RTiA9 questions, home theater and rock
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MetropolisLake
Posts: 128
in Speakers
I'm assuming the A9 is a bad mamma jamma for rock music but how does it handle home theater? Are voices accurate? A pet peeve of mine is a boxed in sound and boomy male voices. How are Polk's in general with this? Also what centers are you supposed to pair with the things?
Looking for a large tower that can sound killer on rock music with bass guitar and drums, while maintaining very good off-axis response, very accurate voices, a non-shrilly upper end, and I prefer it to be real wood veneer and no silver highlights. Anybody have a better idea than the A9? Can you take those silver feet off?
Looking for a large tower that can sound killer on rock music with bass guitar and drums, while maintaining very good off-axis response, very accurate voices, a non-shrilly upper end, and I prefer it to be real wood veneer and no silver highlights. Anybody have a better idea than the A9? Can you take those silver feet off?
Comments
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Ive only had mine for a month powered by 125wpc pioneer D3 receiver and they sound great for music and home theater listening. Voices come through loud and clear through the A9s, I'm not using a center speaker either just the A9s up front and rti4s for rears. I am saving up for a good 2 channel amp for the A9s so I can really push them for music. They have gobs of bass and that great Polk smooth midrange and crisp highs that make dialogue come through clear and loud.
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Reference Theater improved
I'm guessing on the "i", but I believe it's strength lies in home theater while also being very good for music.
Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.-John Wooden -
Speaker budget? Do you have an amp already? Give us the details.
Budget don't matter much if staying with Polks. It would be powered by a Marantz SR-7009 for now and before too long a Marantz amp. Smallish room 10.5' from my screen but I have a wide row of four seats, I can't have pinpoint finnicky imaging, need to cast a wide net. -
Have you seen how deep those a9's are? I don't think they'll work in your space.
They're 5" deeper than the Klipsch RF-7ii's I'm running now, with probably half of that being that weird grill for the port. These or whatever else I get will probably end up in my 31'x32' living room for party duty but I'm wanting to swap them out in my theater room for awhile as to have something to compare the RF-7ii's to. -
Can't have those A9's against the wall. Plan on, at a minimum 18 inches. Maybe a little large for the theater room, great for the living room.
Believe the DSkip's comment was for the theater room. -
The Monitor 75T had caught my eye until I saw it only weighed 47 pounds.
I like the idea of it. Was hoping for a front ported something or another anyway. Am afraid the LSI stuff is way too modern looking for my place. I'm not sure what other choices I have, its either deal with that rear port, downgrade to the 75T or 550T, or put a modern LSI in a pirate themed room and/or beach house living room which is probably just really weird. -
You don't get that boomy sound from deep male voices but will get excellent bass out of them. The whole reason i went deep into home theater was because cheap systems and boomy voices like that used to drive me nuts.
I used to love music and crappy speakers/avr's just about killed it for me. now there are times when I'm playing music and I'm in awe of the sound and just sit there staring the wall with my mouth open. -
Can't have those A9's against the wall. Plan on, at a minimum 18 inches. Maybe a little large for the theater room, great for the living room.
Believe the DSkip's comment was for the theater room.
Even if you have the space, who wants to have speakers sticking out 40" or more into your room? I guess that's the thing to do among audiophiles who like a flat response but I never would. -
I have mine a couple inches from the wall and they sound great, I thought that was why they had the inverted cone port filter on the back.
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The 9's are great HT speaks and should do well also on Rock music. The Marantz gear is a good match for them also but you might want to look into a warmer sounding cable too to tame down those highs a bit, if your already not using one that is.HT SYSTEM-
Sony 850c 4k
Pioneer elite vhx 21
Sony 4k BRP
SVS SB-2000
Polk Sig. 20's
Polk FX500 surrounds
Cables-
Acoustic zen Satori speaker cables
Acoustic zen Matrix 2 IC's
Wireworld eclipse 7 ic's
Audio metallurgy ga-o digital cable
Kitchen
Sonos zp90
Grant Fidelity tube dac
B&k 1420
lsi 9's -
The power port on the rear of the RTiA series was designed, in part, to allow the speaker to be placed close to the back wall.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
I tried to read about the port but outside of a few marketing sentences there doesn't seem to be much in way of explaining the science and recommendations on placement, just that its cool and stuff.
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It's a tuned port that shapes the sound waves so that they don't bounce off the back wall. Very clever.Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Is that kinda like blocking one nostril when you sneeze so you don't spray anyone on your left ?HT SYSTEM-
Sony 850c 4k
Pioneer elite vhx 21
Sony 4k BRP
SVS SB-2000
Polk Sig. 20's
Polk FX500 surrounds
Cables-
Acoustic zen Satori speaker cables
Acoustic zen Matrix 2 IC's
Wireworld eclipse 7 ic's
Audio metallurgy ga-o digital cable
Kitchen
Sonos zp90
Grant Fidelity tube dac
B&k 1420
lsi 9's -
Based on some diagrams I figured that grill kinda dissipated the sound waves in all directions rather than letting it fire straight backwards. That may be too simplistic of an explanation though.
