LSI 15's and Muddy bass

[mwaarna]

I was listening to the LSI 15s at Tweeter on a yamaha rx-v2700 no external amplification.

Majority of the music was great, MJ, Depeche Mode, Metallica, etc..

But when i put in MATISYAHU - King Without A Crown, the bass started to distort or maybe become muddy, not sure how to exactly describe it.

They did not have the availability to hook up any external amps to the speakers.

My main question for this is would this muddyness be due to lack of power from the receiver?

On the receiver i was listening to it at about -15 to -8db...

I am definately new to this, i am going to be making my purchase late january.

my plan is to have the denon 3806, LSI15 LsiC, and once funds are gained get three outlaw m2200's to run the amps.

[Midnite Mick]

Just a thought....not sure how valid it is but I will throw it out there.

I am unfamiliar with the music you just referenced but if the other music can still sound good....especially Metallica which is quite heavy, it may very well be the recording of the music you referenced with the muddy bass.

just my .02

Mike

[mwaarna]

i dont think its the quality of the music..

i played the same exact cd in my car and the bass is not muddy. Mp3's burned the cd off of were from a 192vbr rip.

But in my car i have 2 10"(alpine Type R) subs at 250watt RMS(Rockford Fosgate Amp) each.

Could it have been a mode the receiver was in?

What i recall it was in some enhanced 2ch music mode...

also king without a crown you tube link if your not familiar with the music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hip2i9yHZ38

http://www.myspace.com/matisyahu

[ben62670]

Hi neighbor. I was just at sound advice and was auditioning speakers. I was listening to some focals, and they had the Lsi 15's too. I had him switch to the Lsi15's and I didn't like the sound. I thought they were muddy too. At the store I was at they were powered by an external Denon Amp, and that didn't help. I would take some time and listen to some other speakers too. I also suggest that you bring a couple of Cd's with you to hear what you listen to. Metalica is a heavy bass type of band, and lots of distortion in the guitars. The bass probably helps to tame some of the mids that sound harsh on a lot of speakers, and that sound good on those Polk's. I am local so if you want you could come over and audition some of the older Polk's to see what kind of speakers satisfy your taste in music.

Ben

[heiney9]

LSI's are so much better than that crap you guys are feeding them. Metallica a band I like is recorded with a tin can in the bathroom. Lsi's are very dependent on high current power to sound their best. If you don't plan on giving them high quality seperate amplification don't buy them. Very rarely do speakers sound good in the show room. Take them home and demo them in your environment. Lsi's are one of the best bargains going for those looking to get high end perfomance with out the high price tag. If you can't/won't run a great font end and back end keep looking.

As far as the comment about MP3's...........shouldn't even be mentioned when discussiong audiophile quality speakers. MP3's suck no matter what the bit rate is. They are acceptable for portable audio and car audio applications and that's it!!!

[Joey_V]

As far as the comment about MP3's...........shouldn't even be mentioned when discussiong audiophile quality speakers. MP3's suck no matter what the bit rate is. They are acceptable for portable audio and car audio applications and that's it!!!

I'm going to have to agree with Brock on this one.

[danger boy]

in alot of brick and morter stores... the crank the bass up on the car audio and the home audio. we've all been in block buster where some knuckle head cranks it up.. and all you hear is muddy bass for about 30 seconds then it's turned down.

that's what i think may have also been the reason

[mwaarna]

i'll re-do my assessments again on a different day. I'll bring the actual cds in to listen in on. Burning mp3's was my lazy way of not having to take a stack of cds to have variety of music to listen to.

When i was listening to the music, i was thoroughly enjoying my self, and could have stayed much longer just re-listening to all of my music.

My reason for posting this was to figure out if something in the setup, amplification, etc.. could cause the bass to become muddy...

As far as taking them home to demo, is not really a viable solution.

And as i stated before i do plan on supplying them with enough power with outlaw monoblocks.

[heiney9]

Really my only point was that the only way to get a true idea is to have them in your listening environment. Eventually running the Outlaws will give you the power you need. If it is at all possible to work it out to demo them at home that's the best senario. Otherwise you will just have to purchase on faith.....there are lots and lots of threads on the forum discussing Lsi's.

