zekey

No, but FWIW, I use a TacT RCS 2.2XP room correction preamp and S 2150 digital power amp with RF-7's and a sub. I consider it a "killer" combination and one of hifi's best-kept secrets. Most TacT users wouldn't consider Klipsch and vice-versa, so I think I'm just lucky to have stumbled on this very synergistic combo. I won't change until I can afford Avantgardes, and then only if a careful listen convinces me it's worth the $$ involved in that upgrade.

Unfortunately, I don't think so. One weird thing - the driver I took out is labelled k-67-kv instead of k-67-dv. I thought the k-67 kv was meant to go in the RC-7's. Does anyone know if there is any difference between the two?

Unfortunately, tonight I had a bad experience with a TacT 2.2XP room correction preamp playing up and putting out (via power amps, of course) some full-volume, bizarre distorted soung thru my speakers. The driver excusion was unbelievable and the noise was horrendous.....my ears are still ringing! It tok a good few seconds to turn off the amps. The sad bit is that the RF-7 compression tweeters seem to be dead in both speakers. As it's Friday nite where I am in South Australia, I'll have to wait until Monday to see if the Australian distributor has spares or maybe I can import them direct from Klipsch. I'll have to find out what the distribution arrangements are for spares in Oz. Does anyone have a rough idea of the cost and availability of those drivers?

Here's a nice, genuine one........but it's pick-up only (or arrange own courier) from Sydney Australia! http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Thorens-turntable-TD-124-SME-arm_W0QQitemZ9721505744QQcategoryZ3283QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and ideas. To some extent, my post was symptomatic of "a rush of blood to the head". I had just seen the Sonus Fabers at a price that seemed too good to be true......and of course it was. They're not totally out of the question, but I'd need to love them to consider making the change. Similarly, a bit of price checking on the Avantgardes tells me I could only afford the "budget specials". I'll keep a close eye on the RF-83's, which had slipped under my radar.....OK, I haven't been reading the forum as avidly just lately as at some times in the past! checking at my local Klipsch dealer (where I bought my RF-7's) reveals they are unlikely to stock them - they seem to be pushing the Energy Veritas range. Some other brands that I can listen to locally include B&W, JM labs, Sonique and Sonus Faber. A lot of speakers that could be right for me will involve an interstate trip (up to about 700 miles) to audition. And the truth is that I hate auditioning speakers - like I hate test-driving cars. It's silly 'cos I love listening and driving. I just hate the decision-making process. I rarely seem to be able to get enough info from the listening session to be sure I'm making the right choice. Among other things the mood i'm in, whether I'm tired or hungry, the surroundings etc seem to have too much influence on the very subjective listening experience. Occasionally I'm lucky enough to trip over something that's just right - as in the Apogee Centaurs I bought in the early 80's or the klipsch RF-3's I bought a few years ago and later upgraded to the RF-7's 'cos I could afford something bigger and better! I can't help having a sneaking feeling that the 3's were "righter for me" than the 7's - but I want to upgrade rather than downgrade. So I really appreciate all your help in narrowing down the search and even making suggestions from left field. But Khorns aren't an option as I don't have useful corners in my listening room which is one corner of a 40 foot by 27 foot relatively open plan living area with split levels and raked ceilings. Sorry if I'm raving on a bit, but I guess the more info I provide the more likely I am to get the sort of advice that will help me narrow the field and find my ideal without making a nuisance of myself on an extended basis in every hifi shop in Adelaide. If I figure out how to post pics I'll include one that should show why the Khorns, Belles etc wouldn't fit the physical layout of the room.

