Pairing Polks with Onkyo

[saketb]

I've finally decided to upgrade my current setup of Onkyo speakers with Polk Audio RTi/CSi series. Currently, I would be upgrading the fronts and center channel and later the surrounds and sub. The sub-woofer is 150 watts powered.

Fronts - Polk Audio RTi A3
Center - Polk Audio CSi A6

Now, I've a few questions before I empty my pockets.
1. As these speakers are rated at 8 ohms and my Onkyo surrounds are 6 ohms, I am skeptical for any issues.
2. How will the Polk's (fronts + center) match with the Onkyo's (surrounds + sub).
3. As the Onkyo receiver TX-SR508 I have does not have separate crossover settings for each speakers how will it manage the different configuration.
4. Lastly, will it really make a great difference in the soundstage when comapred to the bigger Polks fronts+center with Onkyo satellites. Is it worth the money I would be spending.

Any inputs would be great on this matter.

 

[saketb]

Anyone here can throw some light on... I would be grateful enough.

 

[spirovious]

1. As these speakers are rated at 8 ohms and my Onkyo surrounds are 6 ohms, I am skeptical for any issues.

There is no issue as Onkyo can drive 8 ohm speakers easily.Check manual

2. How will the Polk's (fronts + center) match with the Onkyo's (surrounds + sub).

Surrounds offer very little compared to fronts which are more dynamic.So dont worry about small surrounds.I had used Onkyo surrounds with Tannoy front,center speakers without issue.

3. As the Onkyo receiver TX-SR508 I have does not have separate crossover settings for each speakers how will it manage the different configuration.

You can keep standard 80Hz crossover to get better results.

4. Lastly, will it really make a great difference in the soundstage when comapred to the bigger Polks fronts+center with Onkyo satellites. Is it worth the money I would be spending.

Soundstage will certainly improve due to large drivers.Also music sound will be much better.

 

[elangoas]

I've finally decided to upgrade my current setup of Onkyo speakers with Polk Audio RTi/CSi series. Currently, I would be upgrading the fronts and center channel and later the surrounds and sub. The sub-woofer is 150 watts powered.

Fronts - Polk Audio RTi A3
Center - Polk Audio CSi A6

Now, I've a few questions before I empty my pockets.
1. As these speakers are rated at 8 ohms and my Onkyo surrounds are 6 ohms, I am skeptical for any issues.
2. How will the Polk's (fronts + center) match with the Onkyo's (surrounds + sub).
3. As the Onkyo receiver TX-SR508 I have does not have separate crossover settings for each speakers how will it manage the different configuration.
4. Lastly, will it really make a great difference in the soundstage when comapred to the bigger Polks fronts+center with Onkyo satellites. Is it worth the money I would be spending.

Any inputs would be great on this matter.

Polk are perceived to be very good for Home theater purpose and equally good for music....

1) 8 ohm is easier to drive for the amplifier than 6 ohms...
2) Your front speakers (Left, Center & Right) have to be from the same brand & same series... Your surrounds & subwoofer can be from any brand... If you upgrade to polk for fronts, your surrounds can will be easily overshadowed by polk hyeah:
3) You must have a Global crossover which will apply for all speakers.. as spirovious right pointed out, you can have then X over @ 80 Hz for movies...
4) Yes.. It will make a difference... I have upgraded from Onkyo HTIB speakers to better speakers & i can say that for sure...

 

[saketb]

Thanks a lot for the replies, they have indeed cleared most of my doubts.

Now another thing I would like to ask is regarding Bi-Amping...

As, the Onkyo 508 supports Bi-Amping the fronts, I can Bi-Amp the Polk RTiA3's. The Polk center CSiA6 also supports Bi-Amping...
So my question is how do I Bi-Amp the center channel? Do I run another pair of speaker wires from the Bi-Amping ports in the receiver to the center speaker?
A bit confused here...

 

[elangoas]

Thanks a lot for the replies, they have indeed cleared most of my doubts.

Now another thing I would like to ask is regarding Bi-Amping...

As, the Onkyo 508 supports Bi-Amping the fronts, I can Bi-Amp the Polk RTiA3's. The Polk center CSiA6 also supports Bi-Amping...
So my question is how do I Bi-Amp the center channel? Do I run another pair of speaker wires from the Bi-Amping ports in the receiver to the center speaker?
A bit confused here...

