wireless

They've been featuring them prominently in their Sunday adverts.

Since my post above a couple of months ago, I have the purchased Rx-25 setup. It sounds pretty good. I went with the 25s because I needed a small center channel less than 9 inches high. I think Klipsch did a pretty good job for the price point which is about $1000 excluding sub. OTHOH, they don't really sound anywhere as good as my Forte's or the KLF-20s/c-7 setup I got rid of. I would have had no problem paying $2k or more for the same-sized speaker system if they improved the sound and cabinetry. I wish Klipsch would come out with a higher end set of speakers. I really thought I'd never buy vinyl cabinets but Klipsch didn't leave me a choice considering the size limitations. I think they did the best they could for $1000 but they could do a lot better. -Dave

I think the Synergy's sound quite good. So much so that I bought a pair of SF-2s for my parents. I don't think many other brands in that price range hold a candle to them.

These are good speakers but are kind of the black sheep of the Klipsch line in my opinion. In my mind, it seems Klipsch went from the name heritage speakers straight to the Legends. KGs bring a lower price on Ebay than do other Klispch speakers. I don't know why that is but I believe it's due to name recognition. When I first heard the names KG3.1 etc. I thought they were computer speakers because of the 3.1. I didn't become familiar with them until years later when got to know someone with a full KG system. He recently blew his center and was looking on ebay for new one and the he said he thought it would be cheaper to buy one from there than to repair his.

---------------- On 3/8/2003 8:47:38 PM DeanG wrote: The only downside is that specialty retailers made good money off of the Synergy line, and now they won't anymore. ---------------- Not so sure about that. I paid less for a pair of SF-2s a year ago than Best Buy is selling them for today. Also just recently bought a pair of RF-25s for less than BB is selling SF-2s for. Doesn't really make sense. I suppose this way it lets people who want to feel they are buying high-end go to specialty retailer and pay less for the lower end of the RF-line. I bought the 25s because I needed a small center channel. The SF does have better specs but how does this square with it being better than some of the "reference" series?

---------------- On 3/8/2003 2:55:38 PM Dave Harris wrote: Yes, I know Bose certainly has its detractors, but I remember in the 70's and 80's before it became a marketing conglomerate, that it actually put out a good product. ---------------- No, Bose never had a good product. I clearly remember the 901s sounded crap even back in the 70s. The only reason I could ever figure they became popular is because they supposedly had unlimited power handling capabilities. That and they had the "direct reflecting" technology. This was very impressive to high schoolers. Until we listened to them. Sounded like they had a blanket thrown over them.

I thought you were going to tell the old Hee Haw joke. Patient: "Doc, it hurts when I do this!" Doctor: "Don't do that!"

I got my rs-25s yesterday. Definitely the sound is diffuse. I had never used surrounds before and now I can hear the theory or surround speakers in practice. The sound just seems to fill the room without a localized point of origin.

I received my Rx 25s last night. I formerly had KLF-20s, a c-7, two Forte surrounds, and an LF-10. I sold the KLFs including the c-7 and set up a 2-channel system with the Fortes. I needed shielded speakers and a smaller center that could be tucked away on a shelf. The height of the center channel had to be no more than 9". Most tv/stereo stands' shelves are 9" apart. This requirement dictated the rc-25 or smaller. The Rx-25s seem okay. Build: Good news and ok news. For the price point, they are built pretty well. I was happy with the heft of the RF's and the RC. Especially the RC which was solid and relatively heavy for its size. The veneer on all looks okay but is thin and the layer around the back side of the rf speaker was not glued well on one corner and could easily be snapped off. And you know what chipped plastic vinyl does for the looks of a speaker. But overall it seemed put together well. No obvious flaws. The RS-25s are only 8 lbs so they are pretty light. I don't know what a good surround really sounds like but at only 8 lbs I figure they must not be required to do much. One thing I liked that the acoustic design engineers may not fully appreciate is the design for attaching the feet is done very well. They have these deep sturdy threaded wells that these solid screws screw into. They are strong and didn't feel like they would strip or pull out. The head of the screw has a good strong deep + indentation for the phillips screwdriver. The mechanical design engineer did a good job on these. I wish Klipsch would come out with a high-end line though. Weren't they supposed to be working on one? No doubt they've got plenty of good speaker designs just waiting to be built. I would have had no problem paying double what I paid for the Rx series if they had decent wood cabinents and upgraded components. Why Klipsch doesn't introduce a modern high-end line (and I'm not talking about $20k speakers) is a mystery to me. Maybe they think it would cannabilize Heritage sales. And some would argue the Heritage series is the high-end line. Well give me a real wood cabinent in a size I can use beside my tube tv and fit in my living room. A lot of us that grew up with Klipsch Heritage speakers have different requirements (and more cash) so it's not a stretch to think that a product as described would sell well to our demographic. Sound: This portion is why the review says preliminary. I got everything set up and listened to a CD about the same time my 2-yr was going to sleep. There wasn't much time to listen to them at any volume. I could clearly hear the difference between the RF-25s and the KLF-20s. Of course the RFs aren't broken in yet but the clarity was good. It wasn't as smooth or clear as the KLFs but I wasn't immediately turned off by their sound. The bass was clearly deficient compared with the KLFs. It sounded like they were clipping or a bit hollow. Then I thought, wait a minute, I didn't buy these to listen to music and I have a sub. I set all the speakers to small and the sub crossover to about 90 Hz. The receiver small setting has a cutoff of 80 Hz so I figured 90 Hz on the sub would rolloff to 80 Hz. I got mixed results on that because the sub only seemed to be emitting very low frequencies. Anyway I'll have to look into that further. It didn't sound bad by any means. The instruction manuals for the RX speakers says that all Klispch Reference speakers can be set to large. I wondered if these were old manuals that only pertained to the RF-3 and above. I tried to play a dvd (Led Zepplin's new one) but at first couldn't get anything but 2-channel output out of the Marantz. Finally I figured out that the dvd player output had been set to PCM instead of bitstream. The two-year old likes to play with the remote. I did get 5-channel going and listened to one song at a lower volume. The speakers sounded pretty good but I didn't listen long enough form an strong opinion. That's it for now. -David

