Blackmesa

I'll write up a formal review in a few days. Initial impressions: RSX-3's are impressive and mimic the 4's and 5's quite well. The subwoofer is a lot like the SWS with more cabinet volume and a much better driver. One thing that I like a lot about the system is how well the sub blends. Initially you may think its kind of weak because its actually linear with the speakers at default volume. It ends up sounding very transparent and smooth and there is absolutly no port noise to be heard even at high volumes. When you crank it up, you'll be reminded of its SWS/Reference heritage coming together with elegance. This system leaves all other ipod systems in the dust + some. I have the older 2.1s to do a comparison too, but I wish I still had my SWS. I also have the other RSXs to take some pictures against.

---------------- On 6/23/2005 2:31:22 PM neo33 wrote: What does audio have anything to do with praying? ---------------- Nothing unless you owned the 2001-2003 Promedia 5.1's

Someone really needs to do a compare of the KW-120 against the PB12-Ultra (in an appropriate wood finish). I would like to the performance of the 120 with the klipsch amp and a third party amp thats less money to make it closer to the SVS in price. Would be a good dual!

agreed

I dont believe in the bose products, but I am absolutely mesmerized by their marketing success. I honestly look up to them in that regard. How they can sell a 50 dollar wave radio for 500 dollars, have it sound no better than a cheap pair of desktop speakers and yet still get 99.9% of their buyers to think it sounds better Its borderline brainwashing.. but genius indeed! If you take a closer look, bose actually charge a higher price for their smaller speakers. As if "smaller" or "micro" is the "wave" of the future.. Smaller is better because technology is changing right? Actually speakers have not changed hardly at all in over 60 years. Take a look at the 321 Series II DVD home entertainment system. MSRP 1000 dollars. And the 321 GS Series II DVD home entertainment system retails for 1300 (300 more dollars). What is the difference? The more expensive system has smaller speakers which granted, I have not compared either system, but I can not see how in a million years a smaller speaker of the same design by the same manufacture would yield to better sound quality over the larger one. The only thing they could do is perhaps make the xmax of the driver, higher to achieve the same SPL. They would also have to pump up the amp and bose claims the 1300 dollar ones are more powerful which means just that. So essentially you'll get at best, similar sound quality for 300 more money to shave a few inches off an already tiny speaker. But thats not where it ends. People actually believe the smaller ones sound better. Like they have some sort of magical technological breakthrough different from all other speakers! Honesty, how many people actually know how a loud speaker really works? 1 in a 1000 I would speculate. The common public is easily persuaded by the promising words of uniqueness and quality, backed by thousands of trademarks and patents which work together to create the fabric of the Bose market manipulation layer! Its freaking genius! Someone quote me, Im on a roll! The Lifestyles are no different. That 4000 dollar model actually features smaller Jewel cubes than all the other models. I have actually had the opportunity to compare the larger cube to the new smaller one. There is a pretty big distinction in favor of the older larger ones, and yet people still want the smaller ones because they think it sounds better and also, it just so happens to fit into any home because its so Virtually Invisible. The Wife Approval Factor is unchallenged when it comes to Bose, so you know everyone will be happy with the purchase. Its true form follows function as Frank Lloyd Write would put it (yeah right no pun intended) with the bose Jewel cube, small, accurate and ideal! But the truth is, the speaker is a far cry from anything in its price range even holding the size constant, Klipsch own RSX-3s would be a deadly opponent for any Jewel Cube. Bose is dead last for value and close to dead last for sound quality. Fortunately, most of the products bose competes against are Sony and Panasonic IAB (In a box) solutions that are plagued with cheap construction which makes the bose look so much more appealing. Someone ought to write a book about the company and cover all aspects, but I wonder if that would be illegal to prophet from that kind of thing? Does anyone know? hahah klipsch is gonna get in trouble for hosting this thread ;p

---------------- On 6/21/2005 3:21:23 PM bigrol21 wrote: Ok, I notice that Klipsch fanatics disapprove with everything Bose. How do my Reference-25 series equipment compare with their products? I tries to look it up but I could not find a good list of spec for the Bose speakers. ---------------- Bose has no specs because they all pretty much work against marketing their speakers because the specs themselves are less than impressive for the price of they ask for their products. Bose claims specs dont relate to sound quality.. which ultimately dont because the formula for hi fidelity is too complex to be summarized by a few numbers; however, generally better specs are associated with better speakers. The only thing that bose may be able to compare to RF-25's are the 901's which are probably their only decent speakers, but the design of the 901's (imo) is retarded. They rely on 8 drivers firing away from you, and one driver firing at you. So most of the sound is pretty much reflected sound. If you dont have walls that are good reflectors (ie, glass or brick or stone) then the speakers pretty much suck. Furthermore, what is the freaking point of reflecting the sound first, when the speaker could just be turned around and facing you? The idea is that is provides more.. off axis and ambient presence with an added touch of reverberation acoustic life like soun.. blah blah blah.. I call it distortion and its nothing a cheap AC 97 PCI soundcard mated with EAX or otherwise cant do, seriously who cares. If you are not listening to speakers in ideal positions then the stereo imaging is already compromised, so whats the point? I'd take RF-25's over 901's. Beyond that, bose has nothing on your speakers.

