the LSi25). What might be some other options for full-range speakers?

markmarc

The LSi15's suffer the same fate as the 9's, a mediocre x-over. You could buy a pair and do the upgrade.

The Salk Song Towers starting at $1700 a pair are a phenomenal bargain. If you go used you can really raise the bar.

tonyb

I'll second the Salk's.... Jim is a great dude. The HT 3 's are gorgeous. Throw in Legacy or Montana if you have the coin.

ben62670

Carnut1420 wrote: »

Its really nice post....
I was searching this kind of posting .....
I just liked it....
Thanks....

dupon registry

:rolleyes:

Busted
Reported
Bye Bye
Ben

organ

See if you can demo the ASL Hurricane.

treitz3

AudioFilet wrote: »

What might be some other options for full-range speakers?

Damn, nobody has any suggestions? :eek:

Alright, I'll start out......

Carver ALS's... The Plat's MKIV's, Plat's, Silvers or the original ALS's [Do research]
Tyler Acoustic's Linbrooks or Woodmere series. Maybe the Decade series.
Infinity makes a couple in your price range...
The Big boy Polk's...1.2tl's, 2.3tl's....

The cat asked a simple question that many of you have much more experience than I at...help a brother out and do what it is we normally do. That being spend his money for him. Well, what's your suggestion?

dkg999

I'd listen to some Totem speakers before I made a final decision. I'd also listen to the EPOS floorstanders.

AudioFilet

Well, I bought the Emo XPA-2 for starters. I figure if I don't like it, I can send it back & get something else. The price, specs & trial period made that choice easy.

Hooked it all up last night & got it going. This thing just sounds HUGE! My LSi9's are now 10 feet tall! It's way too bright though. So, I hooked up this disgusting little FM tuner I have to burn it in. Let it go all night & tried it again this afternoon. Quite a noticeable improvement, but still too bright. My plan is to leave the tuner going on it at a low volume while I go to New Orleans for the weekend & party my stinking face off. Probably get back Wednesday night.

Enough time for a burn in??

heiney9

Too bad you didn;t do a major upgrade like your original title implies.

Emo = entry level. I'm guessing you no longer have the $10K to spend if you bought another Emo.

I'm disappointed, you seemed you really wanted to step it up. I've owned LSi's and anything that sounds this bright out of the box is not a good piece of gear. It's very hard to make LSi's sound bright.

Oh well good luck

H9

tonyb

Since you have it allready, try changing out the IC'S to a warmer sounding one. Bogden audio makes some warm sounding ic's you may like.

Ricardo

LSi9's sounding bright? Who would've thought that....

I'll keep my other thoughts to myself. Good that you can still send that amp back.

Ricardo

AudioFilet wrote: »

Well, I bought the Emo XPA-2 for starters. I figure if I don't like it, I can send it back & get something else. The price, specs & trial period made that choice easy.

Hooked it all up last night & got it going. This thing just sounds HUGE! My LSi9's are now 10 feet tall! It's way too bright though. So, I hooked up this disgusting little FM tuner I have to burn it in. Let it go all night & tried it again this afternoon. Quite a noticeable improvement, but still too bright. My plan is to leave the tuner going on it at a low volume while I go to New Orleans for the weekend & party my stinking face off. Probably get back Wednesday night.

Enough time for a burn in??

xcapri79 wrote: »

Detailed perhaps? RTi's are bright, but not the LSi's.

Sorry capri, didn't know you were also there listening :rolleyes:

concealer404

xcapri79 wrote: »

Detailed perhaps? RTi's are bright, but not the LSi's.

That's the point. Paradigm Esprit V.3s are not bright, either. But they were bright as all hell with a certain component swapped into the rest of my system.

AudioFilet

The "brightness" being relative to what it was with the other amp, which I allowed to burn in before cranking it up. It's a brand new amp, and the sound quality is improving nicely as it burns in. I'm a little impatient I guess.

heiney9

AudioFilet wrote: »

The "brightness" being relative to what it was with the other amp, which I allowed to burn in before cranking it up. It's a brand new amp, and the sound quality is improving nicely as it burns in. I'm a little impatient I guess.

So what about this major 2ch upgrade, no more than $10K project? Ever going to go there or just talk about it :rolleyes::)

H9

heiney9

xcapri79 wrote: »

I'm listening here at home. Just set up a pair of RTi12's that were delivered to my home this afternoon.
I listened to my LSi9's this morning.
My home is my personal Polk Audio heaven.:p

Ricardo's comment went right over your head.....................I'm not surprised :rolleyes:

H9

AudioFilet

heiney9 wrote: »

Emo = entry level. I'm guessing you no longer have the $10K to spend if you bought another Emo.

H9

Still got plenty of cash for this upgrade, and I'm gonna do it till I'm satisfied. I think some consider Emo entry level simply because of the price. That's really too bad. To me, that's a narrow-minded way of thinking.

I don't know. Maybe it is entry-level. But I'm not just going to take somebody else's word for it. I'll find out for myself & have fun doing it. I'm curious.

I'm an Electronics Technician in the offshore oilfield industry. I work with & repair electronics gear that most people wouldn't know exists. Fun stuff. Most of it on a par with MilSpec gear.

So, I can say this about Emo gear after examining the innards of 3 pieces. The build quality is actually quite good, better than I expected. The layouts are well done, and the workmanship is fine. Not spectacular, but quite good. I see nothing wrong with build quality here.

Whether or not I will be satisfied with the sound remains to bee seen. Right now I'm enjoying it, so far so good.

heiney9

Well we can argue until we are both blue in the face. I've been around a lot of gear in 25 years and I assure you Emo is entry level. I've seen amps built really, really well that don't sound all that great. Build quality is important, no doubt, but I can build a very nice looking heafty amp with $50 worth of parts and it will sound pretty bad. So build quality doesn't always mean a great sounding amp.

Have fun, enjoy the music, etc, etc......but don't be like the Emo fanatics and try to pass Emo gear off as anything other than entry level. There is not one thing wrong with Emo, but you are seriously kidding yourself if think they are in the same league as Parasound, Cambridge, NAD, etc, etc.

H9

concealer404

Wouldn't have been my choice to go with a $10,000 budget, but different strokes for different folks and all that. As long as you're happy that's all that matters.

AudioFilet

heiney9 wrote: »

Have fun, enjoy the music, etc, etc......but don't be like the Emo fanatics and try to pass Emo gear off as anything other than entry level. There is not one thing wrong with Emo, but you are seriously kidding yourself if think they are in the same league as Parasound, Cambridge, NAD, etc, etc.

H9

I'm seriously considering buying the Parasound A21 just to do a direct comparason to the XPA-2 on my own turf. The winner to be awarded the exalted bottom shelf of my stereo rack.

As for NAD, bad experience for me there. Garbage in my opinion, wouldn't waste another dime on the stuff.

AudioFilet

concealer404 wrote: »

Wouldn't have been my choice to go with a $10,000 budget, but different strokes for different folks and all that. As long as you're happy that's all that matters.

I figure the bulk of that budget should go towards a speaker upgrade. I do want a good amp though, and maybe a tube pre.

Not a clue what to with speakers yet though.

Good thing I'm not in a hurry.