sredmyer

AMEN........Best Wishes and Pray for a safe tour of duty, it must be hard for you, they grow so fast, my thoughts are with you.......... Thanks man...I appreciate you thoughts.

You might all think I am completely nuts but the songs that "move" me the most would be anything from the Little Mermaid soundtrack. My son, (who is now 21, in the Marine corps and headed to Iraq) watched that movie over and over for nearly a year when he was young, cute and daddy's boy. Now he is grown up and decidedly nobodys boy and I miss that young cute kid sometimes (and I worry about him always)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Take care Josh and God be with you

Forgive my ignorance but what does "vertical biamp" mean?

Can you quatify what you mean by "sounds better". My experience is that the only difference I hear when I have a single Adcom in the system vs when I have both is in the low frequency. The difference is that the bass is much more powerful...more punch with two than with one. The actual SPL of the system is not much different.

I think if you bridge the two Adcoms (run as mono-blocks) you will be amazed at the sound your RF-7s will create. I do not think you will need (or maybe even want) the Polks in such a setup. The Polks do have a very different sound than the RF-7s and in my experince the two sounds do mix well. Also not sure if the RSW-10 would be able to "keep up" with the RF-7s in such a setup. This is just my opinion based on owning the RF-7s which are powered by two bridge Adcom GFA-555s and a couple of Polks in another room. I can not be for sure from your post if the two Adcoms both have the MUSICAL CONCEPTS mods or if only one does. If they do not then the setup I mention above might not sound so good as from what I hear the modded Adcoms have a very different sound from the stock units. If in fact one unit is modded and one is not, I would be very interested in your perception of the difference between the modded and un-modded Adcoms.

Third times a charm?? []

[Y][Y]Excellent choice he says as he cracks open a cold beer, leans back in a soft chair in a darkened room and turns it up!!

I had Polks before I got my RF-7 setup and I prefer the Klipsch's. I did not have the high-end Polks (I had the Monitor series) but from what I have heard the ones I had sound very similar to the higher-end ones. The difference between them (the Polks and the Klipsch) is very noticeable. Firstly the Klipsch being a much more efficient speaker (89db/w/m for the polk vs. 102db/w/m for the klipsch) will play quite abit louder than the Polks given the same amount of power. Secondly the hf on the Polks is quite different. Some would say that the polks hf is smoother and I guess that is as good a description as any but smoother (at least to me) implies better and I certainly do not think it is better. I still use the Polks in my sunroom (zone 2) and when both zones are playing the same source it is quite easy to notice the difference when walking into the main house from the sunroom. As I said in my previous response I think the hf of the Klipsch is very clear and real. I would say that the smooth HF of the Polks is less clear and less defined.

Do we bring our own cats or are they provided?[] (Just a joke ofcoarse, I love my fat cat Skooty)

That makes much more sense than my first guess...End of file Can you tell I am a software geek[] Welcome JetLi

Voted 3.9% now Steve

I have an RF-7 5.1 setup (see signature) and I, like you, use it primarily for music (2 channel w/sub). I can tell you from first hand experience that these reference series really rock (they are damn fine at HT too). That being said what Doc said about having a good amp is absolutely true. I originally powered my mains (the RF-7s) with my AVR, a Harman Kardon 7300 that is rated at 125wpc with two channels driven. This setup sounded fine but I still (on certain songs) wanted more. To solve this I added two Adcom GFA-555s running bridged. That is one Adcom for each of the RF-7s. Meaning I had the ability to deliver 600watts!!! to each of the RF-7s. Now the RF-7s rock to the point where while my subwoofer was out for repairs (still not back yet []) freinds would comment on how good my sub sounded and how hard it pounded. Even though these speakers will play plenty loud with just a few watts, for me anyway, it is not just about loud...there is just no substitute for having that extra umph there when the speakers want it. Regarding the bright sound of the horns, I have noticed that mine do not begin to have a brightness to the sound until I am really pushing serious volumes (>105db). As soon as I recover (financialy) from some other issues I have going on I plan to get DeanGs xover mods to help that out. At moderate to loud volumes though I think they are just very clear and real not harsh or bright.

