RichardP

"Humerous" music: a type that stimulates the funny bone (maybe the ulna? or is it the radius?). Don't you find that humorous?

FOTR is one of the best mixed soundtracks ever released. It won some Oscars for sound mixing, if I recall. I was extremely impressed with the clearly identifiable "layers" of sound in many scenes, with dialogue in front, ambient sounds behind, background music behind that, and so on. I have not heard anything like you describe, and I don't use any sort of DR compression. Is it possible that you have the levels of each speaker (receiver levels settings in menu, like center +3, fronts +3, sub +1, rears +5, etc.) set too high? Are you using any sort of automatic levels setting function of your receiver (where it uses a little mike, receiver generated test tones, sets levels automatically) that is not working as intended?

Here's one, perhaps very close to home for many on this forum:

I will tell you my story (some have heard it already): a few years ago I bought a KW-120/KA-1000 system second hand, althought only a year old at the time. After a few months, the amp failed; lights on, etc. but no power to the speakers. Was willing to pay Klipsch to service it, but no service was available. They have no "warranty repair" department, so to speak. I was out of luck; no service, no advice, nothing, except sympathy from Michael Colter. To my good fortune, I opened the amp case, probed and fiddled with everything that was connected to the circuit board, and amazingly the amp worked again, and has since. Had it not come back to life, my only option would have been to take it to a local electronics repair shop, which today are scarcer than hen's teeth, not to mention of variable competence. Apparently, Klipsch will simply replace an amp that goes out under warranty with a new one.

The website www.universalsports.com is webcasting (for free) full stages (2+ hours) of the Giro (Tour of Italy)! This is a great alternative viewing source, as the Versus channel is not showing any of the Giro, not even weekend wrapups. See Lance's return to top level racing. I watched a full stage, then skipped through another, today at work (work? Ha!). They are apparently going to webcast every stage, as well as separate videos of finishing highlights if you don't have 2+ hours each day to sit at your computer. A great deal for us fans.

The Forte I has, for the midrange, the exponential horn, which, if you are looking at the front, has an opening that is wide but not so "tall." The Forte II has the Tractrix horn, which has a "taller" opening, which is supposed to offer better dispersion characteristics. There is not a great difference between them. Klipsch would not likely make a huge change in a speaker's sound without relabelling it as a different line. I use Forte IIs for fronts and Forte Is for rears.

By the way, what is the deal with those checkers as you exit Sam's? Do they think you are going to shoplift something in the 20 feet between the cash register and the exit?

Cumming Ga , go figure . I wouldn't touch that line with a ten foot pole.

Gasket.

I agree with Wuzzer, $350 tops. They are great speakers, although a 2-way design, unlike most other Klipsch lines. The KG 2.5V is also a matched center, but it's not often available on the usual auction sites, in my experience.

There is a useful parent resource website "www.kidsinmind.com" which publishes detailed reviews of nearly all current movies. They give considerably more info than the sparse MPAA ratings phrase, e.g, "Rated PG-13 for language." K-I-M breaks down the movie into several content areas, with details about each, such as "Language: 3 utterances of the 'S-word', 7 utterances of 'D-amn'; Nudity - 2-sec shot of bare behind" and so on.

Before you changes capacitors, crossovers, cables, amplifiers, CD players, etc., to correct an overly bright speaker, I might suggest that you turn down the treble/high freq tone control a notch or two.

quote: "What would be other ways for guesstimating whether SACD or DVD-A will win the war?" I had to look at the date to see if this was an old post. The truth of the matter is that both have lost the war resoundingly to the ipod generation who is quite happy listening to highly compressed music via earphones. Multichannel recordings were introduced in the late '90s, and never caught on, except in a select group of music/HT enthusiasts. Some of those aficionados liked the higher resolution of SACDs/DVD-As, even the stereo-only releases, others like the discrete multichannel highly localized sounds from all 5 speakers; the general public only yawned. Multichannel releases have plummeted from the golden days ("way back" in 2001-2002 or thereabouts) to only a trickle now. Some studios/labels are still committed to some mc releases by some artists, but no one is jumping on any bandwagon. The recent Sound&Vision magazine had a blurb indicating that more companies continue to produce SACDs than DVD-As, but all numbers are very small. You can visit the "surround sound" section of the www.AVSForum.com website to hear people's reviews and hear the lamentations. An archiving site that monitors SACD releases is www.sa-cd.net. The only hope is that some of those mc-committed artists and studios will embrace new Blue-Ray based Dolby and DTS surround formats.

Sound and Vision is perhaps the most accessible and geared towards "normal" audio and video equipment enthusiasts. They have a very long lineage, formerly as Stereo Review, which goes back even further to the 1950s hi-fi review (or some title like that). All magazines will be somewhat "beholden" to companies who pay them for advertising, but S&V will (in a very polite or even veiled manner) state the weaknesses of specific equipment being reviewed. It's also a decent way to get a basic education about products and technical developments. I just wish they had not cut their music review section so much as of late.

For several years Consumer Reports' user surveys have ranked the Snappers as the least reliable riding mowers. I don't know what the weak areas are, but nearly all other brands have many fewer problems. Note that this data is from owner surveys, not ratings of features by CR testers, and is an indication of the probability of problems. Coincidentally, an issue of CR came today, with an article on mowers. The top ranked (for reliability across several years and models) are John Deere, Husqvarna, and Craftsman (Sears); least reliable in this list was Troy-Bilt (Snapper was not in the list).

