Need opinions from owner of Polk RTi70 & Infinity Alpha40 and others (1 Viewer)

Hi,
My budget setup are Polk RT800i biwired, Onkyo 595 receiver, Pioneer 333 DVD player and Sony sub SAWM40 stuffed with polys. I mainly use for 2 channels music only, sometimes watch DVD movies (maybe upgrade later). For music, they are good sounding speakers (no complain here)but I could not imagine that the singers nearby if I close my eye as I read many reviewers described with their systems.
I got the speakers from CircuitCity for $600 with one year trade up program. Now time is up, I can trade mine for the Alpha40 with $200 or Polk RTi70 for $200 plus the CSi30 center for free (I can use the matching center, special promotion from Polk with purchase of $499 up). I compare specs of the Polk RTi70 & RT800i, only the tweeter and cabinet design are different. Polk customer service tech said RTi70 are tweaked and improved so they are better than the RT800i.
I listened to both at CC with the Onkyo SR700. Maybe I don't use correct words to describe here
The Alpha40 sound louder, more midrange and higher freq than the RTi70.
The RTi70 has more bass, sound stage wider and open than the Alpha40.
Please give me your opinions and thoughts.

Thanks in advance.
LT

Alpha40's sound better to me. I work w/ them everyday. I do like the Polk 70's of the Polk selection and think they mix better w/ Onkyo, but I don't like Polk in general except for their HT systems.
Good luck w/ CC. I hope you don't have ?'s there.

Hi,
I finally picked the RTi70s after compare them side by side at home. The RTi70s are more balance and fuller sound overall. The Alpha40s are clear in the mid to high freq but no bass which make them unbalance and uneven sound tonal. Now that I set the RTi70 in place, one of them stand right next to the TV (from 1 to 4 inches max) and it distorded the TV. The TV is in the corner of the room and I tried to slide it out to the middle before it will cover the fireplace. Polk service recommends to place them 4 feet away from the TV. Anyone has any experience with the magnetic problem with your speakers or solutions. I did not have problem with the RT800i.
Thanks.

LinhT,

I just auditioned the Polk RTI70 and Infinity
Alpha 40s, also the Polk RTI100 and Infinity Alpha 50.

Polk RTIs and Infinity Alphas are both very good speakers and very close in performance IMO. It just comes down to what sounds better to 'you'. Both most likely are very accurate, having variances in frequency bandwidth in different octaves, which makes them sound different.

I love the sound of Infinity and is why I have Infinity RS2000.4s for my main front speakers, Infinity CC-2 for my center channel speaker, Infinity RS1 rear surround speakers, and Infinity Point5 surround back channel speakers. I also have Infinity SS2001 main front speakers and Infinity Sterling Video center channel speaker in my bedroom system.

As you can tell, I always keep going back with Infinity. To me, their tonality offers the most realistic sound IMO.

While the Polks were great speakers, I felt they frequency respond didn't reflect a sound as realistic as the Infinity speakers. The Infinities have a higher output in the lower midrange frequencies which makes voices sound more realistic and fuller IMO. The Polks lower midrange frequencies sounded recessed next to the higher midrange frequencies. The Polks sounded slightly thinner and brighter than the Infinity Alpha IMO.

Auditioning in Circuit City's demo room offers weird bass cancellations and bass loading. Since the Polk RTI70s and the Infinity Alpha 40 were positioned in different areas of the room, bass response was different between the two at my listening spot. By moving around the room, the bass output was equal on these 2 speakers, just not at the initial spot where I was doing the audition. I found areas in the room that offered the most bass for each of these speakers, and neither had a higher output or lower. Pretty much equal output IMO. If these speakers would had been positioned in the same room area, the bass would had been the same most likely. As I said, just walking 6' over, the bass went from thin to very full. In fact, if anything, the Infinity speakers seemed to have a slightly fuller mid-bass, very very slight. The Polk seems to have slightly more punch, very very slight. They both seemed to have the same low frequency extension although they were rated 40Hz(Polk RTI70) against 45Hz(Alpha 40).

Let me state that these speakers offer a very close tonal balance considering they're different makers. I've heard much larger tonal variances between different makers.

The Polks and the Alphas are both excellent speakers, I just like the Infinity speakers better.
Read this.

Have a good one.