Hi gang. I've been lurking for a while in the hopes of updating my antique audio for 50/50 music and HT. I've really enjoyed reading this forum and was getting pretty fired up about Klipsch until recently;
Last Saturday I looked at a demo RF7 system at a local big box store (only RF7s they still had available). One of the woofers on an RF7 had a dent--not pierced through-- in the cone (in the middle section of the woofer, not the center dome). It looked like someone took their fingertip and dragged it along the cone for about 1/4 to 1/2 inch while checking out the pretty metallic color. Would this cause noticable problems? They "came down" from their 'sale' price of $850 to a little over $700 each on the RF7s since they were the last ones, but the damage, price, and their total incompetance left me less than impressed. They also had some RB75s, RF5, Rf35, other bookshelfs, centers, and surrounds still in stock as of Saturday.
I mistakenly bought a Sony 7.1 receiver ($400, str-de995, claimed 100 wpc) two years ago (good Consumer Reports test, but I now know from this forum that doen't mean squat). I've tried twice now at the big box to get a decent audition on the Klipsch line, but it's a no go. They are idiots: no way to hook up and listen to a cd you bring in, only about six 40 second tracks of pre-canned music in their computerized switching system (Sting, Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, Nora Davis?, Metallica), try to watch a few short HT pre-canned movie clips and they can figure out how to get a sword fight from Gladiator and a Frazier boxing match, but you'll play hell getting anything with a mixture of vocals/music/soundeffects (they briefly had a showtime HD clip from Hannible Lector with opera and conversation, but couldn't get the sound to play and could find no way to locate / return to that clip once they got the sound going). Couldn't get any receivers except a $1400 top of the line Pioneer or something to work : (the Sonys I hoped to compare with the Klipsch couldn't get more than one L/R channel to play due to a glitch in something), they couldn't get the the L/R RF7s and the RC7 to play simultaneously with much bass "because it's set up (crossover settings?) for a sub and we don't have one hooked up"--they could only get much bass out of the RF7s in two channel mode. When I asked about the new reference line ,their comment was that it wouldn't be in until March, and the quality probably wouldn't be as good "because the Klipsch son took over the company".
Unless your expertise can calm my misgivings, I'm leaning towards waiting for the new line to come out and go to a real audio store a couple hours away to audition them (they are currently sold out of the 7 and 5 series), or possibly look at some Paradigms another store carries (they make a model Monitor 90P with built in amps to carry everything but the midrange and tweeter load ---maybe a way to avoid the need to trash-can my Sony receiver?). Thanks for any insights you can give me.