Pistol Pete

Mike, I am well aware that the center was not designed for 16hz duty...my use of wording sounded abit acusatory...sorry. Some further investigation has shown me the problem...I had the rx-V3300 in DTS Neo mode from the last use, center was set to large. The receiver saw the 16Hz tone and sent all of it to the center and the center alone because it thought that was the dialogue since it was only a single sound it did not know what to do with it....I reconnected everything back up and confirmed it. I talked with tech support today and we both agreed that I over drove the speaker... a few hundred clean watts at a 16Hz tone for a good 20 seconds was more than it could bear electrically. The drivers probably did bottom out but I did not notice because they dont make the loud clack that a subwoofer makes when they bottom plus since its a sealed design they wont bottom as easily. The center would never run into this situation in a real world movie or CD playback ...It might have taken 10 seconds of this but not much more than that and even 10 seconds of 16Hz will never happen. Anyways I wont be making that mistake again! The drivers were only $37.50 each , which is quite reasonable. This is about what a DIY Vifa driver of this quality would run. I asked about the tweeter and that was closer to $60 so my error is only abit more expensive than a tweeter blowout. Its nice to know that Klipsch is not gouging on their parts sales, i'll be keeping the set after this...Klipsch made my mistake quite painless.

Does anyone know what Klipsch charges for these drivers?....also I wonder if there is not some issue with the crossover or something?

If I do get rid of these I will go back to building my own.

This morning I was making some adjustments to my subwoofer and parametric EQ , I was setting it up @ 16Hz and the dB level was about 75dB when I realized my speakers were still set to large...I heard nothing out of the ordinary while this was happening , no driver bottoming or anything. Anyways I get home from work tonight and popped in a movie and I noticed the center channel sounded bad, sort of crackely and thin sounding..upon further inspection I found that the tweeter seems to sound ok but both mids are crappy sounding....I pulled them both and both stink of burnt voice coils and when the cone is pushed a scratching noise can be heard. I am surprised both blew though because the RC-3II is supposed to be a tapered X-over...I guess its not all that tapered. This is a bummer, I have never blown a midbass driver before ..I almost feel like selling off all my Klipsch speakers and making my own again. My last speakers were a Kit and in 5 years of very nasty abuse I never blew a driver. Are Klipsch drivers easy to ruin or what? Its seems the driver could handle the mechanical part but not the electrical.

Congrats! Now bring it over to my place for a duel. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bentvalve/finished-contra-3.jpg

As far as showcasing my Klipsch speakers specifically , three of my favorites are.... 1. Blood The Last Vampire (awesome use of surrounds!) 2. DareDevil (A+++++ sound!) 3. Jackie Brown (great sound from beginning to end!) 4. Open Range (the gunfight is incredible sounding!) Some fun bass heavy scenes for showing off my subwoofer: 1. Tapping on the Glass scene from Finding Nemo 2. Star Wars AOTC , lots of bass throughout.

Yes, just reach in the hole and straighten out the foam...its not that big of a deal. The foam helps reduce extra unwanted noise from sounds bouncing around inside the cabinet.

I love the dynamic range the RF-3IIs give out at low to middle range volumes....but when I crank them up they get harsh. I had my Yamaha RX-V3300 running the mains but I switched to a pair of Parasound Monoblocks rated @ 150wpc each. One thing is that I have these in a smallish room and it could be part of the problem. Once in ahwile I like to listen to a song or two at club like volume levels so it would be nice if there was a way to address this. Ideas?

No but you could tame the harsher upper end at high volumes....I love my RF-3IIs but at loud volumes they tend to get harsh...I have some Parasound amps and have considered trying to bi-amp them for abit. An amp with a seperate gain control for the upper end would be ideal though.

I like to shoot a variety of pistols for fun, semi-auto .40 and .45 are my favorite rounds. How about you?

20 is the size on all my Klipsch Reference speakers.

---------------- On 1/13/2004 2:50:35 PM swissy wrote: Holy cow! RS-25's for $300 from an authorized dealer? ****** those up. There will not be a better deal than that. Unless you could get the 35's for $400, but that would be a big stretch. ---------------- ditto., ****** them up.

Just hang them on the wall.

New desktop background. :-) , thanks!

There is both a 2 channel and 5 channel version of this SACD!!..Check your CD first.