I hope you are aware of how to bi-amp the fronts...Center Channel bi-amping is possible only if you pre-outs for your center channel on AVR + you have additional external amplifier... Otherwise you won't be able to bi-amp the center channel...

BTW why do you want to bi-amp your center channel?

 

[spirovious]

Try regular way and if you didn't like sound much(You wont),you can try Bi-amping.

 

[saketb]

I hope you are aware of how to bi-amp the fronts...Center Channel bi-amping is possible only if you pre-outs for your center channel on AVR + you have additional external amplifier... Otherwise you won't be able to bi-amp the center channel...

BTW why do you want to bi-amp your center channel?

Yes, the Front L/R ports to be wired to the fronts woofer terminals and the Surr Back ports to be wired to the tweeter terminals and to remove the jumper bars connecting the two ports on the speakers. Also a change to be made in the receiver settings to make the speaker type as Bi-Amp.

To make it sound more fuller and use the ports when the facility has been provided, though it cannot be done as you say with my receiver.

Try regular way and if you didn't like sound much(You wont),you can try Bi-amping.

Is it really possible to do it through this receiver?

 

[elangoas]

Yes, the Front L/R ports to be wired to the fronts woofer terminals and the Surr Back ports to be wired to the tweeter terminals and to remove the jumper bars connecting the two ports on the speakers. Also a change to be made in the receiver settings to make the speaker type as Bi-Amp.

To make it sound more fuller and use the ports when the facility has been provided, though it cannot be done as you say with my receiver.

Excellent understanding...:thumbsup:

 

[spirovious]

Is it really possible to do it through this receiver?

Yes,you can-
http://www.hifivision.com/speakers/27706-bi-wiring-speakers-help.html

Check page 13 of manual-
http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/tx-sr508_manual_e.pdf

 

[elangoas]

Yes,you can-
http://www.hifivision.com/speakers/27706-bi-wiring-speakers-help.html

Check page 13 of manual-
http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/tx-sr508_manual_e.pdf

@Spirovious - the OP was referring on how to bi-amp the center channel speaker..

 

[spirovious]

OK,there is only zone2,so not possible with center channel.Only Bi-wiring is possible.

 

[saketb]

Well, finally bought the speakers... been waiting for these from a long time.

Polk Audio RTiA3
Polk Audio CSiA6

I have setup the fronts using Bi-Amping and the center just a single pair connection. Ran the Audessey setup and it have very surprising results...

Speakers set to Small
Crossover : 150Hz
Fronts L/R: -5db
Center: -6db
Surrounds: -3db
Sub: -3

Even after the fronts being much much larger than the satellites I was using, it gave 150Hz, now this is very surprising values. With the satellites as fronts it gave 120Hz as the crossover.

The sound does not seem to be great at all, infact my satellites were better than the newly purchased Polks.

Request the pros to kindly help here to get me the value of what I've bought.

 

[elangoas]

Congrats on your new speakers.... Looks like Audessey is not picking up corect results... Two things that i suggest you to tyr out...

1) Run you Onkyo AVR in Pure Audio Mode.... It defeats all the crossover, and runs all the speakers in full range... LFE (.1) i sent directly to the subwoofer & no other additional bass from any other channels is sent to the LFE.. Meaning each channel will play its own bass information from the content...

I run my AVR on this mode always for Movies/Music.....

2) Manually change your speaker setting to LARGE for the fronts & set the crossover to 60Hz for Front channels... If your AVR doesn't have this feature, apply the global crossover feature @ 60Hz.......

Check this & share your experience....

 

[spirovious]

Audessey can bring wrong results.you need to run it again and again till the speaker specifications and results matches. ie. The crossover can be obtained 80Hz. Small speaker are even recommended by some experts for movies.Please check if Audessey has picked up correct speaker distance too.If results are not close,effect will be lost.Also try different settings within Audessey like dynamic eq etc.
Once set correctly,there shouldn't be any regret.Also speaker need time to open up correctly.
Some helpful links-
Bass Management Basics Settings Made Simple | Audioholics
Home theater calibration guide: Manual speaker setup | Digital Trends
How to Get More from Your Home Theater Without Paying a Dime

 

[saketb]

Congrats on your new speakers.... Looks like Audessey is not picking up corect results... Two things that i suggest you to tyr out...

