My "small" speakers

prime minister

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Why am I always drawn to inefficient speakers of odd design or construction? I wish I could tell. These are a pair that I have that I really enjoy. The Polk LSi9's. I read an interview with Matthew Polk some years back, and he described it as a real labour of love to make them. I sure does seem that someone cared when putting these together.

Here's an interweb pic of what they look like:

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Theres something really cozy and cute about mini monitors. Something toy-like, which causes some of us adults to get drawn into. If anything they typically look better than most conventional slim floor standing speakers.
 
I picked up a pair of Lsi7's in Las Vegas about 2004 or so on close-out from Fry's- $200 for around $800 retail speakers. Best deal on any speakers I've ever bought. I went back several days later intending to buy another pair, and they had sold out. Absolutely loved them- they punched WELL above their weight class. They ended up with a friend of mine who couldn't tell good sound from good gravy. Wish I had them back- I seriously think I could live with them in my main system with no problem. Lovely tweeters in those.
 
I really like a well executed MTM for their unique sonic merits. I don't know much about those Polks, but with the ring radiator tweeter, MTM layout and beautiful two-tone finish I sure like what I see.
 
David;n9243 said:
Theres something really cozy and cute about mini monitors. Something toy-like, which causes some of us adults to get drawn into. If anything they typically look better than most conventional slim floor standing speakers.

Except these are not cozy or cute. And definitely not toy-like, unless we are comparing them to your speakers. They are 15 inches high and 15 inches deep and weigh more then 30lbs each. 88 db sensitivity, 4 ohm impedance and they are best used with a 200 watt per channel amp. SET amps need not apply!

Each of those woofers is a 5 1/4. And the cabinets are built like a brick shithouse. And that power port they have in the back is great. Makes them pretty well totally insensitive to placement.

These are really some incredibly well engineered speakers. Swap the polk name for Sonus Faber (Yes, the are that well built) and they would have been fetching $2.5k at an audio boutique.
 
And if you really love them, there is a guy who has re-engineered the crossovers to make them simply sensational sounding. Apparently. :)

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Prime Minister They do look well-made. Not too sure about SF quality though from the pics. Then again, I've never been a fan of the SF aesthetics.

I still find them toy-like albeit not in a dismissive tone. It is just literally easier to 'toy with' these mini monitors. They're easy to swap, sell, buy etc. Certainly way easier to replace than floorstanders or horns even. I've enjoyed swapping lots of them on a periodic basis for my office rig. As I said, they're great toys for adults.

FWIW, I've enjoyed some 82-4dB mini monitors best with SETs within a certain volume :)
 
Small speakers are easy to love. One of my first pairs of truly good loudspeakers were B&W DM5. Very inefficient and the bass driver bottomed out when pressed hard but sweet, sweet sounding speakers. Not my speakers...interweb example.
 

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Oddly, the same time pre, Citation combo that seemed a hot ticket for the DQ-10's, will likely work just as well here. Odd, since I can't imagine any speakers more dissimilar.

Audio is a strange world!
 
Prime Minister - Very nice Polks.

I have not had the opportunity to hear this series but they sure look like they mean business.

The Acoustic Energy AE2 looks very similar. These I have listened to extensively over time and was impressed.

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BadassBob;n9308 said:
Believe it or not, I've never hard the Polk LSi series. They certainly look like they mean business.

I think they were hurt by one of the oddities of the audio market today. When a mainstream company throws their resources into something higher end, they kinda end up falling between two stools, regardless of how good their product is. It is too expensive for the Best Buy world, and the Best Buy type stores don't have a good way for folks who shop at the higher end to demo them. The mainstream manufacturers also don't have existing relationships with the boutique audio world, so the boutique stores won't carry it. Plus, and maybe my bias is showing, but these speakers are too good for their price point in the boutique world, so it doesn't make sense for those stores to carry them. Why hurt your existing product lines and distributors that you have a great relationship with?

It's sad, because companies like Polk have the resources and engineering chops to really produce great products, and they have the economies of scale to make them available at much lower prices, while still being very profitable and lucrative for them.
 
TubeHiFiNut;n9319 said:
Prime Minister - Very nice Polks.

I have not had the opportunity to hear this series but they sure look like they mean business.

The Acoustic Energy AE2 looks very similar. These I have listened to extensively over time and was impressed.

fetch

I always loved those metal drivers in the AE's. A really neat speaker design.
 
This discussion brought to mind something that Matthew Polk posted over at Club Polk regarding the demise of the SDA series:

"This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer mainly because there is no simple answer. We began selling the SDA products in 1982 and stopped making them around 1990 except for a brief revival with the SRT system made in 1995 and 1996. From the first SDA-1 shown at CES in June 1982 customers loved them. However, this was not necessarily true of the retailers. SDA was a radical departure from the traditional audiophile concept of how audio should be reproduced and many of the salespeople in stores at that time were audiophiles. As a result, many of them hated SDA and steered customers away from them. In addition, because of the way SDA speakers work many retailers did not get them set up properly for demonstration which didn't help either. In spite of this SDA products sold amazingly well particularly when you consider how expensive they were relative to most everything else on the market. As I recall the original SDA-1 started out at $1,600 per pair retail at a time when most stores had nothing over $1,000 per pair. But, anyone who actually got to hear them was absolutely blown away and we were able to get a few good reviews particularly from Michael Riggs at High-Fidelity who described SDA as "Mind-boggling, astounding!". By 1986 we had a full line of SDA products from the SDA CRS+ at under $1,000 to the SRS-1.2 at $3,500.

But, the industry was changing rapidly. First, the era of big speakers was coming to an end and non-hobbyist customers were starting to prefer the then new sub-sat systems and the then brand-new concept of in-wall speakers. SDA speakers were big. The classic side-by-side driver arrangement meant a wide front baffle for any SDA product just as the trend was going to narrow towers and smaller speakers in general. Second, the small independent retailers were gradually turning into large regional chains with huge open format stores and non-hobbyist salespeople. The result of this was that retailers began to lose the ability to really demonstrate the performance of audio products. It's really impossible to describe the experience of SDA to someone. It really has to be demonstrated. So, as the stores became less and less able to demonstrate high performance products customers didn't have an opportunity to experience what SDA could deliver. Third, the development of digital electronics and surround sound drove the cost of high quality audio components rapidly upward but drove the cost of low quality surround sound receivers rapidly downward with a commensurate reduction in performance. Because of the channel cross coupling in SDA it is always a difficult load for an amp to drive. Many of the new multi-channel receivers just couldn't do it. So, with fewer and more expensive high performance amps the options for good SDA electronics became very slim.

So, a combination of changes in what non-hobbyist customers wanted and what the retailers were capable of selling plus changing technology made the SDA products much more difficult to sell. Of course it had nothing to do with the performance of the SDA systems which continues astonish people even today.

-msp"
 
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