Hi. I live in Adelaide, South Australia and I've been an avid reader (and occasional poster) on this forum for some years. Now I'm looking for some suggestions and ideas. I currently have RF-7's which i use with a TacT room correction preamp and the power amp section of a Musical Fidelity A308 integrated. The upgrade bug has struck and I can afford to spend a bit on better speakers. I've looked at a few over the past few months, but preferred the "liveness" of the Klipsch. But the obvious upgrade (heritage line) is not available to me as they are very rare downunder and I have some space and WAF constraints. I'd appreciate any suggestions of efficient, live-sounding speakers with a "big" sound that are reasonably mainstream so they are likely to be available in Australia. I'm happy to spend up to about double the cost of the RF-7's - possibly more. What I really want is the good aspects of the RF-7's in a more refined, higher quality package. Maybe it doesn't exist? The aspect of the RF-7's that I would most like to improve on is the quality of the midrange, which is very important to me. Treble quality is also up there on the priorities. Perhaps I'm asking what other RF-7 owners aspire to so I can get a list of speakers that are worth hunting down and having a listen to (which could mean travelling interstate - Adelaide's a bit of an audio backwater) I heard some Verity Audio Sarastro's in Melbourne and loved them, but the price tag of $60,000.00 AUD ruled them out! The Sonus Faber Cremonas are available locally at a reasonable price. Anyone had the chance to compare them to the RF-7's? Or perhaps I should stick with horns and try to have a listen to Avantgarde Duo's, which might run into WAF problems! EDIT - Unfortunately, I have to take the Sonus Faber Cremonas off the shortlist. The local website I was looking at linked to the USA Sumiko site and I didn't realise this was happening. So, I was looking at prices in US$ and thinking AU$!

Yep, I tend to agree with that. I'm sure 100 quality watts would be more than adequate in any domestic living environment. Watts don't have a lot to do with the really important parameters such as current capacity. Give me 50 watts of high quality amp that can double its output with each halving of impedence over an overhyped megawatt monstrosity anyday. My nephew's new $50.00 boombox has a big sticker on the front saying 400 watts. But it signifies nothing.....and is sadly lacking even in sound and fury!

The amps I have used are an ME850 (Australian manufacture - only 120WPC but massive current capacity) and a Musical Fidelity A308 (power amp section only in use). I use the TacT as a digital preamp and dac. I really can't see any power amp correcting the in-room frequency response abherrations (due to both the speakers and room interactions) that I saw with the TacT computer software. Maybe I sound like a zealot, but I have no affiliation with TacT. I just know I'll never be tactless again as their RCS systems are IMHO the best bit of hifi equipment I've ever stumbled across. And you get genuinely useful tone control as a bonus!

As someone who traded RF3's for RF7's with the expectation they would be the same but bigger and better, I can relate to this thread. The RF7's are certainly bigger and have the signature Klipsh "liveness" in spades - they rock! So, why wasn't I happy? Well, they could sound a bit thin in the midrange and occasionally strident in my room. They just didn't sound as nicely full and rounded as the RF3's, especially on vocals and female vocal in particular. My solution (and I'm a bit surprised so few USA-based people have gone down this track) was to add a TacT room correction pre-amp into the equation. I had to import it from the US to Australia and I only got the entry-level factory-refurbished RCS 2.0. Now can have just about any speaker characteristics I choose with all correction being done in the digital domain so it doesn't have any significant detrimental effect on the sound. In a previous thread, I described the in-room response of the RF7's as measured by the TacT in my listening environment. Yes, it was a bit ragged with a few nasty dips and peaks. But the TacT fixes all that and the overall resut is outstanding. A dog trainer once told me when selecting a pup that you can train a dog with spirit to be anything you want. But you can't do anything with a dog that doesn't have much spirit to start with - except maybe have a docile and passive pet. I can see this as an analogy to the RF7's - spirit in abundance (efficiency + a big forward open in-yer-face sound) that can be tamed to produce just about anything you could want in a big floor-standing speaker. The only thing I want now is a bit more refinement in construction and appearance. Bring on the Premiere series, please!

Thanks for the responses, everyone. Dean, I'll email you directly.

Given the speakers have a black finish, I think you could surprise yourself with the outcome of a bit of inventive "plastic surgery". At the very least you should be able to fill and colour the dent to the extent that it would be invisible unless you or someone else looked for it. I did this to a much smaller dent on the rear top corner of the RF-3's I sold. I experimented with various combinations of epoxy filler, fine sandpaper black gasket silicone and black wood dye and satin clear polyurethane until I got the appearance I thought was close to the original finish. I told the buyer there was a dent I had fixed before he agreed to buy them. When he couldn't find it, I pointed it out to him. Although he could then clearly see it, I had at least demonstrated that it wasn't a real problem.