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Is that kinda like blocking one nostril when you sneeze so you don't spray anyone on your left ?
More like farting with your arse raised slightly off the seat.
Political Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
President of Club Polk -
Called a "one cheek sneak"....
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It's a tuned port that shapes the sound waves so that they don't bounce off the back wall. Very clever.
Bingo and it works great, the A9s push a lot of air. -
Like F1 said, you can't place them any closer than about 3" - the power port prevents that. And it's design is such that, except in corners, rear wall distance from the back matters little.
Experiment. Though I'd be surprised if you hear a difference w/the rear baffle measuring a foot or more away.
Be more concerned w/side wall distance, room treatments, etc. Use those spikes when you decide on their placement.Samsung 60" UN60ES6100 LED Outlaw Audio 976 Pre/Pro Samsung BDP, Amazon Firestick, Phillips CD Changer Canare 14 ga - LCR tweeters inside*; Ctr Ch outside BJC 10 ga - LCR mids, inside* & out 8 ga Powerline: LR woofers, inside* & out *soldered LR: Tri-amped RTi A7 w/Rotels. Woofers - 980BX; Tweets & “Plugged*” Mids - 981, connected w/MP Premiere ICs Ctr Ch: Rotel RB981 -> Bi-amped CSi A6 Surrounds: Premiere ICs ->Rotel 981 -> AR 12 ga -> RTi A3. 5 Subs: Sunfire True SW Signature -> LFE & Ctr Ch; 4 Audio Pro Evidence @ the “Corners”. Power Conditioning & Distribution: 4 dedicated 20A feeds; APC H15; 5 Furman Miniport 20s *Xschop's handy work -
Apparently my comment has been construed that these need to be out in the room. That wasn't what I was saying. I was simply saying that the depth of the a9 can be surprising, and you need to consider that footprint before buying them, especially in an already small room.
It wasn't you or anyone else I was referring to, Ive read this on other forums and amazon reviews. While it may help in a dedicated theater room I just don't have the space in my 12' wide room. I was just letting the OP know that I thought mine still sound great a few inches from the wall, the front of my A9s are flush with my entertainment cabinet and look stunning strutting their stuff. -
The only thing I've found the A9's to suck at is live recorded orchestral music. Of course that could be the fault of the recording and/or associated gear. And by suck at it I mean it's the thing they do least well. Beyond that I've found them to be quite versatile as long as you feed them power, a solid high current 200wpc source is plenty, but more is always better in smaller increments.
Right now, I cannot imagine myself wanting more from a home theater/must do everything speaker.
For a dedicated music speaker I would look elsewhere.Up
LSi15 LSiC - RX-V3000
Down
LSiM707 - 706c - 702f/x - Dual HSU VTF-15H Mk2
Parasound HCA-3500 - HCA-2003A - Marantz SR7005
Sim2 D60 - Dragonfly 106" Panny 500 -
"I cannot imagine myself wanting more from a home theater/must do everything speaker."
"I can't imagine anyone needing more than 640K of RAM"
Bill Gates, Circa '80s quoteSamsung 60" UN60ES6100 LED Outlaw Audio 976 Pre/Pro Samsung BDP, Amazon Firestick, Phillips CD Changer Canare 14 ga - LCR tweeters inside*; Ctr Ch outside BJC 10 ga - LCR mids, inside* & out 8 ga Powerline: LR woofers, inside* & out *soldered LR: Tri-amped RTi A7 w/Rotels. Woofers - 980BX; Tweets & “Plugged*” Mids - 981, connected w/MP Premiere ICs Ctr Ch: Rotel RB981 -> Bi-amped CSi A6 Surrounds: Premiere ICs ->Rotel 981 -> AR 12 ga -> RTi A3. 5 Subs: Sunfire True SW Signature -> LFE & Ctr Ch; 4 Audio Pro Evidence @ the “Corners”. Power Conditioning & Distribution: 4 dedicated 20A feeds; APC H15; 5 Furman Miniport 20s *Xschop's handy work -
Aha...I see what you did there.
Touché. Up
LSi15 LSiC - RX-V3000
Down
LSiM707 - 706c - 702f/x - Dual HSU VTF-15H Mk2
Parasound HCA-3500 - HCA-2003A - Marantz SR7005
Sim2 D60 - Dragonfly 106" Panny 500
