Author Topic: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series  (Read 55943 times)

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Offline Courage

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #150 on: Jun 06, 2012 at 03:16 PM »
Is there any other amp that would work well with the LSiM bookshelf?
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Offline Audio Excellence

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #151 on: Jun 07, 2012 at 08:51 PM »
Is there any other amp that would work well with the LSiM bookshelf?

If you'd like to check them out with either a NAD or Nuforce amp - just let me know k

Offline carlo.A

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #152 on: Jun 07, 2012 at 10:59 PM »
I hope that the Polk guys can help me out with the 705 fs on how to make it sound the best

Offline Courage

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #153 on: Jun 08, 2012 at 03:45 PM »
If you'd like to check them out with either a NAD or Nuforce amp - just let me know k

Thank you sir.. Will try to visit your shop...
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Offline Nelson de Leon

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #154 on: Jun 08, 2012 at 04:50 PM »
I hope that the Polk guys can help me out with the 705 fs on how to make it sound the best


A fast break-in and a powerful amp.  :D

Offline mikeer2002ph

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #155 on: Jun 09, 2012 at 12:14 AM »
A fast break-in and a powerful amp.  :D

+1
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Offline ≧◉◡◉≦xrampage≧◉◡◉≦

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #156 on: Jun 09, 2012 at 05:56 AM »
Is there any other amp that would work well with the LSiM bookshelf?

Mat binabalak na masama si brader.  ;D ;D
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Offline Nelson de Leon

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #157 on: Jun 09, 2012 at 09:44 AM »
Mat binabalak na masama si brader.  ;D ;D

Matagal na yan. Ayaw lang kamutin.  :D

Offline carlo.A

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #158 on: Jun 09, 2012 at 09:49 AM »
A fast break-in and a powerful amp.  :D

Sounds good master Nelson. I guess that I need to hear a properly broken in na 705 that's properly powered as well before I do anything nanaman.

Offline Topper

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #159 on: Jun 13, 2012 at 10:30 AM »


Anyone want to hear what the LSiMs can do for home theater? or perhaps a multi-channel concert? we have prepared a full setup at Audio Excellence at Mandaluyong for anyone who wants to demo.
« Last Edit: Jun 13, 2012 at 10:31 AM by Topper »

Offline Topper

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #160 on: Jun 18, 2012 at 09:44 AM »
CARLO.A - Hope you enjoyed the LSiM towers demo :)

Offline ultimatedls

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #161 on: Nov 05, 2012 at 03:00 PM »
Any reviews on the 704c compared to the 706c?
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Offline ultimatedls

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #162 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 11:42 AM »
I can't seem to find any review on the net about the 704c
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Offline ♡ lvcdg23™ ✌

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #163 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 01:01 PM »
I can't seem to find any review on the net about the 704c

Go for the 706c na lang daw... ;D

Offline ultimatedls

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #164 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 01:11 PM »
Go for the 706c na lang daw... ;D
mahal eh hehe!
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Offline Nelson de Leon

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #165 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 08:14 PM »
mahal eh hehe!

704 na lang. pwedeng pwede audition kay insan. Hehe!

Offline Topper

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #166 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 10:02 PM »
Hey guys - Polk Audio will be at the NOVEMBER HIFI SHOW at Dusit Thani hotel this weekend (Nov. 10 and 11) with a rocking Home Theater and HiFi demo.

Do drop-by and say hello and see whats new :)

Offline carlo.A

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #167 on: Nov 06, 2012 at 11:45 PM »
704 na lang. pwedeng pwede audition kay insan. Hehe!

Ya just swing by

Offline ultimatedls

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #168 on: Nov 07, 2012 at 05:27 AM »
704 na lang. pwedeng pwede audition kay insan. Hehe!
haha dami beses na master nelson.
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Offline ultimatedls

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #169 on: Nov 07, 2012 at 05:28 AM »
Ya just swing by
di na! Mabuti pa wag na muna tayo magkita! Magastos ka makausap hehe
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Offline Sanjay

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #170 on: Mar 04, 2014 at 11:11 PM »
Here's a few more posts on the new LSiM range:




"Ok ,
I think I got enough to tell my thoughts with my gear on what I feel about these new LSIM 703 book shelf speakers.