1) Run you Onkyo AVR in Pure Audio Mode.... It defeats all the crossover, and runs all the speakers in full range... LFE (.1) i sent directly to the subwoofer & no other additional bass from any other channels is sent to the LFE.. Meaning each channel will play its own bass information from the content...

I run my AVR on this mode always for Movies/Music.....

2) Manually change your speaker setting to LARGE for the fronts & set the crossover to 60Hz for Front channels... If your AVR doesn't have this feature, apply the global crossover feature @ 60Hz.......

Check this & share your experience....

Audessey can bring wrong results.you need to run it again and again till the speaker specifications and results matches. ie. The crossover can be obtained 80Hz. Small speaker are even recommended by some experts for movies.Please check if Audessey has picked up correct speaker distance too.If results are not close,effect will be lost.Also try different settings within Audessey like dynamic eq etc.
Once set correctly,there shouldn't be any regret.Also speaker need time to open up correctly.
Some helpful links-
Bass Management Basics Settings Made Simple | Audioholics
Home theater calibration guide: Manual speaker setup | Digital Trends
How to Get More from Your Home Theater Without Paying a Dime

Many thanks for the suggestions for the settings.

I tried as you said to set the AVR in Pure Audio mode but din't really like the audio output. It was really missing that punch and liveliness. So, continued to listen in the Stereo mode.

I even tried the Audessey setup multiple times but kept getting all wrong values and was not satisfied and finally got tired so, after reading the links given by "Spirovious", thought of going the manual way. Only thing which was missing was the sound level meter which I do not have. Did try an android app, but the white noise from the speakers were very dim and had to increase the volume to bring the meter close to 80db, which again resulted in wrong values. So, thought of listening a same music multiple times with different level settings and finally approached the following...

As my AVR accepts only one crossover for all the channels and, my surrounds are satellites, so thought that 60Hz would be way to below for the movies, so set it up at 80Hz as suggested by "spirovious" and changed a few controls like the tone settings (bass and treble both at 4), increased the levels as follows:
Fronts to 0db
Center to +3db
Surrounds to -3db
Sub to +2db

Now with listening for hours with these settings I started liking the sound produced from the front speakers+sub in stereo mode for music and in all channels (5.1) for movies with the respective audio decoding.

I do not know whether these settings are the best, but I feel that the music is much better than yesterday when I first heard it.

Thanks to all of you for helping me out here.

Any more suggestions would be most welcome.

 

[spirovious]

One thing you can just keep in mind that polk will sound balanced,rounded unlike sharp with satellite speakers.Movement you compare satellites with BS,you will find high frequencies are suppressed. That's why you feel missed liveliness.
Also try different speaker positions.Keep speakers away from walls to prevent boom.Also you need to keep at least 6ft distance between fronts so that effect is not crossed.

 

[elangoas]

Many thanks for the suggestions for the settings.

I tried as you said to set the AVR in Pure Audio mode but din't really like the audio output. It was really missing that punch and liveliness. So, continued to listen in the Stereo mode.

What was the source used when you were running the AVR in Pure Audio mode....

 

[saketb]

One thing you can just keep in mind that polk will sound balanced,rounded unlike sharp with satellite speakers.Movement you compare satellites with BS,you will find high frequencies are suppressed. That's why you feel missed liveliness.
Also try different speaker positions.Keep speakers away from walls to prevent boom.Also you need to keep at least 6ft distance between fronts so that effect is not crossed.

I guess you are correct, the bookshelfs are overshadowing the satellites and that is why I am missing the punch or whatever its called. Well, I guess I have to live with it, as upgrading the satellites and the sub to match the Polks is out of question.
Will follow other things you have mentioned.

What was the source used when you were running the AVR in Pure Audio mode....

Well, I have wide collection of audio cd's both of Hindi and English and prefer to listen only un-compressed audio on cd's or flac's. I use my Blu-ray player for audio cd's and my HTPC for flac's.

One question comes to mind...

Does the Polk's need to open up or break in, as I've read in a few articles and forums that new speakers need time to open up and once they do they sound much better.

 

[spirovious]

Usually any speaker need some time.After that they will sound complete.