[tonyb]

LSI's are so much better than that crap you guys are feeding them. Metallica a band I like is recorded with a tin can in the bathroom. Lsi's are very dependent on high current power to sound their best. If you don't plan on giving them high quality seperate amplification don't buy them. Very rarely do speakers sound good in the show room. Take them home and demo them in your environment. Lsi's are one of the best bargains going for those looking to get high end perfomance with out the high price tag. If you can't/won't run a great font end and back end keep looking.

As far as the comment about MP3's...........shouldn't even be mentioned when discussiong audiophile quality speakers. MP3's suck no matter what the bit rate is. They are acceptable for portable audio and car audio applications and that's it!!!

Bingo!!!

[george daniel]

Alot of good advice from folks with experience,just remember the two "P's",placement and power. ;)

[McLoki]

just remember the two "P's",placement and power. ;)
Almost all the bass issues I have heard of with the 15's were solved by one of the two (power or placement).

I am of a similar opinion of many on here - that if you don't want to purchase good amplification for the speakers, you are wasting your money getting them. If you want to run off a mid-level AVR or lower (about the $1,000 pricepoint or less) you should really be looking at other speakers.

In most demo rooms, check the treble controls first (defeat them if possible) but you are usually going to be hit with one if not both of the "P" issues.....

Michael

[mwaarna]

thanks for the Advice. i'll keep in my the 2 P's.

[swchma]

ditto

[MikeC78]

I also wasn't to impressed with the 15's ran off an AVR. Until you add solid amplification to them, it's like awakening a monster from the dead!

IMO, the RTi series sounds better than the LSi's with a run of the mill AVR. I'd NEVER run LSi's without sufficient amplification.

Mike

[swchma]

ditto

[Refefer]

Gotta remember that most speakers out there are 8 ohm nominal... and as such, most AVR's are geared for amplifying them. The Lsi's being 4 ohm nominal makes it much harder for these run of the mill AVR's to power them adequately. As such, it also makes them much more sensitive to the quality of the power you stick into them. If it's not a good clean, well pushed watt, the first thing you're going to notice is that the bass sounds like poo.

Give it good power, you'll get music. Bad power, bad music. Denon's make very nice receivers, just make sure if you ever buy one, get it with pre outs ;)

[MikeC78]

Gotta remember that most speakers out there are 8 ohm nominal... and as such, most AVR's are geared for amplifying them. The Lsi's being 4 ohm nominal makes it much harder for these run of the mill AVR's to power them adequately. As such, it also makes them much more sensitive to the quality of the power you stick into them. If it's not a good clean, well pushed watt, the first thing you're going to notice is that the bass sounds like poo.

Give it good power, you'll get music. Bad power, bad music. Denon's make very nice receivers, just make sure if you ever buy one, get it with pre outs ;)

:) Yep, that pretty much explains my theory above.

Mike

[heiney9]

Gotta remember that most speakers out there are 8 ohm nominal... and as such, most AVR's are geared for amplifying them. The Lsi's being 4 ohm nominal makes it much harder for these run of the mill AVR's to power them adequately. As such, it also makes them much more sensitive to the quality of the power you stick into them. If it's not a good clean, well pushed watt, the first thing you're going to notice is that the bass sounds like poo.

Give it good power, you'll get music. Bad power, bad music. Denon's make very nice receivers, just make sure if you ever buy one, get it with pre outs ;)

I have Lsi 9's and just last night I was running them at what I would consider near reference level (to my ears, very loud) I have a heafty high current Adcom and listening to the Zep DVD last night is the warmest that amp has gotten since I've owned it (about 20 years). No trouble, but then again the heat sinks are very large and it's a well regulated high current no limiting design and I was a bit suprised at how warm she was running.

Point is.......most if not all typical AVR's aren't going to do the Lsi's justice and if want soild controlled bass you need the juice and proper placement.

