Wes's LSi9 Review

[I-SIG]

Here is my review of Courtney’s LSi9’s he is so graciously letting me borrow for the time being. This review won’t be anywhere near as formal as Steve’s review. I just hope to make a few points and give some good impressions of my thoughts on these fine speakers.

Here’s a quick run down of my equipment currently in the He-Man rig in case y’all are like me and don’t pay that close of attention to everyone’s signature at the bottom. (350 per qualifies me for He-Man status, right George?) Anyway:

Source: Onkyo DV-C600
Digital Cable: Kimber Illuminati
DAC: Bel Canto DAC 2
Analog Cable: AQ Diamondbacks
Preamp: Audio Alchemy Digital Line Controller (DLC)
Stereo RCA: AQ Diamondbacks
Amp: Parasound HCA-2200
Speaker Wire: AQ Granite (high) & Bedrock (mid/low)
Subwoofer: SVS PC+ 25-39

The first thing I noticed when Steve and I fired these puppies up was the clarity and overall smoothness of the sound. One of the things I was really worried about was the potential brightness of these speakers. While I really liked the RT55i’s I used to have, they could certainly be bright sometimes, and I was afraid these new Polk’s would follow in that vein. I am happily disappointed. However, the LSi’s are certainly more forward than my SDA-SRS’s. This fact isn’t necessarily bad, just different.

Last night, I swapped back to my SDA’s just to put things in perspective before I really started writing the review. I know the second thing Steve and I noticed was the room-filling sound. The 9’s weren’t straining to fill my living area at all. This room-filling sound comes with an asterisk. I’ll be the first to admit that this probably isn’t gonna be a fair comparison, but I’m gonna make it anyway. Compared to the SRS’s, and I would suspect my 1C’s as well, quality, room-filling sound does not equal presence or that “big sound.” Does that make sense? I’m pretty confident in saying that the SDA doesn’t have anything to do with this statement. If one desires to have presence and big sound, there no replacement for displacement.

At my house, thanks to the SVS, I was able to take the bottom-bottom end off the LSi9’s. I was really rewarded with some nice sound. I didn’t take the time to do a full system calibration however I didn’t change the settings used with the SRS’s due to the overall quality of my sound curve. My ears seem to think it was pretty close. What I’m trying to get to is that with the bottom of the bottom removed from the 9’s, the lower midrange really seemed cleaner. I didn’t push them to the SPL we did at Steve’s, but there wasn’t a hint of the woofer losing control or distorting or anything else nasty.

To sum up, I want to keep things in perspective. As clear and as smooth and as controlled as the LSi9’s are with their advanced tweeters and drivers, ARC and PowerPort, they really don’t seem to be able to anything that my 20 year old SRS’s can’t do in those terms. With that said, a) I wouldn’t hesitate to have the LSi9’s near the top of my list for an office or bedroom system in the future, and b) if such a beast as say, a LSi-SRS, ever gets built, screw the office system!

Wes

[organ]

Nice review. I love my LSi9.

[organ]

Forgot to ask you. Did you notice the mid-bass hump in your rig? A few of us here had this problem. I found the source to mine. It was the NAD pre. With my tubed pre, I had to roll tubes with no 'warmth' to get rid of this.