Jlindgren

Thanks

OK, so I have an ignorant question: what is meant by "bi-amping"? Does it mean driving one speaker with one power amp and another speaker with another power amp? OR does it mean driving each speaker hooked up to both amps? If so, how precisely do you use 2 amps playing the same source material? I've heard "bi-amping" referred to many times, but the context is not enough to reveal its meaning. Thanks.

I've done a fair amount of painting on various houses and apartments I've lived in. In one, we had a master painter working over two months just on our house. It was a mess when we bought it. He used Satin Impervo and I've preferred it ever since. It is absolutely the best paint ever made. You are right. I should have waited.

If you remove the plastic covers, the metal spikes will pull out straight with a pliers. Some come easily, some come hard.

I just went through an ultimately successful conversion of oiled walnut Quartets to black. STAINING: DON'T DO IT, if you want black. First, I tried staining with Minwax Ebony stain, which (despite its name) is a fully black stain. Even with repeated applications and leaving it on longer than recommended, the wood darkened, but it didn't even get close to black. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PAINTING: RECOMMENDED STEPS. So I had to go the painting route. At the end of this post, I explain why I didn't choose the spray paint route. 1. Remove some of the stain. I did not use a stripper, which might be good to use. I did use a medium grit sandpaper sponge and soapy water to scrub the speakers, rinsing the sponge often. Wipe off the wetness and let dry overnight. 2. Sand the speakers with medium/fine or fine sandpaper or a stiff kitchen style scrubbing pad, sanding with the grain. I found that the thin green kitchen scrubbing sponges (also sold in the paint section of Home Depot) were perfect for marking up the surface enough to paint. Do not use steel wool, which can get into the working parts of the speakers and damage them. Wipe down with paint thinner. Do not use turpentine, which is toxic. Let dry several hours. 3. Use oil-based paints. They dry slower and coat smoother, which reduces brush marks. As an oil-based primer, use Benjamin Moore Fresh Start Alkyd Enamel Underbody. This is a legendary primer with excellent characteristics. Have them start with the Deep Base color and add lots of black tint (4 oz.) and some blue tint (2 oz.). If there is no room in the can for this much tint, discard a little paint. This will get the primer to a very dark gray, not black. Before paining, pour some of the paint in a tin or small pail. If you want to be extra careful, you can strain your paints through a paint filter before using. The label says not to thin it, but I did add some paint thinner to reduce brush marks and let the grain show through. I dont know how much paint-to-thinner, but perhaps between 10 to 1 and 7 to 1. Thinning greatly increases the problem of dripping, so be careful when applying. 4. Use an angled brush. Brush on the paint. Brush edges to prevent edge drip. Because the paint will still be too thick to let grain through, after 5-15 minutes and it starts to dry, carefully rub off perhaps half of it, being careful to drag your cloth (or paper towel) in even strokes with the grain in your final pass on each surface. Let dry several hours. 5. VERY lightly wipe down the surfaces with a kitchen scrubber or very fine sandpaper. Dont sand off the primer. 6. If not fully covered with primer, repeat step 4, applying and then wiping off half of a coat of primer. I needed to do this step. 7. VERY lightly wipe down the surfaces with a kitchen scrubber or very fine sandpaper. Dont sand off the primer. 8. I didnt want to wait for a pre-mixed can of black Benjamin Moore Satin Impervo to be ordered, so I used a paint recommended in this forum: Rustoleum Satin Black (#7777). Again, I poured it into a small bucket and thinned it with paint thinner (contrary to label instructions), perhaps 10 to 1. I wanted a slightly thinner paint that would coat a thin layer without many brush marks. Carefully apply the paint and brush in the direction of the grain on your final pass. Brush edges to prevent edge drip. Let dry overnight. 9. VERY lightly wipe down the surfaces with a kitchen scrubber or very fine sandpaper. Dont sand off the paint. 10. Repeat steps 8 and 9, applying a second coat of paint and VERY lightly roughing up the surface. 11. Apply a coat of Formby Satin Poly by hand rubbing, again moving your paper towel or cloth with the grain on your final pass. Squint into reflecting light on the surface to be certain that every surface is perfectly covered. Let dry overnight. The reason to use Poly is so that the black surface is below the outer clear coat, just the way finished wood might look. It gives the painted wood a more wood-like appearance. 12. Apply a second coat of Formby Satin Poly if you wish. Do not sand before application, unless the first coat was uneven or there were flaws to remove. Wait at least 48 hours after your last coat before putting items on your speaker or putting them on carpet (maybe longer). +++++++++++++++++++++ SPRAY-PAINTING: HARD TO DO RIGHT unless experienced. Reading suggestions online, some people suggested spray-painting. Unless you are very experienced at this, this is likely to result in poor results, as several forum posts recounted. Indeed, just following some of the forum directions would likely lead to poor results. As those of us who have successfully spray-painted small items know, you usually don't spray a real "coat" on. If you put on enough paint to wet the surface completely there will be spots that are too wet and runny, which are hard to sand out successfully later. To paint successfully at home, you need to give the item many, many light dustings with spray paint, not worrying if some areas are just barely fully covered by any one coat while other areas are not quite covered. I thought it too hard to do with a large item and went the brush route. I hope all this helps. It wasnt as easy as I had anticipated.