If the discs are "officially" herniated, I doubt they will unherniate on their own without surgery.You probably need to seek medical treatment, which might include your primary physician then a physical therapist, maybe a consult with an orthopedic surgeon as well. .The gabapentin only addresses the nerve's action (producing pain), and to my limited knowledge, will not cure the cause at all. I am sure it is not unheard of that such pain/damage can heal to some degree over time, but it might be a very painful "over time." I have occasional pinching and temporary numbness, but not to a critical level yet.

Willland, for the past two-three years I have gone through a Gilmour-mania phase, ever since hearing the "Pulse" DVD concert (and having never seen PF in any concert, or even concert footage, before). I love "On An Island," and was thrilled to get the "Live In Gdansk" DVD with the added bonus of the entire On An Island in surround mix. I then got the Royal Albert Hall DVD, and love it too. It is especially poignant as it reflects the last months of Richard Wright. I think that Bowie, Graham Nash, and David Crosby are not who I would have used as guest vocalists, but I still enjoy their presence as a sort of "meeting of rock icons" which is impressive itself. After seeing the recent VH1 showings of "Which One's Pink?", a BBC documentary, one has to feel "poor Roger Waters." He does OK, but he sure diva-ed himself out of Gilmour and Co.'s tremendous success.

Nola, they still sell the stand-alone sub amp, if this is the one to which you refer (though not usually for $250): http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-810

This dedicated subwoofer amp from Parts Express is a great deal. 500w into 8 ohms, 1000w into 4 ohms, auto-on, equalizer, etc. all for less than $400: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-810

They should work well, especially as rear channel speakers. Front and rear don't have to match 100%, but those two models should be extremely close, as the KG x.5 series was the update of the KG x.2 series. I say this assuming you are talking about 4 channel for movies. Movie rear channels carry much much less than front & center channels, so smaller and even slightly different models will work as rears. I have a friend with 5.5 fronts with 2.2v center and 2.2 rears, and even though the room does not allow optimal placement of rears, it still sounds great. Get yourself a 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, or another 5.2 for a center, and you will have a fantastic-sounding HT system.

"Why spend over $1400 for a Philips Defibrillator when you could have one of these, without all the bells and whistles for $72?" Ah, yes. The "Guantanamo alarm clock."

For reviews of many models, take a look at www.kenrockwell.com (for a pro photographer's perspective), as well as amazon's user reviews (of current models). Rockwell likes Canon digital point&shoots. I got one a couple of years ago, the A570/590/etc series, which I use for casual shooting (I have a Nikon digital SLR). Aside from very good performance and quality, as well as the optical viewfinder mentioned above, that Canon series also uses AA batteries; most other cameras use dedicated/proprietary batteries not as easily replaceable. Consider how much you will use the camera. If for occassional snapshots, you don't need a $400 camera. Also, ignore number of pixels; all cameras will have enough. Five years ago, professional photographers were using $3000-5000 6-megapixel cameras, so anything nowadays is plenty. There are so many cameras out there now, it may actually be hard to find a bad one. Stick with camera manufacturers/brand names, and you will probably like what you get.

$1800 is half of the MSRP, so it is a tremendous deal. Another point in favor of the Klipsch system is that you can use only one sub enclosure if your room is not quite big enough for both. THX certification requires that a sub produce a certain volume level in a room of a specific size (if I understand it correctly), so Klipsch used two enclosures to meet that standard. I for one don't listen at theater levels, so one enclosure with 500 watts still produces volumes of powerful deep bass in my 18 x 26 room with a vaulted ceiling. Another advantage is that, compared to the SVS, each enclosure is much lighter for moving, and their smaller size allows for more positions, and for fine tuning the sound. I am using the other enclosure in a 2-ch system (w/Belles) with a PartExpress standalone sub amp, also 500 w (which usually is on sale for $350, sometimes even less). That makes two separate exceptional systems for only a little more $ than the SVS (although I don't know how 1800US compares to 2000CAD). If you haven't seen them already, the enclosures are connected to the amp via Neutrik Speakon connectors and some pretty large gauge cables, so those may present some limits on what you can do (but probably not; I easily modified one connector for the PE amp). EDIT: I just looked at your room photo in the other thread, and yes, you will have to use different cables to each enclosure due to the distance from your equipment location. The Speakon connectors can supposedly be disassembled without tools, and you can attach them to any hefty speaker cable.

This is very true, I assumed that your $1800 deal was the two sub enclosures and the amp as well. BTW Indy, the THX sub enclosure is the KW-120, not KSW-120. The KSW-12 is a $549 powered sub with onboard amp.

I won't be able to help you a lot, but I have the THX sub system and it is impressive. I got mine for $1800 as well. I had tried an SVS cylinder powered sub for about two weeks but sent it back. I do not claim to be a golden-eared audiophile, so use that as a context. A drawback to the Klipsch system is that the company will not offer any sort of assistance to owners of second hand systems if service is needed. My sub amp stopped working for a period, and thankfully recovered, but I learned I was SOL as far as help from Klipsch. If the amp has problems, you will simply have to take it to a shop.That is true for any used equipment, but I was surprised by their lack of help for a top THX model.