skonopa

I will be going to this - I'll be just driving up that morning straight from Fredericksburg. I actually managed to free up my skiing schedule to be able to attend this, so I am excited to get to see everybody as well as getting to attend what is looking like is going to be an excellent performance. [8] Hopefully no major snow storm like what happened two years ago (that prevented me from attending). Does not look like there will be. This will be a very nice prelude before I head off to Aspen later that week. [H]

I just checked the news during the half-time of the Baltimore-New England game and saw this annoucement. Wow indeed! I had a lot of respect for Joe Pa (and having grown up in Western PA, and was even accepted into Penn State, decided to go to Clarion instead), I was a big fan of Penn State football. I still remember to this day that stunning victory over Florida all those years ago. Shame that his legacy had to end on such a bad note, with that huge scandal and all. RIP, Joe Paternal.

I have my RF-7s set to "Large" as well. I've played around with this back when I first got my rig and just found I liked the sound of it much better with the fronts set to "Large". I have the rears set to small in an HT configuration, however. Again, this was after much experimentation and came to what I felt sounded the best to me given my particular setup and room.

All I can do is pretty much parrot what everybody else already said! That is all too awesome and I bet he will cherish those things for the rest of his life. Those KHorns really look beautiful in that room as well. Pretty sweet on getting a pair of Jubs for yourself as well. Having served in the Army myself for 6 years, definitely thank you for your service as well. Congrats and an awesome job and a very Merry Christmas to you. You and your parents are certainly blessed. Looking forward to getting to see my own this next weekend over Christmas myself.

After reading this, I am now awaiting with some anticipation! My guess is that that his father did come home and they are to excited to be playing around with those things to even bother with the forum right now. I know that if I came home from work and walked into that, I would be thrilled! Esepcially if I've never even knew what was awaiting me at the house. That is awesome (and how I thought about my own mother spazzing out after I got her an iPad.) I wish I could do something like that for my parents, but they just would not appreciate that. I actually did offer to install a surround sound system for them as a gift one Christmas and they were just not the least bit interested. But, Wow! What an incredible gift there. I can't wait to see how this all ended up playing out. I can only imagine the how that guy must've felt when walking into that house after another hard day at work and being greeted by his son standing there with a $#!+-eating grin on his face with a pair of KHorns setup in that room!. []

Nothing like spreading the faith there bro! [] Just last week, I had a co-worker that wanted to take a look at this air-hockey table I have in the basement that I am getting rid of that he wants to buy off of me. After looking at the air-hokey table, we went upstairs and he saw my rig, and of course, he wanted to listen to it. He is more into movies than music, so he asked me if I had The Matrix. Of course, I did! Hell, that was one of the first movies I tried after I originally got this rig all setup and running. So I put it in and he immediatly took the remote to the DVD player and knew exactly what scene he wanted to try. Needless to say, he was completely blown away at how awesome this thing sounded. He could not believe just how clear and clean everything sounded. Bear in mind that he just has some Bose rig at his place (complete with the little cubes and the "bass module". I know, as I helped him install it a couple of X-mases ago), and then listening on a full-sized Klipsch rig. Might as well compare a Fiat to a Ferrari there. He already had the Bose (well, actually his wife), but I told him he may want to consider some Klipsch since he really liked the sound of my rig, if he ever needs to replace his setup (i.e., lightening ends up taking it out, for example) and showed him on the website that there are Klipsch products that are not much larger than the Bose cubes, but sounds an order of magnitude better and often for less, plus he would have a "real" subwoofer, not just some "bass module". Also to add - all this talk about Heritage. Oh hell, yeah! If you get a chance to hear a good Heritage rig, do so! To many, the Heritage is typically about as pure of a "Klipsch Experience" as you will get out of a speaker. However, that being said, after having listened to some really nice Heritage rigs, including the much vaunted Jubilees, I am still blown away at just how good my RF-7s still sound, with my solid-state B&K Reference amp! At the few watts that I am probably only using, I am running in class-A and still get a very tube-like sound out of these things. But, believe me, I am still lusting after a pair of KHorns, but that is going to have to wait until I get my basement situation straigtened out. Yeah, nothing like dropping $7,500 to get my basement drainage situation fixed, but will have wait to spring as they really cannot do that kind of work in the winter. Plus whatever it will take to refinish/renovate down there (most likely what is currently down there will probably have to be all torn out and re-done).