There are a lot of conflicting things going on here. First, just last week I brought over some used KG 5.2 and Quartets over to a friend with same era (early 1990s) $1500 Boston Acoustics speakers. It wasn't even close--both sets of Klipsch were shockingly better. I wasn't reading stereo mags in the early 1990s, but I can bet that whatever they were recommending then for under $2,000 can't match either of these Klipsch models, yet the 5.2 and the Quartets are far from the most expensive or treasured Klipsch models. So a healthy skepticism of stereo reviewers is warranted. Also, placement of Khorns and the room itself are crucial. I heard a pair last month at a store and they sounded DIFFERENT, but not really BETTER than RF-7s in the same room, which is frankly ridiculous. BUT, second, Klipsch customer service has been accused of being less than straightforward or forthcoming with at least one reviewer. In this Audioholics article about an attempt to review a new Aragon system, Klipsch/Aragon customer service said that they would cooperate, but then didn't. If the article is to be credited, Audioholics has been using an Aragon system as its reference system. Klipsch then offered them a free 90-day review or allowed them instead to BUY the new system to review it. Audioholics agreed to buy it because they like Aragon enough to upgrade and replace the old system with the new Stage One. Still they were given the run-around by Klipsch/Aragon customer service. Read the article; it's quite depressing. http://www.audioholics.com/FAQs/aragon.html Audioholics also posted the official "response" from Joshua Hall at Klipsch, which is embarrassing. It's all bluster and no substance, acting hurt and angry without effectively disputing the major claims made by Audioholics. Audioholics responded simply, including this: "Post Klipsch Aragon has reneged on sending us promised product, despite the fact that we were paying customers, so that we could provide our readership the answers they requested. Mr. Hall's ridiculous notion that we were set on negatively critiquing the unit is silly considering we were planning on replacing our existing Aragon Soundstage in Reference System One with the Stage One." So, yes, Klipsch is likely to get a biased or incompetent review of the KHorns, but it has been reluctant to provide product even to reviewers who chose to purchase the product rather than getting a free loaner system for testing. I hope that Klipsch cooperates in providing its equipment to reviewers, but we shouldn't need the blessings of a reviewer to enjoy our speakers. We have our own ears and our own tastes.

You are not supposed to use steel wool around speakers. Use those scouring pads (similar to a spounge in size and shape) that they sell in the paint section of Home Depot, sort of like the rougher green kitchen scouring ones. Satin finish poly is still pretty shiny. You don't want to go glossier than that.

Thanks for the interesting post. Because rock drives so much of the market, I find the heavy bass in most speakers unreal, unnerving, and muddy. I listened to KF-2s and KG 3.5s together recently and the 3.5s sounded so much clearer because of the lesser amount of bass. I also listened to Khorns, RB-75s, and RF-7s recently and I thought that the RB-75s sounded almost as good as the RF-7s, despite being bookshelf speakers and having much less bass. I like the LaScalas (bought a set once that I used in an auditorium for movies), but they seem a bit bass-shy, compared to the K-horns. I am in the process of buying some Quartets, which I haven't heard yet. Your post makes me a little worried that I should be getting Heresys instead. I have a single Heresy speaker (its mate was stolen 20 years ago) and I like its clean sound. If they weren't so squat, I might be getting them instead. I never found the combination of horns and cone bass to sound odd or unreal. For those of use who listen mostly to classical and folk, the big-bass speakers sound like too much. If my Quartets are too aggressive in the bass, then I'll probably cover up the rear passive radiator in some way.

