Polk Audio vs. Klipsch syndrome.

[everettT]

I think its convenience over HT designation. Many people don’t have dedicated theater rooms and speaker stands so the wall mount feature just helps them sell more and is just good to have in general. I wish my speakers had mounting points. But they are all 20+ pounds each would be ripping lots of drywall out.

Ive hung 90# tvs using tapcon toggles straight thru 1/2 drywall. I'd have zero issues hanging a 20# speaker

 

[Russdawg1]

Ive hung 90# tvs using tapcon toggles straight thru 1/2 drywall. I'd have zero issues hanging a 20# speaker

Well my Ascends are 26lbs each and they are wall mounted with correct wall mounts and heavy duty anchors. I meant keyhole mounting that Polk provides on the back of their speakers.

 

[JerryLove]

By statement #1, are you saying that because a bookshelf speaker manufacturer incorporates a wall mount to their speaker, it is primarily HT designed?

Nothing of the kind.

I'm saying that a competent designer designs for use case. In a 2ch listening setup; that the speakers can be positioned away from the walls and corners is often a reasonable assumption. This tends towards rear-porting, large towers with significant off-axis output (this inserts the sound more in the room) even dipole and omnipole designs.

When I convert my thinking to an HT setup my considerations become different. I need to consider how these speakers will fit in the space with the TV, especially the center channel. I'm looking at cramming more speakers in the room, so I will tend to want smaller and designed to operate against a wall (front ported or enclosed, monopole). I'm much more likely to go on, in, or behind a wall and that lends to some shapes over others.

I would not, for example, recommend Ohm Walsh's for a 12-channel surround system.

So no: a wall mount doesn't make me designed for HT... but designing for HT means I'm far more likely to include a wall mount

 

[JerryLove]

1. Practical considerations made to ease installation/use of space. On walls aren’t inherently voiced for HT vs music. Their voiced to be flat while also being in a wall. Useful in both cases. Not sure how being installed behind a screen is inherent of an HT speaker by design. Except they can be uglier?

If I am designing a speaker to be used in a listening room; why would I put "fits well and works well behind an acoustically transparent screen and the accompanying scaffolding" as a design consideration?

I didn't say anything about voice. Why are you raising that?

2. Also, a matter of practicality. Assuming you mean speakers with hardware options for high angled mounting. This wouldn’t mean a speakers performance was necessarily designed for that. If however you mean an angled baffle, like a bi/dipole, I can see your point but still feel they could be used in either system as surrounds assuming the listener isn’t limiting themselves to 2ch.

"can be used in" and "traits designed for" are not mutually exclusive.

You can use a pair of McIntosh XRT2K towers as computer speakers if you like; but that is not what the design was optimized for.

3. I’d say this is room/waf/listener preference dependent more than a performance consideration of an HT vs music speaker. There are definitely speakers made with a form factor in mind. I don’t believe though that there built or voiced with any special consideration towards music or HT.

Again: I have not said anything about voice.

4. Ok this actually makes sense, but isn’t that simple. Not all home theaters are going to cater to multiple rows with lots of viewers. Also, why can’t music speakers have wide dispersion? Could you provide a little more explanation?

They *can*; but it's a different set of assumptions. Indeed: some examples of speakers I would consider poor choices for most HTs (such as omnipoles) have extremely wide dispersion.

5. Relevance?

Are you asking why I think efficiency is more of a concern for HT speakers than for classic 2-channel setups?

Primarily because of available amplification. Powering 12 speakers is quite a bit more costly than 2.

Though there's certainly an entire culture of high-efficiency 2-channel listening; it's generally not a severe a requirement.

7. This is also irrelevant for use in a theater or music system. Any number of rooms/setups can benefit from just as many XO points. Speaker design/room geometry/room layout and listener preference will determine tolerance of higher XO.

It's two-fold.

1) moving the XO up has negative impacts on localizability (soundspace), especially in 2-channel (where our localization is generally on more subtle cues).
2) Not moving the XO up tends to demand more of the mains (think about what's required for no sub at all as an extreme). This is more expensive on 12 speakers than 2.

