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I am another in the list of those who do not know Dean personally, but and very fortunate to have a relationship with our Savior and He is mighty to save. Dean it sounds like you have peace in your heart and that can only come from Him. Godbless you and yours, continued prayers brother.

I have the XPA-5 and used it to bi-wire/fools bi-amp my fronts. It was easy enough to do. A y adapter on the inputs of the amp, wire direct to each set of speaker terminals(4) on the output. Do not take to channels of the amp to the same single speaker termnial, the amp will not handle that. I will agree with most that very little is to be gained by the by-wiring. I did attenuate the highs going to my speakers so a rebalancing of the speaker was achieved to some degree. On a side note on the XPA-5, the less channels driven the more power available per channel. If you read their amplifier section on their forum, a sticky at the front about meeting the XPA-3, specs are given. Not that Klipsch needs it, the extra power might have more impact than bi-wiring.

Cool!

Timing was on my side apparently. I saw them about a 1/2 hour after he posted them. I hung up the phone and got in the car. I had previously had a set sold out from underneath me. I was on the way to pick them up and the owner said someone was at the door. We had agreed to pay at the asking price, was half way there and then the phone call. Yes, I was disapointed.

I purchased another pair of Quartets today off of Craigslist. 1/2 hour drive, $150. Oiled oak in decent condition. I am not sure where I will use them but currently running stacked Q's and if nothing else spare parts. Maybe a center channel project on the horizon? Any way for the price they could not be passed up!

I walked through the show on Friday, pretty cool to see and hear most of it. I also went two years ago, I would say it was a larger show then. The Legacy Audio display wowed me 2 years ago but did not move me this year. I believe they ran different amps before, maybe part of the issue. On the other end of the room were smaller speakers run by an Oppo dvd and Emotiva pre and amp. I was so disapointed in the sound of that setup. I currently run the same Oppo and Emo amp and I am very satisfied at home. The Kef Blades were on display, around 30k for a pair. Wow. They(along with everyone else was playing SRV, a favorite of mine and great to hear the same music played on the systems for comparison). I was able to set front row center and the guitar seemed so large. Normally you can close your eyes and pin point exactly where it is, in this case you could but instead of pointing to a small spot, maybe a five foot spot. Clean and detailed. The next room was a set of Eggleston(?) speakers. A lot of sound for smaller speakers. He only wanted to playback at louder volumes which made me think something to hide at lower playback levels. He let me play a track off of a Morphine disc, sounded great to me, not music for everyone in the room though! The MBL setup looks like something from the NASA program. Soundstage was in front, behind, center and L/R of the speakers, Impressive. The YG setup was the most detailed for me. My guess was $200k+ in the room. Very impressive but maybe to sterile. Tyler Acoustics was there with a set of D20s driven by a Rouge amp. A much more economical room and very much to my liking. Again I was allowed(encouraged) to play some Morphine, 5 tracks at that! Awesome mid bass presence at lower volumes, very crankable, no apparent listening fatuige. All in all, I certainly enjoyed myself and would recomend anyone visting such a show. At the end of the day some incredible sights and sounds, and a deeper appreciation for the home system!

I am not surprised that many may feel the same way that you do Vital. Reading the specs I was convinced that I would prefer the 2 vs the 5. I found the bass between the two virtually a draw. I was very surprised at that after all that I had read. As far as the mids and highs, smoother, more detailed and no fatuige that I did experiece with the 2. On obtaining the rma from Emotiva and giving the reason for return, they said that they have heard that more than once. Helped me feel that I wan't "that" crazy. I glad you are happy with your set up!

Power specs from the Emotiva site, XPA -3 Power output into 8 ohms 200 watts into 3 channels 250 watts into 2 channels 300 watts into 1 channel Power output into 4 ohms 300 watts into 3 channels 400 watts into 2 channels 500 watts into 1 channel THD 0.006% Frequency response of 10-150Khz (-3db) and 20-20Khz (+/- 0.125db)

In discussion with one of their factory reps, Lonnie at Axpona 2 years ago he confirmed that the XPA-3 and 5 will make much higer speced power when fun in a two channel conifig. These numbers are certainly in range of what the 2 is speced for. His words of caution were that the amplifier card in the 3/5 are identicle and built to a different spec than the 2. My direct question was it safe for me to run and crank on my 5 in stereo mode? His answer was yes it is safe but that will not be advertised as such because they have built a two channel just for that. Makes sensce to me. I believe that Lonnie specs the XPA-3 for 2 channel on their forums/amplifiers/"Meet the XPA-3" thread. I have the XPA-5 and ordered the 2. After several week of listening in the home and expecting to be wowed, especially on thelow end, it just was not there. Top to bottom I thought the 5 was more pleasing to me in two channel. I was using a Marantz avr as the pre and Chorus IIs as the test subjects. I ate $70 sending the 2 back to Emotiva. They were great to work with by the way! Good luck in the search.

I have not tried the bottoms inverted but have thought about it, a project for this weekend! I have already removed the risers on both sets. I have installed rubber feet on the bottoms as they sit on marble floors. With the stock feet on the risers I feel the speakers may walk a little.

I put in some additional bracing on all 4 Q's, None of them had any type of internal shelf. They are just supported by the horns themselves. An internal shelf does sound like a good idea though.

At the moment I am running stacked Quartets. The tops are inverted and run full range. The bottoms are right side up and I run only the lows. Teriffic bass/mid bass at lower volumes and can crank when asked. I run each speaker off of a seperate channel off of my 5 ch amp.