---------------- On 8/21/2004 2:39:30 PM Gilbert wrote: ... PARALLEL: In a parallel setup, the positive wire comming out of you amp will feed into the positives terminals of both speakers (i.e. both speakers will share the exact same signal strength. The negative wire is connected the same way. The trick to a paralllel setup is to have an amp with enough guts to drive the new impedance or resistive load. For example, if both your speakers are 8 ohmns, and you hook them up in parallel, the new equivalent resistance as seen by the amp is 4 ohmns. 4 ohmns will suck more current for a given voltage. Twice as much to be exact. SERIES: With a series setup you connect the positive output from your amp into the positive terminal of the 1st. speaker, then from the 1st speaker connect a wire from it's negative terminal to the positive terminal of the 2nd speaker. The negative terminal from the 2nd speaker will connect back into the negative terminal on the amp. In this kind of setup, the amp will see 8 + 8 = 16 ohmns. With type of connection, both speakers will see half the total voltage output from your amp. Which means the signal strength seen from the speaker will be halved, compared to a parallel setup. A series setup will be easier on your amp than a parallel setup. ... ---------------- 1. What about an older amp (Denon or Luxman) that has a speaker selector switch so you can run a pair off the Speaker A setting and a pair off the speaker B setting, then run all 4 speakers at once off A+B. I assume that one doesn't need to worry about getting back to 8 ohms with that setting (assuming you have power to spare). That brings me to the second (and third) possibility: 2. What about running a pair off the A speakers and a Heresy center speaker on mono off the B speakers at the same time? If I add 4 ohm resistors on both the Left & Right output going to the mono center speaker, then I could get back to 8 ohms. Right? Would a variable volume control (from Radio Shack, I think they are called an L-panel) betwen the amp and the center speaker do the same thing as a resistor--and allow me to adjust the volume of the center Heresy as well? 3. Or would it be better to use a second amp--running a set of RCA plugs from the TAPE OUT of the first amp to the TAPE IN of the second amp and running the center speaker out of the second amp (with 4 ohm resistors on both Left and Right channels to up the resistance to 8 ohms again). Thanks for any advice on any of these questions.

---------------- On 8/22/2004 9:45:11 AM v3pcbl wrote: The silver one with the smaller drivers...It looks like its not horn loaded (unless the top is a round horn? Does anyone know? Would this be the first non-horn loaded klipsch? ---------------- The low end of the KG line did not have horns. For example, the KG 2.5 and below had only cones.

Wanted: Quartets for pickup in Midwest: With so many of you Klipsch junkies with so many different pairs of speakers, does anyone within about 250 miles of Chicago have a pair of Quartet speakers in good condition that they would like to sell? I done with buying speakers that need to be shipped, subject as they are to the vagaries of packers and delivery guys. I'd like to find a pair of Quartets within a 4 hour drive of Chicago. Jim

Wanted: Quartets for pickup in Midwest With so many of you Klipsch junkies with so many different pairs of speakers, does anyone within about 250 miles of Chicago have a pair of Quartet speakers in good condition that they would like to sell? I done with buying speakers that need to be shipped, subject as they are to the vagaries of packers and delivery guys. I'd like to find a pair of Quartets within a 4 hour drive of Chicago. Jim

Klipsch has very few parts listed on their website. I wonder if anyone knows if replacement grilles are available for a KG 3.5 (made 1994-97)? Also, what about those screw-in plastic/rubber feet (4 feet under each speaker)? Is there a way to get a replacement of one of these? What has been your experience dealing with Klipsch on parts for discontinued 1990s models? Are their prices high?

You said you wanted to hook up both the Heresies and the Fortes at the same time. Obviously, you don't have an amp setup that can do A + B speakers at the same time through the same amp, and don't want to buy a new amp to use as your primary power source for your speakers. Here is another solution that I have seen mentioned on some boards. Use (or buy on Ebay for less than $100) a (second) integrated amp. Out of your current amp, run an RCA set from TAPE OUT to the TAPE IN of your second amp. Then run the second set of speakers out of your second amp. Then you can adjust the volume on your second amp to a slightly softer volume level so it adds, rather than dominates the first set of speakers. I haven't done this, but supposedly it sounds great and the sound quality is usually better than that coming from multichannel amps.