Aperion Intimus 6T vs Polk RTi A9

For music I would steer clear of the Rtis. They are known to be very bright with music http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post17712246

With Aperion you get free return shipping if you don't like them.

I have the RTI8 and I don't necessarily agree that they are too bright for music. They are a more forward speaker and I would definitely recommend a warmer receiver to match them. That being said, I have been told the RTI A9 are a bit warmer than the older RTI series speaker. If I were you, I would go test the RTI's at Fry's and order the Aperion Free trial. It looks like they will even pay your return shipping if you are not satisfied.
I have not heard the 6T's, but I have a hunch they will sound better than the Polk RTI series. Maybe more comparable to the Polk LSI series.

Either is a good choice. Personally I own and like Polk. You will find there are some people that seem to jump into any thread with polk to mention that they are "bright" or that they had to mod the crossover. If you listened to them and liked them thats the only opinion that really matters.

Perhaps post a thread to see if any AVS members are nearby with Aperion speakers you might be able to listen to. Or see what their return policy is and purchase both, listen to both for a couple days each and then return the pair you dont like.

I swear some people have nothing better to do than troll this forum scanning for the word POLK and jump in and post how OMG BRIGHT they are...

I'm assuming that anyone that can afford to spend $1300 on a pair of speakers will have a receiver with an automatic EQ. That EQ will flatten out any brightness or warmness native to the speaker, so I'd say pick the one that you like the looks of and has the bass response you're looking for.

i agree, too sad, my RTI A9s sound great with amplification, it's a shame that people don't give them a chance.

I too, have a pair of A9s. They don't seem to be all that "bright" like some people would just love to say they are. Any brightness is coming from the amplifiers I have them connected to. Unlike a few members here (and everywhere else), I can't afford a $5k setup, so I made do with a 2x Adcom GFA-555 MkII setup, vertically bi-amping each A9 speaker (Amp A has Speaker L; Bass Array on left channel, Mid/High Array on right channel; Amp B mirrors Amp A for the right speaker).

These particular speakers just scream bi-amp, which actually decreases the overall brightness. The brightness coming from the A9s, natively that is, is due to the fact that these speakers are power hungry. When using an amplifier, especially those chintzy ones in the <$2k AVRs, the mid/high array gets more sound out of it than the bass array does due to there just not being enough juice to feed these rabid hyenas.

My first setup after my Yamaha HTR-5860 AVR just couldn't get these guys to sing worth a damn was a single GFA-555 MkII. That markedly improved the bass output while keeping the mids/highs in good shape. Then I was let on to what bi-amping can do to improve the sound stage. And so I have them arranged as above. Note: I know I don't have an electronic XO with the internal XOs disabled in the speakers - for simplicity's sake I left the speakers un-modified because as they're wired, their crossovers work very well, and appear correctly to the amplifiers as 8 ohm loads even in bi-amp mode (I figured once the buss bar was removed the single 8 ohm full array would become two 16 ohm arrays, but that is not the case here).

No, these guys aren't overly bright. If they are, then you're not giving them the power they need and the bass is starving while the mids/highs thrive.

Edit: The added benefit of the vertical bi-amp setup is that there is no crosstalk between channels now. They're truly separated. That was more noticeable than anything else.

"That EQ will flatten out any brightness or warmness native to the speaker" ...say What?

While I can agree that Polk speakers can be a bit bright for my tastes, they are a quality product and you may be perfectly happy with them. As you can see from this thread, we all hear things differently - which is why you need to listen for yourself. As the other posters have stated though, be sure to give them lots of good power to get the most out of your purchase.