 

[LamontSim]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

 

[Russdawg1]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

Audio is subjective....

One person may think that his Sony Cores with a 5.25” woofer has too much bass while another may think his Emotiva T2’s with dual 8” woofers don’t have enough.

I think that my Ascends with dual 6.5” woofers have the perfect balance of bass to loudness and I don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer, but only when playing music, as a subwoofer is a need when watching movies. And while they may be perfect to me, they can be said to be anemic or bassy to others. It’s all up to you.

 

[snakeeyes]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

If you enjoy music with heavy bass then of course!

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

Yes

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

This is also somewhat depending room construction. Concrete doors/wall absolutely need a subwoofer. Suspended/2nd floor type construction can sometimes get away with less since those floors tend to be very easily excited by bass.

 

[LamontSim]

When most people say the low 40's to high 30's on a frequency response, is that somewhere from maybe 30 to 33 and 40 to 43?

 

[Joe B]

To anyone in the forum especially the audiophiles out there. For someone using bookshelf speakers for just music no matter what brand of speaker whether they be Klipsch, Polk, Philharmonics or Ascend or any high end or top of the line type etc, do you think a subwoofer is necessary?

Audio is subjective....

One person may think that his Sony Cores with a 5.25” woofer has too much bass while another may think his Emotiva T2’s with dual 8” woofers don’t have enough.

I think that my Ascends with dual 6.5” woofers have the perfect balance of bass to loudness and I don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer, but only when playing music, as a subwoofer is a need when watching movies. And while they may be perfect to me, they can be said to be anemic or bassy to others. It’s all up to you.

If you enjoy music with heavy bass then of course!

If you're looking to get genuine playback listening to some classical music, especially music that includes an organ, you will find that most, if not all, bookshelf's and most tower speakers will fall short of being able to accurately reproduce the bottom end of the musical program. Duplicating the low end of double basses, bass drum, or an organ can not be performed well without either incredibly expensive speakers or the addition of a subwoofer.
I don't understand the comment "I don't want to ruin it with a subwoofer". Ruin it how? By not having it EQ'ed properly with the rest of the system?
My 5.1 system is set up with Anthem's ARC. The sub is integrated with the towers. When listening, the very bottom end of the programmed material appears to be coming from the towers. You can not "hear" the subwoofer...you only hear the full frequency response of the programmed material. It's not that I just enjoy music with heavy bass, I enjoy music that is an accurate reproduction of the recorded event.

 

[Russdawg1]

If you're looking to get genuine playback listening to some classical music, especially music that includes an organ, you will find that most, if not all, bookshelf's and most tower speakers will fall short of being able to accurately reproduce the bottom end of the musical program. Duplicating the low end of double basses, bass drum, or an organ can not be performed well without either incredibly expensive speakers or the addition of a subwoofer.
I don't understand the comment "I don't want to ruin it with a subwoofer". Ruin it how? By not having it EQ'ed properly with the rest of the system?
My 5.1 system is set up with Anthem's ARC. The sub is integrated with the towers. When listening, the very bottom end of the programmed material appears to be coming from the towers. You can not "hear" the subwoofer...you only hear the full frequency response of the programmed material. It's not that I just enjoy music with heavy bass, I enjoy music that is an accurate reproduction of the recorded event.

I “don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer” because of the fact that I prefer the way it sounds without one. Audio is subjective to ones own needs, so while you may think it will enhance the sound, I think it’s detrimental to my OWN ears. You can’t argue with that. Audiophiles prefer two channel music for a reason. I’m not one, but I hear why.

 

[LamontSim]

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Audio is subjective....

One person may think that his Sony Cores with a 5.25” woofer has too much bass while another may think his Emotiva T2’s with dual 8” woofers don’t have enough.

I think that my Ascends with dual 6.5” woofers have the perfect balance of bass to loudness and I don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer, but only when playing music, as a subwoofer is a need when watching movies. And while they may be perfect to me, they can be said to be anemic or bassy to others. It’s all up to you.[/QUOTE

Audio is subjective....