---------------- On 6/21/2005 11:09:31 AM kenratboy wrote: Hmmm: 12" SVS ISD driver - .6" 12" Klipsch SUB-12 driver - .75" Both use powerful amps, a big box, large port, etc. I'm getting two and eating some Ramen to cover the difference ---------------- haha, that has got to be quote of the month!

---------------- On 6/21/2005 9:43:25 AM Deon Bearden wrote: ---------------- On 6/20/2005 7:04:36 PM Blackmesa wrote: But I did stick my hand under the sub-12 when I was pushing it hard and it felt like it was moving pretty far (kind of hurt my finger), but I honestly have no idea how far or how much air it moves. ---------------- ~ ~ 3/4" linear one way, with over 1" (32mm)clearance. Moves a lot of air, there's a reason we tooled such a huge port. ---------------- WOW!

LOL, I was bored to I started to copy and base the bose webpages into a notepad, then I proceeded to a replace all in Word... I only got through the home theater , stereo, outdoor, and multimedia pages.. The accessories, professional sound, car audio and whatever other crap is on that site was not even included. I would say I copied about 1/6th of the entire website, then I got bored. 904 ® symbols I estimate over 4000-5000 uses of that symbol just on their website alone. If you goto klipsch.com you'll see only 1 on the front page.. and its in the logo, its not even text, its a picture. By the way, I could not count the ®'s in the pictures on the bose site!

I have to admit, I find my self in a jam.. I was among family last weekend as they were discussing their new bose systems. I felt like I was dishonest by holding in my feelings (along with the truth) but at the same time, I would literally have to hurt their egos and pretty much tell them they are naive if I were to come forward. I think I need psychologist to help me talk through my feelings with my other family members about bose. I have not confronted them yet. What do I do?

Promedia V2.400's (4.1s) turned me on to klipsch. Those speakers actually revolutionized the multimedia speaker market.

---------------- On 6/20/2005 11:24:09 PM jacksonbart wrote: What real wood veneers choices do you have that you you get them in? That looks like the black wood from the Dark Forest in Germany, is it? ---------------- No you see, with Bose® Lifestyle® premium systems its all about Virtually Invisible®.. Having wood veneers would make the Acustimass® Jewel Cubes® stand out and therefore less appealing. You can choose from white®, black® or grey® to blend in to your home decor. You'll hardly notice them! And with Direct Reflect® technology, youll be guaranteed the highest sound quality for amazing life like realism backed by Bose® quality you can count on.

---------------- On 6/20/2005 11:21:53 PM Seadog wrote: $3699 for that?!!! They should be ashamed for charging so much for so little. ---------------- It's not 3699, They have a "sale" until august 6, read the gold letter on the right, LOL. also, FYI, thoes are the mini bose sats. tehy are only 4" tall and 2" wide, I think they employ 1.5" paper cone drivers AMAZING SOUND STAGE...ONLY 4000 dollars Also, the cinema 6 retails for 999, I would love to see a head to head against the acustamass 10.. which is not any bigger in size.

Men's Fitenss magazine are now "professionals" when reviewing audio! more trademark fun!

Some subwoofers have only two phase settings 0 or 180. More expensive subwoofers give you a range from 0-180 degrees. So you can make minor corrections to "line up" the peaks and crests of the two sound sources that have slightly different distances from listing position. When you have two sources at different distances, they combine at different phases so you may not get the peaks and crests of the waves lining up thus not giving you the maximum constructing gain from two waves colliding. In fact, if they are 100% out of phase. (180 degrees from each other) then you'll liky get destructive interference and ultimately have less sound than a single source This explains phase "delay" http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/filters/Phase_Delay.html

Thanks Amy, I feel like my cries have been answered! It makes sense now that the store is unique.. I guess we all learned something.

Its not better, but I think its louder. The RW-12 has a Cerametallic cone vs a Paper composite. The RW-12 has a little bit low FR response and of course it comes in a wood laminate finish, which Im actually not crazy about. The RSW are real wood veneer I believe.