I've just done a further careful comparison of the RF-7's with and without the TacT room correction to renew my perspective. It really is magic and it helps to get the very best out of these speakers. I know many of you believe the RF-7 compares with speakers at many times the price and I agree with this, but only with the TacT in the system (especially when it comes to music other than rock). Given that it seems to me to be a marriage made in heaven and both Klipsch and TacT are USA based (at least one "branch" of TacT), I can't help being surprised that I haven't seen much about the two brands together. Most of the TacT people on their very active international discussion forum are using more esoteric equipment, but I think this just unnecessary when the "in-room" sound is being corrected. I think the best idea is to use big, efficient speakers like the RF-7 and let the RCS pre-amp tailor the finer details of the sound to suit. Surely someone out there has experienced what I'm on about?

Gooday all. There's a lot in this thread that I can identify with. I live in South Australia and I have been a fan if the "Klipsch sound" ever since I sold a pair of Sonus Faber Elector Amator 2's and kept the RF3's that I had only bought for my (then) teenage son to use for parties. Past speakers have also included big Duntechs and Apogee hybrid ribbons. Like "Imperfect" I traded up to RF7's on the assumption that they would be "like the RF3's but bigger and better". To a large extent, this was true, but something about the RF7's has never sounded exactly right to me, but I haven't had the expertise to pin down what it is. My best guess was a slight "thinness" in the midrange with a tad of aggression in the top frequencies. The trademark Klipsh immediacy and "liveness" is there in spades though. I've come to realise that I value this characteristic very highly. I investigated getting Dean's modified crossovers sent over to Oz, but procrastinated for a while and then invested in a TacT room correction preamp (sent from USA), with which I use the power amp section of a Musical Fidelity A308 integrated. The TacT in-room frequency measurements show a top end that is certainly not flat. In the higher frequency ranges, there is a trough of about -4dB which is centred at about 3500 Hz in one speaker and -6dB centred at about 4000 Hz in the other. Both show a broad peak of about +5 dB centred at about 10 Khz (I hope I'm reading the logrithmic scale correctly). With the TacT correction in operation and the frequency response moved closer to flat, it all sounds much cleaner, smoother and more accurate, though possibly a touch less involving on some tracks. Movie soundtracks are much cleaner and less "artificially hifi" sounding. I recently listened to Paradigms (studio 100v3) and Ambience hybrid ribbons (big, expensive, made in Australia and a remarkable 96 dB efficiency due to neodynium magnets in the ribbon section) I thought the Paradigms were too laid-back, but I loved the Ambiences. However, my wife didn't think they sounded as "gutsy" or as live as the Klipsch. Part of the problem might have been that I didn't dare push them to the same (insane) SPL's in the showroom that are sometimes used at home for fear of causing aggro with the salesguy. Coming home and listening to the Klipsh, I concluded that I might have upgraded to the Ambiences if I didn't have the TacT to work its magic. As it is, I think I'll hang onto the RF7's and live in hope that the Premiere series might hold the cure for my ongoing chronic upgraditis. Sorry for the rambling, but I thought it might be needed as background to the following questions: 1. Has anyone else heard TacT room correction equipment(www.tactaudio.com) with Klipsch and what were your experiences. 2. Does the use of this level of room correction make Dean's crossover mods redundant or would they still be worthwhile. Obviously, your own opinion on this would be highly valued, Dean. 3. Any tips on stowing away on an international flight. (I want to go on one of the Klipsch factory pilgrimages...be nice to bring a pair of Khorns home with me too...."carry-on" luggage??!) All comments appreciated Cheers to everyone on this great forum and thanks to Klipsch Tony M PS Isn't a/d/s the company that bought Apogee Acoustics and then immediatly dropped the line.