One person may think that his Sony Cores with a 5.25” woofer has too much bass while another may think his Emotiva T2’s with dual 8” woofers don’t have enough.

I think that my Ascends with dual 6.5” woofers have the perfect balance of bass to loudness and I don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer, but only when playing music, as a subwoofer is a need when watching movies. And while they may be perfect to me, they can be said to be anemic or bassy to others. It’s all up to you.

I know I mentioned in previous messages posted before with the Polk vs. Klipsch syndrome, I had my in house audition with the Polk RTI A3 and Klipsch RP-600M. The Klipsch had times when the bass just kind of overshadowed the highs. I'm truly not saying that the Klipsch is a bad speaker but for some reason to so he's dismay who may adore Klipsch, the Polk's blended just a bit better. Now I'm wondering if I should subwoofer them.

 

[Joe B]

I “don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer” because of the fact that I prefer the way it sounds without one. Audio is subjective to ones own needs, so while you may think it will enhance the sound, I think it’s detrimental to my OWN ears. You can’t argue with that. Audiophiles prefer two channel music for a reason. I’m not one, but I hear why.

I thought audiophiles were hobbyists, fanatics, etc. who were 'chasing the dragon', trying to reproduce recorded material as accurately as possible. I see controlling the volume of music as a subjective preference. I do not believe limiting the frequency response of the recorded information is subjective. I believe it is an error in reproducing the recorded event.

 

[LamontSim]

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That should have read to the dismay of others. Can't stand predictive text!

 

[shadyJ]

When most people say the low 40's to high 30's on a frequency response, is that somewhere from maybe 30 to 33 and 40 to 43?

If you ask me, that would be like 37 to 43 Hz.

 

[Russdawg1]

I thought audiophiles were hobbyists, fanatics, etc. who were 'chasing the dragon', trying to reproduce recorded material as accurately as possible. I see controlling the volume of music as a subjective preference. I do not believe limiting the frequency response of the recorded information is subjective. I believe it is an error in reproducing the recorded event.

I see no reason why you would need a sub that extends into the 30s or lower when your content doesn’t reach lower than 40. Of course I may just be wrong.

 

[shadyJ]

I “don’t want to ruin it with a subwoofer” because of the fact that I prefer the way it sounds without one. Audio is subjective to ones own needs, so while you may think it will enhance the sound, I think it’s detrimental to my OWN ears. You can’t argue with that. Audiophiles prefer two channel music for a reason. I’m not one, but I hear why.

A well integrated subwoofer system would be indistinguishable from full range speakers. If everything has been setup properly, you shouldn't be able to tell a difference, therefore, if you were to judge the system on sound quality alone, you shouldn't have a preference. Personally I don't care if a system uses subwoofers or not, so long as the bass sounds good. The end result is all that should matter.

 

[Joe B]

I see no reason why you would need a sub that extends into the 30s or lower when your content doesn’t reach lower than 40. Of course I may just be wrong.

Yes, you are wrong. If you listened to classical organ music you would know that it extends below 40kHz. And when I listen to it, I want to hear it. If the music you listen to doesn't cover a 20-20kHz frequency response than I see your point. If it does, then you'd be missing program material that makes a huge impact on the emotional experience. I want to hear what was recorded, warts and all!

 

[Russdawg1]

Yes, you are wrong. If you listened to classical organ music you would know that it extends below 40kHz. And when I listen to it, I want to hear it. If the music you listen to doesn't cover a 20-20kHz frequency response than I see your point. If it does, then you'd be missing program material that makes a huge impact on the emotional experience. I want to hear what was recorded, warts and all!

But I stated that I or someone that doesn’t listen to material that doesn’t extend below 40hz so I think my point was well justified. LamontSim has not stated what content other than “music” so we don’t know whether a sub is justified or not. Maybe he listens to jazz or classical piano and has no need for a subwoofer. If he listens to rap, organ, rock, then yes a subwoofer is plenty justified but its all about the person’s needs.