Vick's Pit

Just get the 83's, they are great sounding and will be better than the 81's.

Congrats, post some pics when you get your system all setup and let us know your impressions.

I have the 83's and would personally go that route based on my listening experiences. I heard the icon series and to me they did not have as deep of bass and didn't seem to maintain the clarity as much as the 83's when really cranked up. Now to be fair I only heard the icon at Best Buy, while at home I have the 83's hooked up to a dedicated amp and pre-amp, so the comparison is not exactly apples to apples. I also really like the copper colored woofers and big cabinet on the 83's , but maybe that's just me. Either way you can't really go wrong on this deal.

Does anybody know when Klipsch might make a new "truly portable" iPod stereo? What I mean is one that is rechargeable and / or also battery operated. I was forced to buy the Polk Midock Studio iPod portable stereo over a year ago because I wanted something that I could bring out to the pool, campsite, beach, BBQ, ect...where an electrical outlet is just not available most of the time. Don't get me wrong the Polk stereo is nice, but I would buy a Klipsch version over the Polk if available. Too many times I walk or bike around the city and see people at a BBQ or other event with a Polk, Logitech, or some other brand. Is Klipsch missing out on a big market segment by not having a truly portable version of something like the iGroove or some other new version? I am sure if they came out with one it would blow away most of the competition. Seeing how popular iPods are and little signs that they will fade away, I wish Klipsch had more to offer in this class. Just a thought.

Whenever I have a lot of people over I just put little post it notes on the top that say "No Drink's Please". That usually stops any other monkey business from occurring around the speakers also.

My vote is for the 83's as long as you have it in your budget. Either way I would still get a solid sub for the movie watching.

Thanks Youth, glad you like it, as I couldn't be much happier with this current setup. Maybe a surround upgrade down the road when I move in the next year. You have a nice setup yourself, as do many on this site. Here is a better pic of the setup.

Having owned both the 82's and now 83's I would definitely get the 83's if $ is not an option. The 83's just flat out rock in my opinion. This way you also don't have to worry about wanting to upgrade within the reference line either.

Thanks for the response Bob, the only concern I have about the stands is that they don't seem tall enough. Is there any other Klipsch stands that are taller? Reason that I liked the 54's so much is that they stand almost 50" tall. I'll just wait and see what my setup looks like and decide on some surrounds at that time.

Couple questions, do you know roughly how much longer the RVX 54's are going to be sold? I ask because in about 9 months to a year I am moving to a loft style condo. This is important because it will be very difficult to have wall mounted surrounds due to the large open area and I was thinking about buying the 54's as side surrounds. If the 54's are not available at that time could the XF-48's being used as side surrounds blend ok with the RF-83's? Just trying to think ahead. Thanks

So this weekend I got around to hooking up the XF-48's for my boss and as suspected they rock in my opinion. Luckily my boss agrees also and her first words were that the speakers sounded so clear compared to anything she had her in the past (whatever she heard in the past I am not sure?) The speakers are pretty much what have been previously discussed on here. Smooth style, great sound and versatility. The look of the 48's is top notch as they are very classy I feel. The bass seemed pretty good even without a sub. I am kind of a bass junkie so I would have added one, but I feel you could easily get away without one. Then we proceeded to watch Juno on Blu-Ray. Not exactly the most exciting movie to test speakers with, but the 48's really made the music throughout the movie come alive. A good action flick would have done more justice for testing the speakers out. Overall I am pretty impressed with the 48's. They proved to be the perfect solution for this scenario. I agree they are not going to compete with the 83's or 63's, but they seem to be aimed at a different consumer anyway. My boss wanted something that complimented her flat screen, looked good but wasn’t necessarily huge and had good sound. The 48's have fit the bill in this situation and I am glad Klipsch has decided to get into this market segment.

The room we are putting the xf-48's in is probably16x25, would that be considered"smaller spaces"? I still believe the xf's will probably be sufficient.

I just ordered a pair of these XF-48's for my boss. She wanted me to hook her up with some good speakers that were slim floor standers, so this was my obvious choice. I didn't demo them, but I am confident they will be more than enough to rock a middle age woman's high rise condo. This is coming from a woman that currently has a $175 Sony stereo in her living room. I have a NAD T175 that will be sending the signal to them. I won't be doing all the setup for her for about ten days, so I'll give you guys my impressions after that.