The guy doesn't claim to be a Klipsch dealer and he says they are used (1 week old). I'm not sure that fits the definition of gray market.

How do you know they're gray market? Plenty of shops are selling them now. -David

If you're interested in making the highest quality mp3's check out: www.exactaudiocopy.de and http://www.chrismyden.com/nuke/modules.php?op=modload&name=Elite_DAE&file=painless for the lame codec. This is allegedly the best there is. -David

---------------- On 5/30/2003 3:01:37 PM formica wrote: Well there are many opinions on setting different speakers on large and others on small, and how each processor redirects the sound. Even though i don't agree entirely with the article (I have set everything on large), there is a great summary of this on the Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity at the following link: Miscellaneous Ramblings on Subwoofer Crossover Frequencies ---------------- Rob, thanks for the link. Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, it directly addresses my question. Why do you set all your speakers to large, especially the Heresey's when the lower end of the range on them is 63 Hz? Seems you'd set them to small and let the crossover occur around 80 Hz and rolloff down to 63 Hz. This would seem to be the viewpoint of the guy who wrote the article. In the article he says use large for speakers that are full range and he also says "be honest." I wonder what the definition of a full range speaker is. It seems like every speaker out there today reaches 20 KHz; it's only the lower register that changes. By the way is there a place we can get frequency response curves for Klipsch speakers? Way back I remember someone posting a link to some of them in one of the forums.

---------------- On 6/1/2003 5:41:40 AM Bill H. wrote: wireless, Good luck w/ your auctions. I started to put something up for sale on ebay, but stopped. The Value added fee? it is listed at the end of when I set up my add. Sure it's always been there, just never noticed. I don't understand why they (ebay) can't just be upfront on there pricing.............oh well , now I feel better............... good luck. ---------------- I assume you mean the "final value" fee. It's 2.75% for items between $25 and $1000. Yeah, it is some $$$ but I don't think it's too bad because it's relative to the value of what is sold. If this fee bothers you you could, for example, say a pair of KLF-20s was worth a minimum of $600 to you and the 2.75% were of concern, then you could simply start the auction initial bid at $600 + (2.75% of $600). Personally I've had good luck selling and buying on ebay for the most part although I've had a seller here and there who pulled some annoying stuff, nothing major though. -David

The auctions for these mint speakers expire tomorrow (Sunday) at about 3:30 eastern time.

The auctions for these expire tomorrow (Sunday) at about 3:30 eastern time.

---------------- 3) Setting all the speakers on small (see the many threads here on this) 4) A smaller matched centre (matched in it's high and mids) with it's own sealed sub. There was another thread about this, and i thought it can be really nice for someone who is already using mains set on large. You can simiulate 3 large speakers up front. In a way it is similarly to those who use a split industrial lascala in the center. ---------------- What about just setting the center only on small and the right and left on large then picking up the slack with the sub? The RF-25s I'm thinking about using for the fronts only go down to 45 Hz anyway. The LaScala lower range is 53 Hz. This is not really a far cry from the 69 Hz RC-25 I'm thinking about using. For the split industrial lascala configuration is the center channel on the reciever set to small also?

---------------- On 5/30/2003 2:17:24 PM Frzninvt wrote: Step into my living room and I will demonstrate a system that sounds so good it will make you cry. ---------------- Are you inviting the boys from the forum over to your place for a listen? Where do you live?

---------------- On 5/28/2003 8:46:51 PM William F. Gil McDermott wrote: Regarding horns and increase in efficency. <...> For example, in the LaScala, that would be a diaphram four square feet in area. ---------------- If this horn theory is so nifty, why do the LaScalas only go down to 53 Hz and the Belles down to 54 Hz, while the KLF and others reach down into the low 30s? Do the Belles and the LaScalas basically ride the coatails of the Khorn?