I don't want to just blurt it out but DAMN!!!!! They are the very best sounding polk anything I have ever heard. They have a very controlled , Detailed clear dynamic sound. Fantastic to say the least. The older Lsi models have no business even being in the same room. I'm sorry to rag on the older LSi's but it's my way of saying polk took a very good idea and a good sounding speaker and completely revamped it for the better in every possible way. I'm so impressed with these speakers.
I usually post a build up to a conclusion but I could not help myself as I'm excited to say what I want to say and better put how I feel"

---

"So enough with all that they have a way of bring you into your music with a strong ability to warm your heart. You feel like a cold winters day with a warm blanket. Snow is falling outside and you have a mug of hot chocolate. I can see any music lover not liking these speakers. I can see any jazz of soft rock people not liking these speakers.

So gear I used was first up was my Pioneer Elite SC-07 which did a nice job of pushing them in pure direct 2 channel mode. I had my Cambridge audio 650BD playing cd's wired in analog and HDMI for finding the best overall sound. I liked the analog sound best for a few reasons.
Next up was my Rotel Intergraded which I felt sound more organic and clean. It had nice power and dynamics with beautiful control over the bottom end which by the way these 703's have a very controlled clean bottom end unlike the older models which are sloppy and boomy compared.

I plan on inviting a few polkies to my store next week maybe Wednesday night for a listen on Bryston , Premiere and Krell. I also have Cambridge audio and NAD laying around so many choices to see how they respond. Honestly I don't need to hear them on any of that gear personally as I'm completely satisfied with the Rotel powering them. They don't seem to be that hard to drive. The SC-07 ran them just fine just not as well as the Rotel did."

---

"Bass you ask? Dude they have awesome low end for a bookshelf speaker and clean accurate not boomy like the Lsi9's do... They really sound natural and clean. I love them."

---

"As usual I always run Loreena McKennitt first. She is my reference to female voice. She moves me and when I listen to her on a pair of speakers and stop judging them and enjoying her , I know I'm listening to speakers I could love.
After her I go into Al Di Meola for some incredible guitar work and a musical ride. He is fantastic and puts much soul into his playing. A good pair of speakers get out of the way of his fast fingers and let you study his attack.
Diana Krall is a beautiful singer and song writer and her CD's and SACD's are amazingly recorded. Easy way to tell sound stage and clarity.
Norah Jones Come away with me on SACD for all the right reasons.
Steely Dan Two against Nature , he's fun to listen to and has the funky jazzy type feel that good speakers can handle.
Sheryl Crow Tuesday Night Music Club. I'm not a huge fan of her but when I hear a song I like of hers , I pick up the cd. Track 11 is "I shall believe" which is one of my favorite songs from her. The LSIM703's Blew me away when I listened , I ended up listening about 6 times in a row as I was in AWE.
Keiko Matsui Walls of Akendora. Exciting up beat Japanese Jazz disc which I found a few years back when I wanted something new. The opening sound explodes out and is super dynamic. Good speakers play it , poor speakers fumble as it's to much to handle. The LSIM's hit a home run and tracked every note. Slightly more on the softer side of things but did a fantastic job nonetheless.
Yes 90125 , one of my older favorites that I like to hear good musicians get to work. Any Yes fan will want to hear this Album before they decide to purchase a given pair of speakers.
Dave Mathews I ran cuts from all of his Albums and really enjoyed how the LSIM's handled is technical style.
Christian Scott Rewind that , killer jazz album that any jazz fan should own. He's amazing and I didn't find the LSIM's to fail in any way running his difficult cuts. "