TOOOOO funny []

I use the HK 7300 with RF-7s. Originally I was very satisfied...but the wifey wanted more punch so I added an RSW-12 sub. Then by time the sub was dialed in to have the punch she wanted I thought it stepped on the RF-7s. The HK 7300 is rated at 125wpc with two channels driven. To overcome the issue I added a 200wpc Adcom GFA-555 to power the RF-7s using the HK as the pre. This arangement did not add much so I added another Adcom, run them both bridged (as mono-blocks). Now I have the ability to deliver 600 watts to each of the RF-7s. The difference was nothing short of amazing. I really do not even need a sub now (although it does still add some punch). The RF-7s, given all the power they might ever need, really came to life...the bass out of them is phenominal. There are those, here on this forum as well as other forums, that will tell you that the Adcom when mated with the RF-7s (or any horn speaker) are a bit harsh, bright, grainy or whatever term is used (mostly refering to the high end being fatiguing). I too thought this when I first added them...but now the sound has grown on me and I find it to be very "real" and "in your face",,,I have come to like it. DeanG has a xover mod for the RF-7 (RC-7 as well) that is reported to tame the highs a bit and I have considered trying it. My only hesitation here is that as I said I do find the systems current sound to my likeing at reasonable volumes (80 to 100db). It only gets to be "fatiguing" at ultra high volumes (105 to >110db) which is where the wife likes to listen. I worry that if I add the modded xover I will miss the "real", "in your face" highs and the only way to get them back would be to buy another set of stock (unmodded) xovers. That would make the experiment quite expensive.

I think that we all listen much more criticaly after tweaking. We are trying to decern the impact of the tweak. Normal listening does not (usually) carry such a requirement...we are not looking (listening) for a change so we do not hear one.

I drink, listen to music and write code (software) and, ironically enough, the code I am writing at this moment is for a multi-threaded jukebox app to play the mp3's that I listen to.

Games like that will certainly make easier for me to convince the wifey to come...she loves it LOUD!!!

If you do that I will call you god (well maybe just god-like) []

Really good question. I am not familiar with your speakers but here is my .02 I see alot of folks recommending that the mains should be set to small and crossed at 80hz even when the mains are obviously capable of doing some pretty good bass. It just seems to me to be a waste of speaker to only send frequency above 80hz to large speakers. I think if your mains will go deep and you have enough amp to drive them there, set them as large and just let the sub help them...not do their job. However if your speakers -3db point is much higher or your amp/receiver doesn't have enough current (notice I did not say watts here) then set the speakers to small and let the sub do the job. I have Ref 7 family 5.1 system with RSW-12 sub and I never can figure out what is best based on what I hear others say but here is how mine is setup (and the logic for doing it that way). I think the RF-7s are rated at -3db @ 32hz and I think the sub is rated at 22hz so since they are so close in that regard I figured I should set my RF-7s to large and send them the full bandwidth signal. The RC-7 is rated -3db @ 45hz so I set it to small and cross it over at 60hz. The RS-7s are rated -3db at 58hz so they are also set to small and crossed over at 80hz. Then I set my sub crossover to 60hz and the bass management to L/R+LFE. I do not do much movie watching, the system is primarily used for 2 channel (+ sub) audio. I have no idea if this is an optimal setup but it sounds good to me (course I have been accused of having pretty tinny ears []).

I'll be there...I am really looking forward to meeting alot of you helpful folks. Now if I can just get the wifey to join me. colterphoto1, That invite you made a few weeks ago (well sort of made) for me (and the wifey) to come by and listen to some heritige speakers still good...maybe I can get the wifey to invite her sister (but remember I warned you that the sister is no where near as good looking or as much fun)

I have been told that my RF-7s will dip to about 2.8 Ohm at around 70hz by someone on this forum (do not remembr who)...If that is true and your table is acurate then they should be rated as 4 Ohm speakers...but they are rated (by Klipsch) as 8 Ohms.

No need to worry. More speakers are blown from under-powering than from over-powering. Even though the amp/receiver is capable of delivering 100+ watts, in normal listening you will probably never exceed 5 to 10 watts for any length of time. Higher wattages may be required for brief periods on highly dynamic passages but again not to worry as the speakers will handle 240 watts peak that will certainly handle the brief moments of increased power.

I'd be interested but to far from Louisville, KY. I am thinking of getting rid of my Adcom GFA-555s though. Good luck

Yep feelin your pain...My wife got me a Velodyne SMS-1 for Xmas and my sub is out for repair so all I can do is look at the SMS-1. Hope the sub finds it's way home this week...would hate to have to sit and look at the SMS-1 for another entire weekend.

Obvious to you maybe...me...not so much.[] I am in way over my head here I am just a simple software engineer this hardware stuff is givving me a serious headache.