I think you'll have to go with two to get that ear to ear smile. The sub you have now has the same size driver and only 50 less watts. I'd bet the sub12 can move more air but I think you'll need two of them make it a very noticeable upgrade. Plus, youll get to play around with non colocation which a lot of people dont get to do! I think two of those things would give a PB12-ISD/2 some competition. Of course , those ISD drivers move about 0.6 one way which is a quit a bit. But I did stick my hand under the sub-12 when I was pushing it hard and it felt like it was moving pretty far (kind of hurt my finger), but I honestly have no idea how far or how much air it moves.

well jay, may I recommend reading my entire post before replying.. that wau you dont have to write 4 separate replies each time you fly off the handle about sometimes immaterial I said. Anyway, I'm you honestly think 400 dollars is petty cash, perhaps you're being paid too much for your job. 50 to 1 is amazing (bose to Klipsch sales). I absolutely hate the sounddock...I can't believe how uniformed people are. I would be shocked if a sounddock cost more than 20 dollars to manufacture... simply amazing. We need someone like you at our apple store to promote klispch.. And no, the guy did not laugh at me for saying I wanted to hear it first, he simply did not care. And to be honest, I had already heard it, and I was not in the market for it because I Have no use for it. I simply wanted to hear it in a smaller room (yes the apple store was tiny compared to compusa). I have no idea if this store is a flagship whatever store. Its pretty big. I did not get my tape measure out --Im sorry, jesus Christ!. Here is a picture of it so you can see for yourself it was not small

understood. I should also say that the walnut creek store is a full apple store, not a mini one.

If you have a second subwoofer, and even so, it would be rare you would need to invert the phase. It basically adds a delay in the output so that the waves line up better and give you true constructive interference. The only reason to invert the phase is if one of the subwoofers is really far away from the other, relative to the listening position and still it may not be ideal to change the phase on one. Normally there is a variable phase control from 0-180 to fine tune the phase adjustments from one sub to the next. But if the subwoofers are equal distance to you, then there should be no phase differences between them and they should be both have the same phase shift. You also may need to adjust the phase if your main speakers dip into your bass a little. Again, this all has to do with distance from listening position.

So I decide to take 45 minutes of my life and drive over the apple store and check out the iFi after phoning in and making sure they had it. I get in the store and its crowed as hell. I did not see the iFi on display anywhere, but I did notice they had all the regular iPod speaker systems on display on a huge table! They had the bose sounddock and the Altec iM7 and the JBL onstage. I played with them all, the bose was about as wild as a Saturday night bingo game in the cafeteria of a retirement community, it was pretty weak for 300 bucks but I had already heard it and knew what to expect. The onstage was similar, but off key! It had no bass and over exaggerated high end which made it seem very edgy and harsh. It was very annoying and I begged for it to be turned off. The iM7 was sort of the opposite of the onstage which over exaggerated the mid bass and made it very boomy. Its midrange was shadowed by this unnatural boom in the 100hrz area... I did not like it. Where was the iFi? No where to be seen on display or even in the box. There was plenty of room next to all the other speakers. I waited around for about 25 minutes to get one of thoes *******s to help me. I asked a few of them who were running around and they gave me rude short answers.. something to the extent of.. "I'm busy. I then got in line and waiting like I was going to pay for something, and that seemed to work. When I got to the front of the counter I asked where the iFi was and young guy.. who was fairly nice, said he did not know what it was. I explained it was a Klipsch speaker system and he directed me to the Promedia 2.0's. I said no, this was not a Promedia system, it was an ipod exclusive system. While he was on the radio I told him I wanted to hear the system because I would lay down 400 dollars for it otherwise. He said "oh we cant let you do that if its not on display." Being disappoint, yet polite I said thank you anyway and left. Now... who in their right minds would expect any customer to pay 400 bucks for something that they can't even see! Everything in the Apple store is on display.. that's the entire point of the apple store! Furthermore, no one even knows about the iFi, not even the store employees. When I called in, they lady had no idea and she had to look it up! So how are customers, who are supposed to be less knowledgeable about a products, supposed to guess a stores backroom inventory? No one in that entire store knew what the iFi was or had even seen one before. That store won't sell a single unit if they dont put it on display and they wont even sell it to someone who knows what it is if they can't hear it! Amy or Andy, I don't who is in charge of distribution, but there were hundreds of people passing through this store today and Im sure a few would have bought the iFi for Fathers day! But that won't happen this year in Walnut Creek, CA, which for your information probably has the highest concentration of wealthy shoppers in the country.. This is a major let down for me. Here is the store, you can tell em what I said. Apple Store Walnut Creek (925) 210-2020 1129 S Main St Walnut Creek, CA 94596 On a positive note I went and played with the 2.0s. I was highly impressed with the volume and bass these things were able to achieve! I was expecting a lot less from the low end so when I heard them I became excited! I turned the apple up to full volume, then I turned the 2.0s up to full volume.. and they did not distort and rocked pretty damn hard. Very good midrange and treble! They far better and more accurate than any of the iPod speaker systems and they were a lot less money! Kudos to Klipsch for those speakers, Im still waiting to get a fair trial for the iFis

looks like they are trying to merge WAF with hifi. not too bad, but very expensive, Are thoes 40+ way speakers I see? wow!

kenratboy, where do you work?

thx 4 for the info Andy.