Mantis



---




"My system now easily surpasses it in resolution, depth and soundstage. It has a "reality" that was missing before. It's especially noticeable with the ambient sounds coming from the surrounds. BTW, Audyssey set my surrounds at 45Hz (side) and 70Hz (back) respectively. The 702's are some pretty hefty surrounds. My friend owns the PSB Synchrony One's and before that had the Revel Salons and in my opinion the 707's are better than the Synchrony One's and hold their own with the Revels. I think they are that good. Of course our rooms and set ups are different and need to be taken into consideration. He has a four wall dedicated HT room that is not acoustically friendly in my opinion. I have my set up in a large room (24 x 28) with a two story open ceiling. In any event, the Polk LSiM's are a system that compete's nicely with the high end audio market. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the LSiM's to anyone looking at PSB, Ariel, Energy, Paradigm, etc. Even Revel for that matter."

Bslep



Listen to the new LSiM range at the Polk Audio room at the November HiFi show at Dust Thani hotel this Nov 19 & 20 !!

Offline Sanjay

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #171 on: Jun 27, 2014 at 07:35 PM »
Test Report: Polk Audio LSiM Speaker System




History may one day judge “offshoring” to be the macroeconomic disaster that some pundits would have us believe. Still, you can’t argue that it’s been a microeconomics windfall for American consumers.

I mean, just look at these things: Polk’s new LSiM707 towers stand taller than some adults, weigh nearly 100 pounds, and incorporate five proprietary drivers — each. They’re beautifully finished with real wood veneers, are screwed together as nicely as almost any mass-produced loudspeaker you can name, and arrive loaded with proprietary driver and crossover technologies. Sure, $3,990 for the Polk pair ain’t cheap, but it’s half the cost of many domestically built equivalents.

Setup

And the 707s are just the anchor. Polk sent a full pallet of a supporting cast, beginning with the LSiM706c center channel, which shares the towers’ vertical-array, tweeter-under midrange-tweeter module, while omitting the oval “subwoofer” drivers. (Both models include Polk’s PowerPort, a tapered-cone external diffuser deployed as an anti-port-noise measure; the tower’s is down-firing, while the center’s faces rearward.) Polk touts the 706c as “the big center channel for serious listeners,” and there’s no arguing the quantifiable part: The 706c weighs some 46 pounds, is nearly a yard wide, and was barely accommodated by my low, below-the-TV center-channel stand.

Completing the lineup was an LSiM702 surround pair, a single-woofer variant in a wall-hugging, bow-front enclosure. These went on my high shelves, flanking and slightly behind the listening position.

As if this wasn’t enough, Polk threw in not one but two lily-gilders: a pair of DSW microPRO 3000 subwoofers of the modern, ultra-power/ultra-compact ilk, in this case a 10-inch design with a novel square, down-firing passive radiator. I located one sub in my established woofer home behind/outboard of the right-front speaker, and its twin roughly a third up the left-side wall. After a week’s medical leave to recover from the unboxing — a decidedly two-man job — I placed the 707s in my usual locations, about 3 feet from the front wall, and wired up their high-grade, all-metal terminals. With the center and surrounds in place, and the system balanced up with the fronts full-range and the center and surrounds both crossed over at 60 Hz, I was ready to proceed.

Performance

After my usual break-in routine — a couple weeks of low-attention, utilitarian duty — I began as always with close listening of 2-channel music via the 707s alone, operating full range. The big take-away from these sessions? The hulking Polks simply do not “sound like big speakers.”

Which I mean as high praise. The 707s effected no over-emphasis of bass, whether middling or deep; no “extra” etching of treble detail; and no breathed-upon conjuring of depth. On technically and musically excellent recordings such as a recent HDtracks 96/24 download of a Ravel string quartet by the Eroica Quartet, the Polk towers produced focused, beautifully detailed, timbrally honest music. And I could easily discern the players’ U-shaped seating via a stereo image that conveyed a nice lateral precision along with a comfortable illusion of stage depth.