I am not married, so I don't have a wife to blame, but unfortunatly, the only real place I could put a Christmas tree up in this room is right in front of one of my speakers... I can definitly relate in that aspect though. Oh well, does not seem to really effect the sound, though. Wonder if there is such thing as an "acoustically transparent" Christmas tree. []

Speakers out of phase means that, when two speakers out of phase are given an identical signal, they act in opposite directions -- one speaker cone pushes the air while the other pulls back. The basic effect of this is that the two drivers partially cancel each other, particularly in the bass because those waves are very large. The other effect is to create a "hole in the middle" where, instead of blending, the sound seems to be distant and to jump abruptly from one speaker to another, playing havoc with localizing singers and instruments.In phase reduces or eliminates these bad effects. http://www.richardfarrar.com/are-your-speakers-wired-correctly/ -- scroll down to the "speaker phasing test" and click the arrow. All you have to do to check it out is switch the "positive" and "negative" wires on ONE side. You'll hear what I describe in one of those 2 arrangements. It gets much more complicated if only one driver is out of phase, e.g., inside the network. Only your bass drivers might be out of phase, and tracking it down might mean reversing ONE pair of only the wires going to the woofer. Does that help? The short answer after this very nice explaination is make sure you did not accidently hook up one of the speakers "backwards". That is, make sure the '+' goes to the '+' and the '-' goes to the '-' on each side. Most typically speaker wire has some kind of marking or color coding on one lead, (typically black and red). Thus, if you use black for the "+", on the amp end, make sure the black lead is also on the "+" on the speaker end as well for both sides. Like wise for the red going to "-" on both the amp and speaker on both sides. If you get these connections reversed from one side to the other (i.e, if the left side had black to "+", but the right side had the black to the "-"), than you get the situation of being out of phase as explained above.

I have a pair of RF-5s that I bought back when Tweeter were blowing out Klipsch speakers that one year. I paid $900 for a brand-new pair at the time (2002 or '03?). I still have them and use them as side surrounds with my 6.1 RF-7 rig. They are really nice speakers. The problem with the RF-5s was they kinda the bastard child of the early 2000 era Reference line. Most folks went with the RF-3s thinking that the price premium to the extra little bit of performance was not worth it to get the RF-5s, and then if somebody did want to upgrade, they were going to go right for the RF-7s. Still, I would think the $500-$700 range would probably be what a good pair would be worth today. If they are talking the newer, re-released versions, it would probably be $800 to $900 (at least that would be the most I'd pay). As was noted, RF-7s from the same era typically would be around $800 to $900 a pair as well. Now, the RF-7 II are a different story. I would be hard pressed to find a pair for less than $2000 on the second-hand market, if you can even find them. However, the RF-5s are smaller than the RF-7s as well, so they will probably be easier to fit in many rooms:

But then you call it a sport! [] Looks like somebody needs to get thier computer checked. Seems that there is a nut loose on the keyboard. [6]

This is why there are four basic questions that I ask of somebody that is looking for recommendations: What is your budget, i.e., how much are you willing to spend on this? Corallory is how flexible are you on the budget, in that could you swing the extra $50 or $100 to get the item that is just one up from the model you are looking at that may actually work out better for you in the long run? What do you plan on primarily listening to on this, i.e, your musical tastes, or even planning on watching movies using this rig? What kind of room are you putting this in? For some folks, the big Heritage/horns are just not going to work out and something from the Reference line may be better served for a particular space. That is certainly the case for me, which is why I have RF-7s instead of KHorns or even Cornwalls in my rig. What pieces do you currently have that you wish to use in your rig? Some folks may already have a really nice amp they want to keep, but want to find a good set of speakers that goes with it (or vice versus). With that, it makes it easier to recommend something, especially if others on here with the same budget, tastes, equipment, and space constraints had good luck and 'synergy' with a given mix of speakers and components that the individual that is seeking a recommendation may wish to try. I agree with Mike 'Dr. Who' in that there is indeed a 'Best', but I also agree that my 'Best' may not necessarly be the same as another's 'Best'. With what I currently got, I think I've achieved my 'Best' with what I am willing to ultimatly spend and the room I have it in (which is why I pretty much have not done any real equipment changes for the past several years). With that said, I do want to eventually upgrade my pre/pro, as this Denon AVR3802 I am currently using really is getting long in the tooth and I know I can get better out there.