No sound issues at all, very easy to install, purchased thorugh Parts Express.

Bump

While running the stacks full range, I would say that the left bias was very strong. Listening to familar material what normally appear almost centered between the speakers would shift to approx 2/3 to the left. I certainly can't explain why. I am by no means a critical listener but after a few minutes on the couch it was distracting. I did not try them with the tops not inverted, not sure what difference if any it would have made. Last nights listening was Santana and the sound track to the "Thomas Crown Affair". Excellent. Again I am just amazed by the midbass at lower volume levels. My neighbors may come to love me yet.

Well it's time to update this thread. I listened for the stacked Qs for several weeks with enjoyment with the height of the sound field and effortless dynamics. I did notice that the L/R imaging was off, everything had a little left bias. I then replaced the stacked Qs with the Chorus IIs again, they never sounded better. Time to stop playing around and just enjoy.....Not so fast! I decided for a nominal investment to refresh one pair of the Qs for an A/B test. I ordered up some caps and Ti tweeters from BC and did the install. While the Qs had some down time I decided to do some internal bracing on them and ended up doing in to all four since the supplies were handy. Well I haven't done and A/B comparison yet but... I have restacked them with the updated ones on top, inverted. the bottoms are ringht side up, but with the tweets and mids disconected, just running the lows. Each speaker is run on a seperate channel of my Emotiva XPA-5. How does it sound? The L/R imaging seems to be spot on or better than the Chorus IIs. Dynamics(very noticible in the lows) are incredible at lower volumes. The C IIs need to be pushed a harder to reach the mid base levels the Qs hit at a much lower db output. Very tactile! Tonights samples were SRV, Simply Red, Joe Banamassa and Puddle of Mudd. Nothing was pushed to the extreme and no need was felt. My concern now is running the bottom Q's woofer only. The current setup is the factory crossover stock with just the mid and tweet removed from the curcuit. Any advise on safty/quality mods are appreciated.

I will throw a vote in for the Marantz. I have used Pioneer, Sony ES, Onkyo and Marantz. For my ears run with the KLF series and Chorus IIs the Marantz is by far the best sounding, smooth and detailed. I used to frequent a local chain that is no longer in south FL and they pushed Yamaha with Klipsch. After several minutes my ears wanted to bleed. I am currently using a Marantz 8500 as a pre to an Emotiva amp with very good results.

Two years ago I attended the AXPONA show in Jacksonville. It is back there again for this year and is being held 3/9-11. It is basically all two channel and is bordered on the rediculously expensive. I did get exposure to brands that I may have never recieved any where else. I am thinking of making another trek up. Are there any FL members who are considering going? www.axpona.com

Thanks for the replies. Good food for thought. I have read about SET 12 and his x-overs are something else. The rest of my gear is decent but not extreme so I am not sure if I would hear that big of a difference. The caps being used in the rebuild are of a certain quality and I guess I feel the North Creeks may be in another league altogether. I will do some reading on the AK forum. Thanks

I am in the process of recapping Quartet x-overs with caps from Bob C. I am thinking about doing the low pass coil also and would like an education on air vs. iron core. I did read the thread that had great input from Bob C, Al K, and Dean G. Very interesting but I felt that there was not a clear winner in the end. Maybe a clear winner would be impossible anyway. All opinions are welcome. The Quartet has a rather large inductor, 4.0 mH. I have looked at offerings from Parts Express - Erse Super Q,iron core, $23 and a Jantzen air core, $40. North Creek is very proud of thier product, pricing starting at $80. Trying to avoid the snake oil while achieving best bang for the buck. Thanks

Moray, thanks for the link. Looks like a lot of thought went into your upgrade. I am starting with just caps and ti diaphrams on the tweets. Some internal bracing will be done at the same time. I plan to brace front to sides, back to sides and t&b to sides with braces cut at 45 degrees. Did you do any crossover mods, specifically the woofer inductor? I would like to learn more about the air core vs. iron core. The North Creek seems very expensive, I just have trouble believing they make that kind of impact. Thanks

I have aquired two sets of Quartets and have disasembled them to do Crites tweeters and cap upgrades and examine the original braceing. My knowledge of these speakers is slim. The product specs show the material as mdf but both sets are plywood. I am assuming that the spec page is wrong, but has anybody seen them made out of mdf? One difference I found was one set had its woofers installed with wood screws, the second set was intalled with t-nuts and machine screws. I am unsure of the age of either set. Thanks for any feedback.

Some would recomend updating the caps in the crossovers. This could be considered maintance or upgrade. My C IIs were 20 years old at the time so I did the surgury. Big bang for the buck would be the tweeter diaphrams swap. A lot of us have purchased titanium from Bob Crites and I can not say that I have heard any regrets. As far as bi-wiring them, they are not set to do that from the factory. You need to disect the bass from the mid-high circuit within the speaker and add another set of terminals. Not very difficult. The benifit after bi-wiring off of a reciever when I did the same think was undetectable to my ear.

Very cool indeed! Mom and Dad would flip!

I recomend a center and a sub. I run Chorus IIs and went without a sub for several years. I recently picked up a sub and am rewatching all of my DVD's again for the firest time?! As far as a center it will give you the proper dynamics from the mains with acurate dialog anchored to the screen. I experimented with "phantom center" for a while and I feel a true center is much better. spread the mains out and go for a center. There is an Academy in great condition on the S FL craigslist for $300.