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IMHO, Doubt if the Krell & Klipsch would be agood marriage. Krell does better for Lower efficiency speakers.. Low power amps..especially those with a warm sound, go with Klipsch the best

hi richinlr Nice review.. I own a RF3II and understand about what you say about the midrange..especially when compared to a Spendor/quad.. But i am a bit surprised ath the difference..never felt it to be too bad, thiugh that is definitely not th strngth of a reference series. (Its strengths are the highs and the BASS. I still have not heard the triangles played as well in any other speaker save the Avant Garde Duos which of course are $$$$) One reason for tyour disappointment could be the kind of amplification. Due to the high sensitivity , it is the first few watts (Or milliwatts) which make the difference. Even your EC amp, since it drives planar might not really have the kind of control required in that initial few watts. perhaps thats the reason why Tubes are the "Weapons of Choice" here ! I used to run these earlier first with a 80W onkyo (Pretty bad !) then a 50W NAD320 much better but not too good with Vocals. Now I have moved to a Sugden A21a - 25W Pure ClassA British Handbuilt amp..and the midrage is really really Good. I never really like female vocals before and now all that has changed BTW the I have heard the Electrocompaniet EMC up cd player..ant that is on my Must have list..really smooth and very controlled. Handles dynamics with such Grace !

If you are looking for Musical subs..dont think klipsch should be your choice, especially with the heritage series. Musical subs cost serious money..try the RELs, Vandesteens, The Baggtoussels, Linn Sizmik, Martin Logan etc Klipsh subs are Great for HT where high SPLs are required...

---------------- On 4/26/2004 11:05:11 AM Colin wrote: What can I say Sheltie, those Iraqis are barbarians; any culture without Dixie-land, jazz, blues, and Rock N Roll is clearly behind the times ---------------- Well..Arabic music has its very fine points and nuances..and surprisingly can sound very similiar to R&B as well as country music . Infact the stringed instrument..dont remember the name..and the guitar share a similiar ancestor..the Lute..and that has 8 strings(Or is it more...dont remember !!) to the 6 which the guitar has.. Hence I definitely would not call that Barbaric

that is why there is a difference between typical audiophile terms like soundstaging , Transpareccy...Blah blah and pure musicality. Music is not about the sounds you hear ..but about the emotions that it evokes..and the above need not be tied down to each other. you can see folks on an ordinary discman with the el cheapo headphones actually singing along and enjoying the music and at the same time the owner of a 100,000 system..playing only one test disc after another trying to check all aspects of the systems...and just by the time he gets it "right" the next version is reviewed in the magazine and upgaditis strikes ! Of course the above may be extremes but all of us fall somewhere in between the above two.. the important thing is to know where one is...and more importantly to understand that another person, just because he is in a different position in the above "spectrum" is not stupid. it is HIS preference to music which very well could be different

a Hearty Welcome Amy, As far as a year back I used to frequent this forum a lot land had learnt a lot from it..in fact my foray into 2 channel was purely due to this ..but the past few months have been really pathetic. any one has a different point a few and a one set of folks would pounce..with the resuilt that I was in other forums most of the time with only a weekly visit..and invariably get disgusted by some of the stuff. What I liked about this earlier was that any "Klipsch" charecteristic would be analysed and a very objective view given..even differences were actually discussed in an adult later this became pure mayhem with accusations and childish/boorish behaviour !. Hope you can manage to get this back to a "nice" and mature forum which one feels like visiting regularly.. So welcome again

Agree fully with Piranha. would make sense to go for a Tube Pre first as a tube Amp with SS Pre might not really get you what you expect from a tube setup.. Or else get a nice tune Int amp..

There are a group of people who excusively listen only to headphones saying that gives them the "Purest" form of music. The idea has some merit as that is one way of eliminating Room acoustics/reflections which play a big factor in what we hear.. Personally do not like the idea of being tied down with a wire round my neck tho as in speakers we hae the Value for money range and then the Sheer Opulance range...I guess these fall into the latter category..

well..as in all things Hifi Tubes/SS doent matter what matters is implementation you have tubes sounding like SS amps (ie a bit grainy or with good Bass Slam) as well as SS amps sounding like Tubes..very smooth. Hence permutation combinations are endless ! Another way to go foraward might be to get a CD player with a Tube Output and a SS amp. I personally have found that to be the best combination of the two worlds. And if you can get a Class A amp..even if low power (you will NEV ER need more than 10 amps for your Khorn !)..you'l have music to die for.. Reco's for CD players : Shanling, Consonance, Ah! tjoeb,Jolida .... Amps: My personal favourite is the Sugden A21A or Bijou ..but there are others like Musical fidelity, Pass Labs etc which provide decent tubelike sound as well!!

vinylfreak, my friend, wrong forum to post this...if you had only ended your post with "but I still preferred by Khorns" you would have been loved here !!

Actually even a Cheap sony can throw a decent soundstage...important factors to lo0k forward would be - depth - Attack (ie the first tone of the sound eg piano hit) - Decay ( eg the slow decaying of the sound of ta Cymbal) - Dynamism ie if the speaker is able to haandle fast changes in music - transparency...eg the snapping of a fingers should give you that feeling of "Flesh " rather than just a sound etc etc...

Audible differences per dollar spen it much more in the lower budget...as you go higher you may need to spend upto 10 times more for a minute difference ! Now that you have got soundstage width...try to get depth (Eg drums will sound to be behind the speakers).. as well as height..where you would approximately get a feeling of the height of the source !!

pathos Amps are good. have heard them with Sonus Fabersand were very smooth...I believe this is an italian design. For SS Amps..I cannot recommend the Sugden more, either the Classic A21a or the newer Bijou series (The Class A Amp) To me it has been a relevation and definitely a step above the Jolida 302..