Wait has that been said before,,,,:D

[Tequila]

Lsi+ $$$POWER TEAM$$$= Incredible sound.
Rti+Any AVR= Great Sound.

[danger boy]

this is what i think of when i see or hear the word Tequila ha ha ha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQJexFOxolI

[surfntomm]

i know ill get a lot of heat for this but for those of you bashing on mp3's, i cant hear a difference between an mp3 i made myself from the original flac file. id be very surprised if you can and if so in what regards. 192 kb with vbr is pretty good and not worth losing an entire mp3 library over imo.

[dkg999]

Once you get to the level of LSi's, a good source, and good amplification, any deficiencies in the CD/MP3, etc. becomes more noticable. I had someone with the same theory, based on their IPod and low-end system. Once we played their burned CD's on my main system with the Magnepan's the fact that they sounded like crap compared to the original source CD became very, very apparent!

[heiney9]

i know ill get a lot of heat for this but for those of you bashing on mp3's, i cant hear a difference between an mp3 i made myself from the original flac file. id be very surprised if you can and if so in what regards. 192 kb with vbr is pretty good and not worth losing an entire mp3 library over imo.

MP3's and good equipment don't go together. MP3's suck!! I can hear a marked difference every single time.

Mp3's even at 320kbps sound bad. They are edgy, harsh and compressed lots of spatial cues in the original music is missing, dynamic range is affected the soundstage is collapsed compared to the original.

I will say a poor original recording will lose little if converted to MP3, but well recorded music will sound very poor. Mp3's are very evil when used to replace the original recording in a true high fidelity rig. If you don't think so you are fooling yourself.

[Refefer]

Without razing digital music too much, I must now finally insert myself as a believer that mp3's do noticeably deteriorate the sound quality of song.

I have long been an advocate that the mp3 compression is transparent over a song, testing it several times... and up to a point I was right. Using my computer system and entry level polks, I couldn't tell the difference at all. Since upgrading to my SDA's and a good Rotel amplifier, I can now almost always tell when a song has been compressed using some technology. I have ask my significant other to blind test me to make sure I wasn't kidding myself and sure enough 9 times out of 10 I could spot the compressed track when compared to the reference CD. Does that mean that I don't enjoy mp3s on my system? If I have the track on an original CD I'll play that instead, but I certainly haven't abandoned my compressed audio library and denoted it as "trash". I routinely attach my mp3 player to it and enjoy!

And with that being said, if you can't tell a difference (or the difference doesn't bother you), by all means enjoy your music as you feel fit! After all, who gives a damn what someone else's ears tell them. It's your rig damn it and the only person that matters when listening to it is you. Enjoy your system... and ignore all that crap that about the lsi's being better than that. Sure some of us can tell a difference with them, but that sure as hell doesn't mean you can't enjoy them too.

[Monster Jam]

i know ill get a lot of heat for this but for those of you bashing on mp3's, i cant hear a difference between an mp3 i made myself from the original flac file. id be very surprised if you can and if so in what regards. 192 kb with vbr is pretty good and not worth losing an entire mp3 library over imo.

You won't get any heat from me, although I do disagree. I have never heard an MP3 sound as good or better than the source recording. Now going from CD to DVD Audio or Super Audio - thats a little closer and more difficult to discern to my ear (aside from the multi-channel format).

At the same token, I would be one to say that all other things being equal, my 10awg copper speaker cable from Blue Jeans sounds exactly the same as someone else's 10awg Monster cable. But many do not believe this is the case.

To each their own, I suppose. Although I own the LSi15s, I would recommend you buy the speaker that sounds right to you. YOUVE got to listen to them, not me (or us).

[sickicw]

I dont think there is anything wrong with mp3s unless they are just really bad quality ones. I listen to them a lot on my system, and they should not cause muddy bass. I would try the following...


- Room treatments. (I buy mondo traps from here... http://www.realtraps.com/)
- Speaker position.
- If your room can't handle the 15s, then get lsi9s or set the crossover at 60hz
- Add more power.

[reeltrouble1]

Lo-fi is better than No-fi.

RT1