After nearly 20 years as a software engineer I tend to get good at testing and debugging this kind of stuff. Believe me I've written enough of this stuff to know how something should work. I'd love to go in and fix this thing myself. Wonder if I can get McIntosh to commission me clean this up. Happy thanksgiving as well. I am at my parents right now posting this from my iPad

That is pretty cool. I figured I'd download it and check it out. Sweet that it works for both the iPad and the iPhone/iPod Touch. However, I got some serious issues with it. First, on the iPhone, it will only let me select by Artist and then Song. There is no way to select by Album. That is a major issue for me as I tend to listen by the album and listen to them in thier entirety. Also the album art did not seem to appear on the iPhone version. In fact, it does not even list what album a selected track came from (even though I have that information in the metatags of the song file) I guess I could get around it by creating a playlist of the album, but why when the facilities are already there to allow playing by the album as part of iOS itself. The app should properly allow the user to select by and listen to albums in correct track order (not in alphabetical order) without out resorting to playlist hacks. EDIT: I guess I mis-spoke about not diplaying the album art/title on the iPhone. Saw there was a "More" with a downward arrow. Click that and it showed the album art and title the currently playing track came from. Would be nice if at least it displayed the song/album/artist on the main page and then show the album art and more info via the "more" button. Still a huge issue with not being able to select by album and playing the tracks in correct track order, a a lot of what I listen to are very specifically arranged and must be played in correct track order to get the proper listening experience (many 'concept' albums, for example). On the iPad, at least you can select by album, but it lists the songs from the album in alphabetical order, when I think they should be listed in track order (with track # displayed along side the title). Did whoever that created this think that nobody ever listens to albums anymore and thinks that people only listen to single songs 'al-a-carte' anymore? Also, ran into some serious flakyness with regards to play/pausing. On the iPad, it would not even stop playing the music even when I pressed the "play/pause" button. I had to exit out of the app via the "home" button and go into the regular built-in "music" app and stop playback that way. On the iPhone, it works better, but there is a lag between playing and pausing. Admittedly, I really do like that 'McIntosh" look through, with the clean black background and the green lettering with the blue VU meters. Does match the look of thier audio gear quite nicely. I just with the interface itself was a bit better. Still, for something free, you really cannot complain to much, but it certainly could be much better and I hope they do come out with updates, especially to address the issue with selecting by album. It would be cool to use this to play back the music instead of the standard built-in 'music' app - just because it really is that cool.

I just saw that myself! You know? It gets to the point that I really don't give a $#!+ what people think about Apple anymore. I am willing to bet the vast majority of people really don't give a $#!+ what a few stuck-up techy types think either. As long as they put out good stuff, I will continue to use it. I guess that 'Utard' dude is now all happy that "tool Steve Jobs" is now dead. [] The fact of the matter is that Apple has put out some fine gear over the years. There is no denying that, regardless of all the pissing and moaning that goes on with regards to Apple. I guess you all can return to your anti-Apple bashfest now.... []

Steven, I think he meant to say "Steve Jobs (Apple's CEO) is a tool" and not you. Okay, if that was indeed what he meant, then my apologies to him for the misunderstanding. Since he was replying directly to my post and my name also happens to be "Steve", you can see where I am reading that as a personal attack. But, hey, the dude is entitled to his opinion, even if I think his opinion sucks. I just guess this is a case where we are better of to agree to disagree. I am certainly not some rampant Apple fanboy, but I can certainly appreciate that they do produce some pretty nice gear, that I just happen to enjoy using myself.

I tried searching for said transcripts, but all my searches kept leading back to that New York Times article that I've already linked to above. Again, were I was reading that it was an attempt to THWART the bombings, not to setup the guy to be some fallguy. Yes, we can certainly debate on the FBI's pisspoor handling of the situation (did they indeed know a bombing plot was being hatched and could they have better acted on it?) and the resulting legal quagmire that Mr. Salem found himself in the middle of as a result, but sorry, I just don't see some nefarious conspiracy here. Again, all I see is a bunch of Monday Morning Quarterbacking now and not some conspiracy.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion as I am mine, but seeing "Steven is a tool" to me looks an aweful lot like a personal attack. If that is not what you ment to say, then apology accepted. [] EDIT, I see below where 'Neo33' made a clarification. If you indeed ment to say "Steve Jobs is a tool", then I owe you an apology. You can probably see where, replying directly to my post, where my name also happens to be "Steve", where I could read that as a personal attack. Admittedly, I am not a fan of many of the bone-headed things Apple has done or is trying to pull (that whole Samsung patent dispute for example), but from my own personal experience, I just happen to like the functionality of many of thier products, and I will use what works for me. Just so happen that for many of what I need to do, Apple's products works and does exactly what I need. I guess on this case, we are better off to simply agree to disagree.

