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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 75 Registered: Jul-05 | I'm going to audtion a pair shortly...has anyone owned these that cares to comment? I've read several reviews, the overwhelming majority of them are very positive...reads almost like a shill's digest (or the reviewers are Polk fanatics and defending the brand?). It'd be nice to hear some negative comments as well, things to be made aware of, the speaker's weaknesses & limitations. I'm actually looking at a used pair (Price is about $400 US)... for a 2 speaker audio system (possible subwoofer addition down the pike) driven by a '80s vintage yamaha A-700 100w integrated amp...90% will be pure music, 10% sloppy movie listening. Thanks for any feedback. |
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Anonymous | I don't own them but I have had the opportunity to listen to them a few times and I would say they are very good speakers. Now if you were paying full retail for them, I would say you could probably get better value for your money elsewhere, but for $400, thats pretty hard to beat. I see you've taken care of assuring your amp will drive these speakers on another thread, so the rest is really mostly up to your ears. They don't have the deepest bass on the planet, but there is only so much one can expect from a speaker of that size. On its own, it can still provide very satisfying music listening, but don't expect lots of LFE special effects. Other than that, there isn't much really negative I can say about it... |
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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 77 Registered: Jul-05 | Thanks for the reply Anon. BTW, what's 'LFE' mean? |
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Anonymous | "Low Frequency Effects" I believe. Refers to the subwoofer channel on 5.1 tracks. |
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Gold Member Username: Edster922Abubala, Ababala The Occupation Post Number: 2633 Registered: Mar-05 | I think Jan owns these, stay tuned. |
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Bronze Member Username: Paul98Post Number: 46 Registered: Oct-05 | If I could find a pair of LSi9's for 400 I would buy them in a second. |
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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 80 Registered: Jul-05 | The seller had the LSi9's (in cherry finish) stored in his closet. They looked immaculate. He had a second pair of LSi9's (in ebony color), a pair of LSi15's (also in ebony), and an LSiC, (again ebony). He said that a close friend works in an audio store and sold him the LSi9s (in cherry) at a very generous discount. That same friend later received a free pair of LSi15's from Polk as a reward incentive for his high sales volume ... so the guy also bought them from his friend, again, at a huge discount. At this point he decided to do the 5 speaker home theater thing: so he bought the LsiC center (discounted)...but he wanted all his speakers to match in color so he bought ANOTHER discounted pair of LSi9's, this time in ebony. The LSi9s he sold me are only a few months old ... he's extremely generous and wanted the speakers going to someone who'd appreciate them, and without any prompting he LOWERED the price to $370 from an agreed on $400. He did this because he wanted to cover my cab fare home. What a cool guy: the audio gods must be smiling down on me! He swapped out his LSi15s for the LSi9s so I could listen to them .. at first one sounded really bad ... it ended up that one of the speaker connectors that DIDN'T have a wire on it was loose. There's a jumper plate (that you remove for bi-wiring) and because of the loose connector, it wasn't firmly 'jumpered'. Once it got hooked up correctly ... ahhhh ...they sounded sweet! VASTLY better than they did in the store where I auditioned them. In the latter instance, they were about 15' apart and above head level at about 7', also with no way of sitting between them as a huge conference table was in the center of the auditioning room (this was at a mid-fi store). A smile danced on my face when the music shined through strong and clear! I got 'em home very late, so I haven't had a chance to listen to them in my room yet at a 'regular' volume...because of the extremely limited listening I've had with them, I'm not even sure of what I have. I'm very much looking forward to it because, already, even at whisper low volume, there's a lot more going on in my music then I ever realized .... music I've been listening to for years and burned out with numbing repetition. Earlier in the day I scored a mint Meridian 508.20 CDP for almost as good a deal as the LSi9's. After all the good advice on this forum, I've been scouring the earth for affordable deals...all the hard work is just starting to pay off. I only have the cheapest of the cheap RCA cables that come with Sony boom boxes so I think I'll need to start looking for a better cable for the Meridian to start to understand it's reach. I've exceeded my budget, but if the Meridian sounds no better than my Philips DVD player, I can always sell it. I'm busted for now, but I'm squinting out of one eye for an upgrade amp.... Many thanks to all of you who've given generously with your knowledge over the past few months. |
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Silver Member Username: KanoPost Number: 709 Registered: Oct-04 | I'm jealous, I love the look of those speakers. |
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Bronze Member Username: LovegasolineNYC Post Number: 81 Registered: Jul-05 | Kano, www.acousticsounddesign.com quoted me a price of $699 shipped, new with warranty. *One surprise was their weight. I put 'em on my postal scale and these suckers weigh over 30lbs each. Can't say anything about durabilty or construction, but they seem bomber. |