steelie

... and, my understanding is that any excess power you generate from your solar panels you can sell back to the electric company, right? shoulda finished reading your post grif

I'd love to go solar but where I'm at, I'm lucky to see the sun... boo hoo .... wind now ... well I don't know how I'd get a personal generator there ... feel like I'm tilting at windmills sometimes

LOADEDTUNES is just expressing the views the majority of the world holds against the U.S. I wonder why?

hey Q-Man, this is off topic but any luck with that MC202 we were talking about earlier?

Good question John. I'm trying to give you a short answer but I don't know if it's going to help you. (Starting at the end, I hung my speakers 8 feet in the air on my two side walls, 19 feet apart, facing each other and aside the listening position is that what you're looking for?) The longer answer is that I stopped listening to suggestions and started listening to my ears and what worked in my house, for my system and my conditions. I also started looking at different possibilities in my room's setup and positioning. That was a chore and took a lot of visualizing. I had to backtrack, delete all my assumptions about what would produce good sound in my room and start from scratch. I finally realized that the stands I bought specifically for getting good surround sound weren't going to work for me. So, I ditched the stands and now have a nice pair of altars for my cat to sit on. Here's the most important part. I rearranged my listening position so that it now faces the short wall - 19 feet - bought long runs of wire and hung the speakers. I now sit about 14 feet away from the front speakers and the surrounds are well above ear level (8 feet up from the ground is the only spot I had available) I know my surrounds are set up higher than Dolby Digital recommends but I'm getting all the ambiance and impact I want from them now. They work a lot better than before, when they were at DD's recommended height. I'm still looking for the best setup I can get but for now, this is the most improved sound I've found for my room - 19 by 33 with lots of openings. Trial and error is what it came down to. I guess the point is not to be afraid of starting over. It was a hard and long process for me and I don't think it's over yet. I'm always going to look for a better way to do things. I hope this rambling helps.

I hated my RB 35s for surrounds until I found just the right place for them. I was convinced I was going to go out and buy RS7s as soon as money/priorities allowed. I'm glad I didn't rush out and do that. It took me a while to get the RB 35s in the right place but they're there now and I love em. I can't imagine why it took me so long to get it right but I'm glad I finally did. First impressions can be misleading, and what you thought was a mistake one day may just not have been, that's the lesson I learned.

Very very cool, I'm getting new setup ideas just looking at it. Did you choose the color for any particular HT reason or was it like that before? It looks like you built a nice box into the studs on your ceiling to set up the rear center. Was that an RC 7? I just hung my RB 35s as well, Love 'em now for movies. Oops, just saw that it was an RC3II.

I'm with lots of folks here. Everything from Metallica to Mozart is fine with me, depending on my mood. I enjoy looking up the sometimes obscure contributing artists on some of my favorite jazz, blues and bluegrass CDs and seeing what else they've done, perhaps as lead musicians. I've ended up in some pretty funky corners that way. I'm sure others have also.

I loved my 450 G4 for a while now but it's definitely time for an upgrade. Then I'll either put my G4 next to my 1984 Mac with its little integrated screen and start blasting away with my new G5. After all this time, I'm still torn on OS X though. Best thing about my G4 is that it still boots OS 9.X, where I still spend most of my time. Cant's say that for the G5 though. Oh well. Change is inevitable.

my other favorite hobbie after music, steelheading it's a way of life

aren't gibson's views - that is the story represented in the movie - based on the vision of a 19th century nun? So, no real time accounts of what happened. just the visionary explanation that occurred approximatle 1800 years after the passion occurred. Forgot to add this before: I know very very little about the movie or Gibson but wanted ask those who have seen it, did the Latin and Aramaic help or hurt?

Okay, I must be misunderstanding the formula. In a room 19 feet wide, the speakers would be placed 8.493 feet apart as well as 8.493 feet from the rear wall. They also would be 5.244 feet from the nearest side wall and 13.756 feet from the opposide side wall, right? These dimensions don't make sense to me, particularly the distance to the rear wall. I thought RF7s should be 2 to 3 feet in front of the rear wall. Am I using the formula correctly or did I get it all wrong?

I couldn't get access to the Web site but since I live near Bandon I think I'll stop in and say hello. Thanks for the info. That was a great system and exactly what I was looking for.

not finding that partiuclar link to that portion of the site, wheelman. copy and pasted it but I'm getting a site not found message still .... good info on the main thanks for the link.

started with the equilateral triangle but moved the listening position back a little bit. Now, I've got 11 feet between the speaks, three feet from the rear wall to the back of the speaks, and I sit about 13 feet away. One speaker is 2 feet from a side wall. Left speaker has about two feet from the side wall, right speaker doesn't have a wall nearby for several feet. Speakers are in front of a wall where the ceiling starts at 8 feet, then climbs to 13 feet almost right under the listening position.

hey all does anyone have any special tricks or tips to suggest in order to find the best way to place RF7s for 2-channel music other than haphazardly trying to move the speakers here and there. In general, I know where the speakers are staying but I want to keep fine tuning them. I have a good deal of room to play around with the spacing between the back walls, the side walls, the angle I'll tilt the speakers toward the listening area, etc etc I'm not looking for gear or instruments. Just want to know if there are ways to do this fine tuning more efficiently. What sort of music should I play to get the most noticeable clues that I'm placing the speaks in the best location. I'm thinking something with female voices, or some otherwise high pitches. Any suggestions that could help? Thanks in advance for your help