Yes, that may be the case and there may be more going on then people think. However, sometimes just applying Occam's Razor is the best course of action. There is no denying that this could simply be a case of several religious extremists managing to hijack some passenger jets and slammed them into the side of the buildings in an effort to kill as many people and/or cause as much destruction as well. Yes, we could get into all the minutea as to why this happened and what lead up to it and what could be done to prevent, and so on and so on. I've been in engineering long enough myself to realise that the simplist answer may indeed actually be the truth in many cases. However, I think anybody with a bit of common sense and even the tiniest amount of research can come to the simple conclusion that the notion that some demolition team secretly came in and dropped building 7 was utterly ridiculous and preposterous, when the simple truth (as was already neatly pointed out by LarryC a couple pages back) as simply due to the number of fires that were raging inside/around the building and no way to extinguish them until even the structure of building 7 was compromised enough to cause it to collapse. Come on! Two nearly 1400 foot tall buildings caved in right next to that building? You think, just maybe think, with a little common sense, that severe damage may not also occur to other such nearby buildings, such as #7? I am actually surprised and amazed that other nearby buildings did not also collapse, such as the Deustche Bank building. When it comes to 9/11, I think I am going to stick with my original notion of applying Occam's Razor here and chalk it up to being simply a tragic case of some very bad extremists doing bad things to otherwise innocent people. I just cannot and will not buy into any of the conspiracies or the notion that there are other nefarious dealing going on behind the scenes here.

Oh real classy here - must resort to personal attacks huh (don't worry, I've reported this as abuse to the admins)? So I guess I must be a "tool" now just because I happen to like Apple products? But then again, I guess I should expect so much from somebody with a name like "Utard". I am not buying all the "overhype" and "overpriced" non-sense when it comes to Apple. But then again, I guess I am just a "tool", so what the hell do I know, oh great one (never mind the 20-years or so of software engineering experience that I have, so I think I know a thing about computers and whatnot by now)! I guess I should go consult with you the next time I need a new computer or smartphone or tablent, then. It seems you have all the anwsers here. [:@]

THIS, I can agree with! Hell, there is nothing wrong with questioning some of the bone-headed things that the goverment may have done over the years, but I also rather stick with what is provable from credible sources, not just some theory that somebody is trying to make up in an effert to serve an agenda.

Within the last six montchs, we've had three out of five new MacBook Pros replaced by Apple. Totally unacceptable in my book. All hardware issues...Bruce Like I said - from my own personal experience, I found the Apple stuff to more reliable than anything else I've used. I've never had any of the problems like you described with any of the Apple products that I've used or dealt with. But as they say, your milage may vary.

And so is Microsoft! Look, despite what all you anti-Apple or anti-Microsoft crowd would like to think, neither is going anywhere anytime soon. You might as well be waiting for a very long time. The fact of the matter is that Apple does indeed make nice, reliable products. I've used everything from Sun Solaris up through Mac OS/X and from my own personal experience, I found the Apple gear to be the most reliable and easiest to use. Granted, I am not going to go and run out to get the new iPhone as I am quite happy with the one that I currently have (an iPhone 4). Now, when it comes time to upgrade in a few years, than I'll re-evaluate the smartphone market and see if it will be worth getting another iPhone or something else entirely.

What "facts" are we talking about here? Provide me links from some CREDIBLE source with these "facts"; Not just from some crack-pot conspiracy theory website! I've yet to see a SINGLE PIECE OF CREDIBLE EVIDENCE from a CREDIBLE SOURCE to support any of this non-sense you keep spouting off on here. Until I can see actual, real, CREDIBLE evidence coming from a CREDIBLE source supporting this, I am just going to continue to see it as make-believe. EDIT! Actually, after doing some research on my own (while waiting for a huge build to finish up here at work) - I found this article in the New York Times. However, it was an effort to THWART the bombing, which for some reason the FBI changed thier plans, not an effort to setup the guy as a fallguy as you and your conpiracy theory seems to purport. The informant thought this was going to be a sting operation and had the FBI stuck with thier original plans, it may have worked in thwarting the attack. Hardly a conspiracy theory here, although one can argue why FBI decided to change thier plans - but now this is just getting into Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Hey, nobody says our government or law enforcement is perfect, but hardly the evil conspirators that you tin-foil crackpot types seem to constantly make out.

You want to start that with "Once upon a time"? and end it with "And happily ever after?". Because all that is is one big f'ing fairytale! Really, if you want to keep playing make-believe, be my guest, but I sure the hell am not playing along. Maybe it is time to put those X-File DVDs away for once! But, I guess if you have to see a conspiracy in everything..... Somehow, I cannot help but thinking of this album when reading this tripe... Dionysus - Fairytales and Reality

So you are just going to keep perpetuating more lies? What next? You are going to try to tell us the moon landings are a hoax? The symbols on the back of a dollar bill is some indication of a new world order coming? That somebody blew up the dikes during hurricane Katrina? I think I am going to apply Occam's Razor here and go with the official reports and not what some tin-foil wearing crack-pot is saying on some website of dubious authenticity.