More full-range music only added to the impression of effortless excellence. Pop vocals were uniformly correct, by which I mean free of narrow colorations such as honk or nasality (especially on male voices), and powerfully anchored at the mixed location without any of the vagueness or slight lateral wandering that one occasionally hears from some speakers. This was quite dramatic on Natalie Merchant’s “San Andreas Fault” (an HDtracks hi-rez file culled from her remastered Retrospective masters), on which her distinctive voice, lovingly miked and recorded as always, sounded preternaturally intimate and textured.

With regard to bass, the 707s make some. Actually, they make a lot. I kept pulling the towers farther and farther forward until I achieved what I considered an honest balance; this put the baffles nearly 6 feet from the front wall and left the speakers alarmingly close to the listening position (about 8 feet). They then sounded great for stereo listening, but it’s not a layout I could live with long-term in my studio.

Still, the 707s could be a little over-enthusiastic on the bottom octaves. A record like James Taylor’s Hourglass, an effective yardstick for bass-rich mixes, sounded superb — if you like bass, and I do. But inferior pop productions with hyped-up 50- to 100-Hz octaves, which include most mass-market R&B from the past dozen years or so, frequently sounded a little overwhelming or even a bit thuddy. By contrast, full orchestral music, which often seems a bit bass-shy to our pop-jaded modern ears, brought out the Polks’ full bloom.

On the film-sound front, a throwaway like Tower Heist (an object lesson in all that’s wrong with Hollywood) barely raised the Polks’ collective pulse, though the Ferrari-out-the-window sequence had some moments that briefly suspended this viewer’s torpor. I next tried the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds, and was immediately sucked into a fully integrated, big-theater (in truth, better) experience.

In fact, whatever disc I played sounded clear, intelligible, smooth, and big. Really, I established one beef only with the LSiM system’s surround persona. The 706c center speaker sounded admirably unchanged from virtually any practicable listening/ viewing angle. But most male speaking voices sounded distinctly fuller, or even bassier, via the center-channel unit than did the same voices heard in mono mode via the 707 towers.

Pulling the center a couple feet farther out in front of the screen seemed to make a slight improvement, and I will say that without direct comparisons I never found male dialogue objectionably or event noticeably “fat” under continuous listening.


The 702F/X surrounds are neither bipole nor dipole but conventional forward-radiating speakers with an unusual, dual-face layout. I was repeatedly impressed by just how effective they were at both envelopment and discrete effects, smooth and non-localized to a degree that I had thought only dipoles capable.

As to level, the Polk system played far louder than I’d ever ask via my 150-watts-per-channel power amp without the least sign of strain or change. All three Polk models are of comparatively high sensitivity (at least as far as their maker’s specs go), and I could in fact play movie sound many decibels beyond “reference level” with no hint of stress — way, way louder than any sane home theaterphile would ever demand.

Note that at this point I haven’t even powered up the subwoofers yet. Connecting these to my processor’s subwoofer outputs and setting the front towers as “small” (hah!) with a crossover of 80 Hz had the expected result: tight, powerful, full-range sound. But with such wide-range main fronts, what’s the point? Instead, I returned the fronts to “large,” leaving center and surround crossovers at 60 Hz as before and allowing the subs to function purely as LFE-channel adjuncts, reproducing only the bass that sound designers judged to belong exclusively to a subwoofer channel.


Offline Sanjay

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Re: Polk Audio's new LSiM Series
« Reply #172 on: Jun 27, 2014 at 07:36 PM »
Honestly, the net result wasn’t all that different — most of the time. The system sounded slightly leaner or perhaps “tighter” on more subtle deep-bass passages such as the sliding tomb door from the opening of Stargate. However, big-budget bass like the pod-emergence sequence from War of the Worlds went right over the freaking top, yielding a seismic, foundation-fracturing moment that was, frankly, somewhat alarming.