---------------- On 5/29/2003 2:37:43 PM SCOOTERDOG wrote: First we must examine the two types of speakers. The Klipschorn, La Scala, and Belle are Fully horn loaded speakers. But Boomy? These 3 models are Not Boomy. You may need your ears checked. It is ok not to like them and find another model more pleasing to your ears, but Boomy? Sometimes the electronics will make a speaker sound different. Did you ever change out your components or use a friend’s component to see what kind of bass response you would get with something other then what you have. Many times this can make a big difference. I think you will find that a vast majority of heritage owners would disagree with your statement on the fully horn loaded heritage line. Yes they are very sensitive and can get quite loud if you want them to. But the big advantage is how fast the bass response is and how wide the dynamics are, not to mention the very low distortion. The Forte's uses a direct radiating woofer. Traditionally these types of speakers are what most people are accustomed to. Your ears get use to the type of bass this type of speaker produces. As far as the Forte's go I think it is one of the finer speaker Klipsch produced, but if you are trying to compare them with the fully horn loaded heritage line your barking up the wrong tree. IMHO ---------------- The LaScalas were my roomates'. He had a high-end Onyko Amp and pre-amp setup. I agree the electronics affect the sound but the 80's high-end Jap stuff strived (strove?) for accuracy. The LaScalas were sitting up at tabletop level so that hurt the base some. When you say fast bass response, how is the cone in the Heritage line any quicker than a direct radiating cone? I was making a comparision to the "fully horn loaded heritage" Lascalas and the Fortes. There was uniform agreement among those who heard them that the Fortes produced a better quality sound than the LaScalas. Again the LaScalas would get louder but they just didn't sound as good. Better than Polks and several other brands of speakers that they were compared with but not as good as the Fortes. That was the opionion of the 9 or 10 people who made A/B comparisons and their owner as well. You may want to listen to a pair of Fortes and consider selling your LaScalas on Ebay. You'd get a better sounding system in a smaller footprint. They just wouldn't be as loud is all.

---------------- On 5/28/2003 9:11:05 PM SCOOTERDOG wrote: Still trying to figure out your comment regarding La Scala's. If you are saying because their fr is 45hz to 17khz then I can see where you are going...but not far! Then again I guess Khorns won't fit your definition either since their fr is 35hz to 17khz eh! ---------------- You first used the term "full-range" as in "go with full-range speakers." You tell me what it means. What is it with the Heritage speakers? The specs you give above for the La Scalas aren't that great compared with the later model Klispch speakers. What is it you're getting from the Heritage speakers besides high sensitivity? I had a pair of La Scalas sitting right beside my Forte's for over a year and the Forte's sounded better. Not louder but better. The La Scalas got loud but there was a definite boomy thiness to the bass that I didn't care for.

---------------- On 5/28/2003 4:26:17 PM Mike Frankel wrote: What gives. The KLF 30 is rated at 36 Hz, the KLF 20 at 34 Hz, and the KLF 10 is rated at 32 Hz. I know that is not a big difference, but it just does not make sense to this ignorant newbie!! ---------------- Look at the sensitivity. The larger speakers get louder with the same input at the expense of the lower bass register. Secondly, we don't know what the frequency response looks like since Klipsch doesn't provide it. But on this board they've said the rolloff is different when this point is brought up. The -6 dB rollover frequency for the KLF-10 might be 28 Hz while the KLF-30 might be 22 Hz. Thus overall there's more bass in the 30.

---------------- On 5/28/2003 3:11:35 PM SCOOTERDOG wrote: Full range baby! The wider the Fr response the better ---------------- I guess you'll be replacing your La Scala's soon for "full range" speakers, eh?

---------------- On 5/28/2003 6:05:42 AM Griffinator wrote: That's the reason why even a cheap DVD player sounds better on CD playback than a garden variety consumer CD deck. ---------------- Have you done many of these comparisons? I bought a Toshiba 2900 the other day with its prominently advertised 24 bit 192kHz chip. It did not sound good at all playing standard CDs. I had an old 80s Technics CD player and a computer with a SB live card and both were clearly better when doing A/B/C comparisons. It wasn't one of things were you sit back and try to pick out subtle differences. It just sounded bad. There's a lot more circuitry other than the D/A chip. Even back when CD players were first being released, the sound quality all came back to the same thing - the quality of the components and filters. As any speaker designer or component design engineer will say, good ones are expensive and the sound is reflected therein.

Would anyone care to share their thoughts on the lower end of the center channel frequency range? I'm getting ready to replace my current HT Legend based system with some smaller Klipsch speakers specifically either the Rx-25 or Rx-35 series. There's one hangup though with the center speaker frequency range comparison between the rc-25 and rc-35. The rc-35 goes down to 56 Hz while the RC-25 only goes down to 69 Hz. (There's not a lot of difference in the surrounds and fronts.) For the center I need a small speaker. Almost all TV stands only have 9" between the lower shelves. The RC-25 fits the bill coming in at 9" exactly. No doubt this is not a coincidence. I'm left wondering how much this smaller size affects the sound in practice. How much DVD information is transmitted on the center at less than 69 Hz? Doing some research on the net indicates that the human voice does not go down that low. I wonder if they included James Earl Jones. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I'm not planning on using this system for music much; I have 2-channel vintage system set up for that.