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Newbie Unasked Speaker mixing question

post #1 of 6
3/13/12 at 10:16am
Thread Starter 
Hello All. I have a question seemingly not posed before. I have a home theater with Polk speakers- RTI10's for L/R, CSI-A6 for center, RTI-A1 for rear surrounds, PSW 505 subw. AVR is Onkyo NR709 110wpc with Emotiva xpa-3 200wpc amp- the Emo powers my L/R/C, allowing the Onkyo to power the rear surrounds. HT is 11'X17', listening area is 10 feet from main speakers. I watch movies 90% of the time, music 10%.

Here is the question. I got such a tremendous $$$ deal on my Polk RTI-10 front speakers that I want to keep them, and I like them. Is is worth it to buy new Polk A1 bookshelf speakers (identical to my rear surrounds), and simply place the new A1's on top of my RTi-10's as additional front midrange speakers? The Polk A9 speakers have two 5.25" midrange drivers instead of my RTI-10 single 6.5" driver. I would let my Onkyo power the new front A1's in additon to the rear A1's as surrounds.

Will buying the A1 bookshelf and its 5.25" midrange in effect convert my RTI10 speakers into A9's? Has anyone ever done this?

Answers much appreciated!
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post #2 of 6
3/13/12 at 11:04am
No..but since you have the speakers why not give it a try.

Beyond the fact that this will not convert your speaker to the A9 there are other issues. One is that you don't have a crossover. So the bookshelf will be playing according to its own crossovers. The woofer will play the low and mid and the tweeter the rest. Two how are you going to feed it the same signal as the tower? Three most likely this will bring the preformance of you tower down to that of the bookshelf not bring up the tower.
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post #3 of 6
3/13/12 at 12:17pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CalgaryCowboy View Post

No..but since you have the speakers why not give it a try.

Beyond the fact that this will not convert your speaker to the A9 there are other issues. One is that you don't have a crossover. So the bookshelf will be playing according to its own crossovers. The woofer will play the low and mid and the tweeter the rest. Two how are you going to feed it the same signal as the tower? Three most likely this will bring the preformance of you tower down to that of the bookshelf not bring up the tower.

I am using the pre-outs from the Onkyo AVR to feed the Emotiva amp which powers the speakers. I would use the unused speaker terminals from the AVR to power the new A1's.
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post #4 of 6
3/13/12 at 1:14pm
You could then give a try to see if you like it. I don't think you will any improvement and most likely you will end up with a sound more like the bookshelves and less like the towers and not a combination of the two.
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post #5 of 6
3/13/12 at 1:33pm
If you are feeding full-range signals to both speakers, it will almost certainly sound worse. If it doesn't, it will be by accident.

Imaging will certainly suffer from having two tweeters separated that way. And there will be all sorts of unpredictable cancellation, phase, and interference effects between the two cabinets.

It will sound different, and sometimes different=better, or seems to, at least at first.

Doesn't your processor support front-wide or front-height? That might be a better application for the extra speakers.
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post #6 of 6
3/15/12 at 4:59am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdclark View Post

If you are feeding full-range signals to both speakers, it will almost certainly sound worse. If it doesn't, it will be by accident.

Imaging will certainly suffer from having two tweeters separated that way. And there will be all sorts of unpredictable cancellation, phase, and interference effects between the two cabinets.

It will sound different, and sometimes different=better, or seems to, at least at first.

Doesn't your processor support front-wide or front-height? That might be a better application for the extra speakers.

Thank you for your comments, I have rescinded my idea of adding additional bookshelf speakers to my floor standing speakers.
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