Bottom Line

Do you need a sub (or two) with these biggest of Polks? Probably not — unless you’re a bit bass-hungry, that is. At any rate, Polk’s new flagship suite’s as-tested system price is well into “esoteric speaker” territory. Fortunately, the LSiM Series array I auditioned is a reference contender that should happily stand comparison with low-production- volume, high-end designs of similar heft and price, and even substantially higher. Just be sure you have a nice, big room, and solid foundations.

Extended Test Bench

Frequency response

tower 34 Hz to 20 kHz ±4.6 dB
center 46 Hz to 20 kHz ±3.6 dB
surround 65 Hz to 20 kHz ±5.3 dB
subwoofer 34 to 450 Hz ±3 dB
Sensitivity (SPL at 1 meter/1 watt)

tower 86.5 dB
center 87.7 dB
surround 87.8 dB
Impedance (minimum/nominal)

tower 2.8/5 ohms
center 3.5/5 ohms
surround 4.0/5 ohms
Bass output, tower (CEA-2010 standard)

• Ultra-low bass (20-31.5 Hz) average: 99.2 dB

20 Hz: 73.8 dB
25 Hz: 92.2 dB
31.5 Hz: 107.1 dB
• Low bass (40-63 Hz) average: 120.1 dB

40 Hz: 119.5 dB
50 Hz: 120.4 dB
63 Hz: 120.3 dB
Bass output, subwoofer (CEA-2010 standard)

Ultra-low bass (20-31.5 Hz) average: 100.9 dB

20 Hz: 85.1 dB
25 Hz: 100.7 dB
31.5 Hz: 106.3 dB
Low bass (40-63 Hz) average: 118.5 dB

40 Hz: 118.8 dB
50 Hz: 118.4 dB
63 Hz: 118.2 dB
Bass limits

center 100.0 dB at 40 Hz
surround 91.9 dB at 40 Hz
I measured the Polk LSiM speakers with the microphone placed at a distance of 2 meters, using quasi-anechoic technique to remove the effects of reflections from nearby objects. The LSiM 707 tower speaker was placed directly on my measurement turntable, with 2 feet of attic insulation on the ground between the speaker and the mike to minimize the bounce from the ground. The LSiM 706c center speaker was placed atop my 2-meter-high measurement stand. Because it’s designed for on-wall use, the LSiM 702f/x surround speaker was mounted on the 2-by-4-foot swivelable ersatz wall I use to measure on-wall speakers. Because the surround is designed more like a wall-mounted minispeaker than a typical dipolar or bipolar surround speaker, I measured it just as I did the tower and center: I adjusted the microphone position for the flattest on-axis response, then averaged the measurements at 0°, ±10°, ±20°, and ±30°, smoothed to 1/12th octave. Bass response of all speakers (including the DSW 3000 MicroPRO subwoofer) was measured using ground plane technique with the microphone on the ground 2 meters from the speaker; these were smoothed to 1/3rd octave, then spliced to the quasi-anechoic measurements at 300 Hz. All frequency response measurements were made with a Clio FW audio analyzer, then imported into a LinearX LMS analyzer for post-processing.

The measurements of the LSiM 707 tower and the LSiM 706c center are fantastic. Although on-axis measurements are not shown in the accompanying chart, they’re as close to perfect between 500 Hz and 20 kHz as I can remember seeing: ±1.37 dB for the tower and ±1.49 dB for the center.

The tower speaker’s off-axis response is similarly great. Out at ±30°, there are no off-axis response artifacts except a mild rolloff above 8 kHz, which pretty much every speaker with a 1-inch tweeter has. Even at ±60°, the only response error besides the increased treble rolloff is a dip of about 2 dB between 800 Hz and 2.5 kHz. As you can see from the measurement chart, the tower’s bass is boosted by about 5 dB between 40 and 90 Hz, although the effects of this boost will be altered tremendously by the distance from the speaker to the nearby walls, and by room acoustics.