I was just looking at my receiver specs, Dynamic Power/Ch (8/6/4/2 ohms) 155/195/250/340 W, I had it in stereo mode , and my volume db level read -11db , speakers set to small, no EQing , no nothing. The source material was Bob Dylan's "Desire", the song "The Hurricane"...not too dynamic. Do you guys think my amp clipped or not? Supposedly Yamaha's db steppings are realistic in terms of amp output, but I am not sure how that could work out since different source materials will sound louder that others. Oh and your probably wondering how one accidentally turns up one's stereo so loud? ..... Well I got a new RF (radio frequency) universal remote and was across the street from my house testing to see how far away it would operate. I was at least 25 yards away and I turned it up so I could hear it, not thinking about how loud it actually was. I hit the mute button from across the street and came back in the house....went into my HT room and hit mute again..................bam!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy mother of god , it was loud!!! I could literally feed my old speakers 900 watts and they would never have gotten nearly this loud..they were also a dual 8" drivers , 1" tweeter configuration and also the same power handling specs as my RF3IIs but they were 92dbs sensitive. Incidentally, I blew numerous tweeters on my old speakers over the course of several years because I fed them so much power. They were crossed pretty low like the RF-3IIs and the tweeters were easy to get @ $20 each.

Isn't it just a tiny diaphram that gets replaced when you blow a tweeter in the RF-3IIs? How good is Klipsch about giving me new ones and will they keep making them for awhile? These were purchased from an authorized Brick and Mortar dealer. Basically I accidentally turned my system up to an insanly loud level, the only thing going for me is that my speakers were set to small but still I am sure I sent several hundred watts to the speakers for a short time....and worse I probably clipped my amp. Everything works fine still but I am sure my tweeters are weaker then they were before and I am sure these will be the first to blow if this should ever happen again. I would not mind having a spare set of them on hand, where can I buy them outright? Thanks

BTW I have bought both of them and I have spent alot of time critically listening to these centers. Even if I did not have RF-3II mains and had only these two centers to choose from I would pick the RC-3II. The RC-35 colors the sound so much that certain actors and acresses (male voices more so) don't even sound like they are supposed to. The RC-3II on the other hand is accurate and revealing. Crappy DVD soundtracks will sound even more crappy and excellent soundtracks are incredible sounding.

What mains are you using?

There is nothing wrong with stuff made in China, if Klipsch were made in the USA the quality would be the same and the cost would go up.

Looking for a sigle Klipsch speaker for center surround duty.

Phil, So how are you liking that Z1 so far? I bet it is sweet! I'd love to hear your thoughs since you had a 3300 before it.

Here is a recent review of an RX-V640/(aka HTR-5660 @ Best Buy) http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_10_4/yamaha-rx-v640-receiver-12-2003-part-1.html Quotes from the review: "This little receiver is a tremendous value. Brian found that the sound does not have the brightness we are used to from Yamaha, while offering power that belies its little frame. " "Using the S/PDIF input and the pre-outs we found a respectable 0.01% THD+N. The RX-V640 would make an excellent processor to be used with an outboard multi-channel amp. You can also see how clean the upper spectrum is with only a slight first and second harmonic making any noticeable impact. There are some excellent electronics under the cover of this unit." I purchased an RX-V640 before I bought my RX-V3300 and I would have kept it had I not accidentally ran into the good deal on my 3300. I was driving a more difficult load than my Klipsch speakers at the time and the 640 was plenty powerful enough and it sounded sweet!!!! Considering the 640 can be had for less than $350 online or less than $499 most everywhere its a bargain...IMO of course.

---------------- On 12/30/2003 3:42:46 PM PhilMays wrote: She called Yamaha and they did say the sound quality between the 2400 and the 3300 was considerable and I would not be happy. ---------------- Somebody at Yamaha told you that? I would not go so far as to say that somebody with a 3300 would not be happy with a 2400 or even that a 2400 is really a big downgrade. But anyhow ...sounds like you got a bargain on the Z1, congrats. :-) My 3300 is still going strong and I love it but I also know that I would be happy with a 2400 or even an RX-V640 because I have tried them both and love the sound out of every Yamaha. Unlike some manufacturers , Yamaha does not go cheap on the guts of their lower end units.

The RB35s would make a fine main speaker, really if you have a subwoofer, (which by the way you would need anyways even if you went with some floorstanders), I'd recommend the RB25s all the way around. 3 pairs of RB25s would make for an exciting 6.1 surround system IMO. Something to consider anyways, Good Luck.