Regarding future of Formats...one very interesting trend are Hard Disk transports with Digital outs...ie you buy *any* disc format...Rip in into a High Bitrate uncompressed format into a Hard disk and use a DAC to interface with your Amp. the way cthe cost of Storage space is falling, terrabyte HDD Transports with digital outs would be quit economical. than all you need is a Ripper to convert Any format to any format and play as a Jukebox with all problems like Jitter, Vibration etc playing a *Much* lower role !! Me...i wam Very happy with Redbook..could not notice that great a difference with SACD to actually buy a player as well as new remastered titles (So very few...especially of groups one would want to own) iIl wait and see...and enjoy the music in the meantime

SACD is still in its INfancy..in fact entry level SACD players are t often bested by good CDPs..which proves that we are still not getting the best out of the Redbook players ! Players from Electrocompaniet, Musical fidelity, Audio note etc certainly give a very smooth feel to Music. We are still quite far away from getting Good entry level SACD titles...agreed that it has potential..but may not make sense to invest untill it proves by selling. Infact after CD's it is Vinyl that sells and the numbers os SACD discs claimed by Philips needs to be taken with a Pinch opf Salt since many of them are Hybrid discs being bought by folks to play on Redbook CDP's !!

Damn good budget Amp...warm and smooth for its price with good Bass respomse. But surprising that it sounded better than the A100. That is an excellent Class A amp ! When i upgraded the only amp which i felt was a worthwhile upgrade from it. as far as value for money goes was the Sugden A21a at around 5 times its Price as far as SS amps go !!! But if you do like tubes...try comparing it even with the entry level Jolidas (At Twice the price)

Another Organ by Jean Guillou in Dorian Recordings Pictures at an Exhibition & Petroushka . has a Lot of 16hz stuff..on top of being a first rate recording !

Not sure if very thick cables would make a difference with Klipsch Speakers. My understanding on this is that there are 4 most important components when to comes to Speaker Cables 1. Resistance- Constant for All Current 2. Inductance - varies as a function of Frequency of voltage 3. Capacitance - Varies as a function of Frequency of voltage 4. Current - Function of the Speaker Impedance , Cable Impedance & Speaker Sensitivity. The more sensitive the speaker..the less power required to drive it and hence less current flowing thru the cable The higher the speaker impedence, lower the current required The higher the rate of change of voltage (High Frequency) the Inductive effect gets more prominent..hence the advantage of Flat cables which have very Low impedence in High frequency..and hence better response. Hence in cases of Klipsch speakers...which might require less than 10-20 times the power than other speakers, the the current would be around 3-4 times less hence the effect of wire impedence would be much lesser and hence not so noticable but for some other High End equipment whese these are more notocable...speaker cables do make more impact...but as per what I have come across the variation in sound is most caused by 1. speakers 2. Source 3. Amp 4. Interconnects 5. Speaker Cables 6. Power cables while ..speakers source and Amps cause more than 80-90 % of the changes in sound... it miht make sense to uses these cables as tone controls Only after all other tweaks have been done....eg just providing proper isolation as well as Damping to the CDP produces a much more prominent Impact that a Speaker cable change...... Personally i have only been able to notice a change from Nordost to Goertz...toehrwise the changes are too subtle to be noticed by my ears ! my $.02

Cambridge might be just that little bit smoother. But if you ca do some DIY, just replace the pamps and giving it a Class A bias really smoothens the NAD out . Also Damping the transport mechanism with Blu tack improves it further

Grow up guys..try to take comments in the right perspective.

Its always nice to Like an object for its qualities and its Pedigree...but when it get Unreasonable, Rabid and Fanatic..there is something wrong somewhere ! I mean every does not HAVE to like the Horn speakers...some do some dont...those who dont are not wrong as they have their own tastes and likings which are just not that same...Period that does not make them fools !

What I am amazed at every time is the apparent loyalty of Klipsch owners to their speakers and their brand especially the K-Horn. Only other brands which seems to evoke such passion appear to be the old BBC concept speakers from Rogers/Spendor . It is very Nice to have pride in ownership As far as Value for Money speakers go..Klipschorns must be there up among the very best!. But what must make is Special is this pride and legendary status/History that comes with it. I can understand the Exact feeling as I am a (PROUD!) owner od a Sugden A21a...a legendary 25Wclass A amp still handmade in england whose design has changed very little in the past 25 years... I mean even If I do upgrade..i would never sell this ! The liking of a "Signature" sound of a speaker is a very personal subject...and with K horns you either Love it ...but there are also those who hate it with fervour...perhaps the typical klipsch sound which we love, they do not...but that does not make them a lesser audiophile. the amazing part of this hobby is the very diversity..imagine even the exact same setup in different rooms ca sound different.... Cost no Object Speakers...which cater to a very different cost segment also exist which sound very good...better or not are for ones own ears to judge ..and people who own them and love them are not any less audiophiles BTW regarding a commment above which mentioned about Audiophiles not knowing buch about Internals of speakers etc etc...well there is a whole world of very Discerning Audiophiles into DI and the diversity among the speaker They own are also quite wide.. Big post...am tired

Heh Heh ! Stop comparing setups and start listening to music

Audio is such a personal thing..and opinions vary so much, so much more for speakers...for eg to me..IF I had that kind of money, 3 speakers which have Blown me away, though quite different to each other are JM labs Alto Utopia Be Eggleston works Andra Avant Garde Duo I would want them in that order For the time being am very happy with And enjoying my Klipsch ref's which I bought after more than 2 months of Audition and research to get My Kinda' Sound

Are the speakers placed near the walls ? Also how many hours have you played them ? I have been using the rF3's for over an year now and they are so smooth that i have moved them to a 2 channel setup !!