The center speaker frequency response measures almost just like the tower speaker’s, which is pretty remarkable — something made possible by its three-way, tweeter-over-midrange design. It shows the same off-axis treble rolloff, but instead of the dip between 800 and 2.5 kHz ±60°, the center shows a deeper, narrower dip: 5 dB between 500 and 650 Hz.

I measured the center speaker without its grille, but then also measured it with the grille to gauge the effect. There’s no difference in the midrange, but the grille causes a treble rolloff that begins above 9 kHz and runs -2 to -3 dB above 12 kHz. Because the tower speaker’s grille looks to be constructed the same way, its effects are probably similar.

That’s kind of a lot of rolloff for a grille, so I recommend using the grilles only when kids, dogs, or inebriated houseguests are present.

Because the surround speaker was wall-mounted for the measurements, and because of its angled design, it showed fairly random frequency response errors off-axis. However, it shares the basic design of the tower and center,and the same basically good behavior, so all the response errors caused by wall-mounting average out into a reasonably flat response.

Impedance measurements (also performed with the Clio FW) indicate that these speakers may be a little tough to drive for inexpensive receivers. All have a fairly low measured nominal impedance of 5 ohms. The tower is the toughest load, hitting a minimum impedance of 2.8 ohms at a low frequency of 66 Hz with a fairly reactive phase angle of -32°. That’s enough to cause some inexpensive receivers to shut down if you crank up the volume, but I think a typical mid-to-high-end receiver (say, $1,500+) or any good stereo amp should handle it fine. The center and surround present a somewhat easier load. The center hits minimum impedance of 3.5 ohms at 9.5 kHz/+4° phase angle, while the surround’s minimum is 4.0 ohms at 7.2 kHz/+1° phase angle. Fortunately, all of the speakers deliver roughly average sensitivity, so they usually won’t be pulling more than a few watts from your receiver or amp.

The DSW 3000 MicroPRO subwoofer’s frequency response measurement that you see here was taken through the LFE input, after I hit the reset button to clear out any previous auto-EQ settings. The response shown here is in the Cabinet mode, which gave the flattest response. The other modes boost bass to varying degrees below 50 Hz, with the strongest effects at about 40 Hz: +1.2 dB for Corner mode, +2.8 dB for Mid-Wall mode, and +4.0 dB for Mid-Room mode. The low-pass function of the internal crossover set to 80 Hz was about -22 dB per octave, but the control is not well calibrated; the rolloff was 3 dB at 52 Hz.

CEA-2010 output measurements for the subwoofer and the tower speaker were taken at 2 meters, then scaled up +6 dB per CEA-2010 requirements so that they are equivalent to 1-meter results. At press time, the CEA had instituted changes to the CEA-2010 standard but had yet to publish them. The CEA has informed me that the new standard requires averaging in pascals rather than in decibels, so that’s the procedure I followed here. The subwoofer’s output is: low bass 118.5 dB, ultra-low bass 100.9 dB. That’s pretty high for a subwoofer of this size, but not for one in this price range. With most subwoofers, second- or third-order harmonic distortion dictates the maximum output rating, but with the DSW 3000 MicroPro, higher-order distortion and mechanical noises from the driver defined its limits. I didn’t encounter a limiter threshold during my measurements, indicating that the internal limiter’s threshold is set very high or that maybe there isn’t an internal limiter.

I measured the tower’s bass output by connecting it to the Krell S-300i integrated amp. The amp was turned full up, and it was definitely running near its limits during the 63-Hz measurements; it’s possible that a more powerful amp would have delivered a better measurement at this frequency. That said, the tower’s bass output measurements were great: low bass: 120.1 dB; ultra-low bass: 99.2 dB. This is comparable to what I’ve measured from some good (and fairly large) 12-inch subwoofers. — Brent Butterworth

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/test-report-polk-audio-lsim-speaker-system