Nearfield Review of the Polk RTi A1
With my simple stereo setup done, I was pretty content with the result.... for a while. The thing about hearing great loudspeakers is that my existing Logitech X-540 speakers pales in comparison that sooner or later, you find that your ear tends to gravitate towards the Dynaudios for your simple listening pleasures.
So I thought about: why not replace the Logitech with a small bookself speaker? I'm gonna be like those pro-audio dudes that mix professional music for a living is what I thought. But I ended up going for hi-fi speakers rather than pro-audio. Why? Because pro-audio is kinda.. unexciting. I know this because I owned multiple pairs of HiFiMan's RE-0 which is considered to be a very sterile, flat and neutral sounding IEM.
I chose the Polk RTi A1 because it's smallish and people absolutely rave about its midrange. Now that I have them playing, I sure am happy I did not go for its older brother -- the RTi A3. I've considered Wharfdales, Missions, AE, Monitor Audio... and on the top-end, B&W and Focal.
Initial Impressions and UnboxingI'm a sucker, the real wood marketing strategy works! This bookshelf oozes quality when you unbox it. Absolutely beautiful craftsmanship when you compare it to its peers. Any untrained audiophile would easily mistake this for a speaker costing thrice as more.
Dimension wise, they're pretty much the same form factor as the Dynaudio X12. They're also very similar that they employ silk dome tweeters and a 5 1/4" midbass.
Here are they on top of each otherI would also note that Polk is a bit vague in their instruction manual when you have banana plugs on your speaker wire. Although veteran audiophiles would know how to plug bananas in, newbies will have a lot of guess work. I appreciate the manual's instructions with pictures for the usual bare wiring option but it might also be a better choice in showing diagrams for spades and bananas too.
No biwiring here..Sonic Quality
The music chain is: PC Foobar (WASAPI) -> Musiland Monitor 01 -(Cal's ICs)-> Classe CAP-100 -(Chord Company Silverscreen Speaker Wires)-> Polk RTi A1.
Take note that critical listening were conducted after a brief 2 hours burn-in duration.Okay, let's get down to business.
Stage Depth and SoundstageObviously, you should not expect extensive stage depth with the speakers within normal arm length. Stage depth is non-existent -- less than 1 meters at best with most of the action being at the imaginary space being filled by the Samsung LCD monitor. Of course, this is expected with placement close enough to easily touch the midbass driver while I finish typing this sentence.
Soundstage is directly in front of me (duh). The stage is actually pretty high and is eye-level. For comparison, it's at the top middle of the LCD screen. Between the center of the LCD screen and the your internet browser' tabs.
Speaker PlacementMy speaker placement environment is every audiophile' nightmare: small square room + near the wall + corner section. The added bass reinforcement and bloatness is above my expectation. It was boomy off the bat... how boomy? My Logitech' 6 1/2" subwoofer was winning light-years in terms of bass control.
I find that the Polks were more happy being toes in on-axis towards the listener. Without toe-in, soundstage was more expansive however focus takes a major hit. Mids and highs were also more recessed off-axis.
ProblemsMy biggest problem so far was the extremely boomy bass. I remedied this solution by simply using a DSP EQ to cut down the bass frequencies. Thankfully, DSP isn't foreign to me thanks to my car audio background. I fiddled around with foobar's EQ for 2 hours. 2 hours full of listening, fiddling, saving, then comparing settings A to B until I find a good tonal balance.
At the end, my EQ adjustments were pretty simple decibel cuts at the bass range frequencies. As with any EQ, cut is better than boost. Initially, I fiddled around with the midrange and tweeter but the resulting "enhancements" left an unnatural musical reproduction on selected tracks. As a result, I opted for zero EQ.
It might not look large, but 100hz is already at -7dbTest tracks for tuning were tracks that were largely familiar to me:
1. Vienna Teng - No Gringo (midrange and highs purity)
2. Vienna Teng - Antebellum (coherency)
3. Adele - Rolling in the Deep (midbass, midrange)
4. Far East Movement - Girls on the Dancefloor introduction (50, 60, 100, 120hz)
5. Far East Movement - She Owns The Night (FR balance)
5. Eagles - Hotel California (everything else)
The result? Lean bass. It's far from the original... much like how somebody enters America's Biggest Loser and walks away as the winner. It shed that amount of excess bass lard. EQ can only do so much as a compromise.
The second problem was table resonance. Lay the Polk RTi on the table, play a source file, BAM! vibration throughout the entire desk. The effect? Muddy FR response. Since it was 9pm, I was simply looking for simple DIY quick fixes. The first idea to hit me was what if I used a towel as a "base".. before I saw the leftover styro packaging
Well, that ended up... a failure
This is actually pretty effective! I made the front-side hang since I'm afraid wrapping the speaker with styro might interfere with the front port.