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I started this thread looking for thoughts and opinions while I was looking at Rotel and Parasound and have received a great response. I'm into looking at any options that will save me money. I'm also into McIntosh, thanks to Q-Man, but that won't save me much money at all. I'm definitely not looking at 350 watt amps but I'd love to find a way to run Mac's 75 watt tube integrated amp. I think I would have walked out the door with it if I could have found a way to use it for home theater as well. (As an aside, this little amp makes me want to start a whole new system dedicated exlusively for two-channel) It was the most impressive machine I saw during the trip at the store. It was running some super inefficient speakers and it just blew me away, quality wise as well as volume. I run 90 watts on my Denon on super efficient RF7s but this little 75 watt tube in a class all its own. I'll keep looking and keep listening to any suggestions you all make. It's hard enough to get information about this hobby. Without help I get from people on this forum and others I'd be dead in the water. Thanks

Cool i talked to the store guy a lot about different options for setting up a system that's primarily focused on getting the most out of music but could also accommodate a great home thater. I want the best I can get for music but it's always a difficult compromise for me to get the best of both worlds. One option we discussed was using a McIntosh integrated coupled with a tube amp. Way out of my league in terms of money but it was nice to dream. I saw a nice MC352 at the store. I just can't imagine pushing RF7s with 350 watts. I have a large space to fill, about 24 by 33, but I'm not producing an outdoor concert. Anyway, let me know what you find out. I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about the 202. Is Audio Classics a Web dealer or is it B&M? Thanks for the help.

Hi Q-Man, Finally made it to a McIntosh dealer on a trip out of town. The store was under construction but it still was awesome. Anyway, I asked about the MC202 and the dealer told me no luck. He said they'd been discontinued and he sold the last one four months ago. I asked whether there may be any hiding around somewhere but he was pretty discouraging. Anyway, he did show me a BEAUTIFUL MC252. It's 250 watts per two channels, bridgeable to 500 watt mono. Gorgeous sound. (I was happy to listen to lots and lots of McIntosh gear ... just bummed I couldn't hear them with my Klipsch) He quoted me a price of $3,800 on the 252. I'm wondering if you think I could still find a 202 somewhere and if so, where. I'd be more than happy with 200 watts to run my RF7s. Hell, I'd be even happier to run McIntosh's 75 watt integrated tube but that wouldn't work with home theater so I have to compromise. Can you or anyone else share their thoughts? thanks

I hadn't thought about the velcro. That's a great idea to stabilize everything. Still, ask a hardware store about an anchor. I hung a 20 plus pound metal sun for my girlfriend using one, at the recommendation of a hardware guy who said some anchors could hold well above 20 pounds. Granted, it's not vibrating or anything but if you can find one it beats opening a wall to cross a stud with a shelf. Still loving the sound from those RB 35s now. I wish I would have found out that position earlier. Now the RS7s are no longer on my list of what's next to buy and I can focus on my amplifier. (A new sub would be good too)

I couldn't guess to what testing gave Dolby Digital or THX insight into the best placement of speakers but in my situation, putting the speakers way over my head - the only spot available on my walls - created a huge improvement in the quality of the surround system. Before I changed the setup, I had one sweet spot and it was very narrow. Any shift to the left or right and the balance of the rear spearkers was all out of whack. Directional sounds - loud noises that are meant to attract your attention - came through okay but ambient sounds were so quiet that they never really made you feel like a part of the action. Now I can enjoy the surround system from a much wider area on the couch and ambient sounds, even in movies without much emphasis on surrounds, sounds great. (I only just changed the setup so I watched two quick movies but my girlfriend and I were floored by the improvement. We couldn't stop talking about all the differences throughout the movies) I'm guessing that in my case it has to do as much with putting the speakers farther apart as it does with putting them on the walls over our heads. Regardless, I finally feel I've found the right spot to create a good effect and I'm happy with the surround quality for the first time in a long while. Trial and error is the key, I guess, as well as having long enough speaker wire to try everything out.

You're right. I should have explained myself better. The owner's manual has some very positive things to say about bi-wiring. I was surprised, though, by their stated position on bi-amping.

Hi markmaple, I finally got a long enough run of wire to hook my bookshelves on the side walls up in the air. They're now 8 feet up the walls, which are 19 feet apart. Whatever problems I was having with my surrounds before simply disappeared. I certainly wan't expecting any wonderful improvements but that's exactly what I got. It seems that the problems I was having related to having the bookshelves on stands maybe they were too low to the ground? and not having put enough distance between them. Either way, my problem is solved. In my house with this configuration, the RB35s work great as surrounds. They no longer sound like they're being overpowered, although they are turned up quite a bit more than the fronts in order to equalize them. After this experiment, I'd say go for the RB35s., if you have the room to set them up far apart. The downside to this is that I can no longer move my surround speakers to the correct position for listening to multi-channel music but as I said before, for me that's not that big of a deal.

007 I agree with you 100 percent. It's also why Apple and Sony are better than the rest. Just my opinion.

Interestingly, the owners' manual I have seems to discourage biamping. "We do not recommend biamplifying any of our speakers, since in general it will produce no benefit that could not be obtained simply by using a single larger amplifier and may cause severe sound degradation if not done properly." That's from page 3 in the owner's manual that came with my RB35s. Klipsh then explains how to biamp correctly and suggests using the same model amp for the tweeter and woofer to prevent frequency response errors.