Your proposed setup would sound great at any volume level in my opinion. I think it would come down to more about the size of your room. The 83's would probably shine a little bit more in a somewhat larger room, but that is subjective. The reason I love the 83's is that you know you can still turn them up if desired and they will still sound awesome. Let us know how it turns out if you make the purchase.

Thanks for the response guys. Turning the volume up does make sense. There is definitively nothing wrong with the speakers as they still have pretty darn good bass. I think I'll push him to purchase a sub down the road. I guess I can put my socks back in the drawer.

Hi All, I recently sold my RF-82's to a friend and upgraded to 83's My friend has the 82's setup in his living room without a wall behind them. He does not have a choice to put them in front of a wall based on his room design. The room is roughly 25x17. There is not a sub or other speakers involved in this setup. The 82's are being powered by an Onkyo SR804 A/V receiver. I noticed when I came over to listen to the speakers that they had seemed to lose about 25%-30% of that deep bass response. Even when I used to play the 82's without a sub they still viciously shook the room, but I had mine about 8" off the wall. So I tried to help the situation by changing some of the EQ settings on the receiver, which did help somewhat, but not enough. The speakers are also set to large. So my question is how can he improve the deep bass response without putting the speakers in front of a wall? I thought I heard someone once say that you could put a sock in one of the back ports or tape off one of the ports? Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for getting back to me guys. I might get some of these one day and use them as side/back surrounds. I assume they would blend with RF-82 or 83's ok ?

Maybe a dumb question, but can these speakers also be powered directly from an amplifier? It looks as if the back of the speakers would accept speaker wire? If so is there an advantage / disadvantage to this?

The RF-82's and RC-52 are being sold to an old roommate for a decent discount. He loves the sound of the speakers and figured it was a good deal to not pass up. I may also sell him the Onkyo receiver and upgrade to either a NAD or Anthem pre-pro, but not sure yet. This upgrade bug is bad, but good at the same time. My current living situation does not allow for good placement of rear speakers. I may be moving in a year or so and then plan to revisit the idea of rears. Thanks for welcoming me to the 83 family

My 83's just came home this weekend also. I upgraded from the 82's. While the 82's were great the 83's seem to just give a bigger feel to the sound. The 83's also just seem to have a smoother sound to them. Now just waiting for my RC-64 to come in.

Since you are gong with a 2.0 setup, I would go with the 82's. This will probably give you the best bass response without the sub.

I just received my Custom 3's today also. I actually thought the packaging was perfect so that the likelihood of damage occurring during transit is low. One less thing Klipsch should have to worry about. Since Jay pretty much covered everything up to the part about how they sound, I can speak of that. I found the largest size ear gels are what worked best. It took some experimentation to figure this out, but worth it in the end. In my case the small gels just didn't seal off the outside noise enough and that resulted in weak bass. Once I switched to the large gels the bass was fantastic. Kudos to Klipsch for providing a wide variety of gels to accommodate everyone’s individual size. Once I turned the music on I was amazed. These are the most ridiculous in ear headphones I have ever heard. By ridiculous I mean good. Super clean highs and deep thumping lows. All the music sounded really clear and detailed. I played a couple rock tracks and then switched over to some electronic mixes. The headphones never skipped a beat. I must say I have only heard a couple other in ear phones before such as Bose, Apple and Shure, so there may be some other really good competitors out there? I still just think the Custom 3's seam so much more detailed and clear. By all means if you can pony up the $ for these phones, I don't think you will be disappointed. Hopefully they will provide listening enjoyment for years to come.

Has anyone paired up the NAD M25 amp with the NAD T 175 pre-amp? Seems like it would be a good combo. I thought about maybe going that route with my 82's or possibly upgrading to the 83's. On the original note I always hear good things about Sunfire and B&K. Probably can't go wrong either way.

My room is similar to your 15' x15' and I have a 52" LCD. I think it is the perfect size as we used to have a 42" plasma in there that just didn't quite do it as far as size went. You will get use to the size as others have said. I now think the only people that believe the TV is too big are women who come over, but then they usually say an hour or two later after watching how much they like the TV and size.

14 out of 20 Pretty good test