Olaf

Paul You can also go to Lowe's and buy Acoustic Research 12 gauge cable for $39 for a 50 foot roll. They also sell banana plugs or any other termimals you may need. I just replaced the bi-wired cables on my RF-3's on Tuesday with it and the cables made a decent difference. Better soundstage and detail. It's a matter of preference and a very important aspect of your system,but personally I can't justify paying heaps of cash for cables.

Hey Klipschguy...I has a subscription to 'Stereo Review' for years and really enjoyed reading JH's columms and reviews. They had alot good stuff in the magazine ,but I was always a little leary of JH's reviews if the brand of equiptment he was testing had the manufacturer's advertisements in the magazine. You know,I sure they didn't want to lose an advertiser because of an overly negative review.;-) I still had respect for his conclusions though...he was da man!!!! You're right about the cables and the break-in period. As I said in my post at the top of the page....

Klipschguy I don't know what the problem is with my Yamaha. It could be a few things... Maybe the speaker cable I'm using, even though it worked fine with my old speakers. Perhaps the room acoustics. I have my equiptment in a very 'live' setting. But I really think the problem is that I have a 'lemon.' I had it only a few weeks and I had problems with it and that's a very rare occurrence with Yamaha. The Yamaha sounds extremely harsh and muddy with terrible non-existent mids. I've heard a few boom boxes that actually sound more balanced. The Onkyo is smooth and punchy with pleasant sounding crisp highs with very good detail and soundstage. Just the opposite of the Yamaha. I'm going to wait a few months and I'm going replace the speaker cable and try using it again since there seems to be a 'break in' period for RF-3s which I am skeptical about. If there is no improvement,I will be buying a new reciever.

kenratboy From personnal experience....don't buy a low end Yamaha. I have a RX596($400) and it sound absolutely awlful with my 2 week old RF-3's. I switched to my 21 year old Onkyo TX 3000 and the difference is astounding.

I'm considering the purchase of a new reciever. I'm an Onkyo guy but I've heard some good things about the Rotel RX 975 reciever and wondered if it's worth the extra 300 bucks more that it costs than the Onkyo 8511. There are no dealers in this area and I can't really audition one. Your opinions would be a great help and very much appreciated!

John Agreed!! I think the only thing that 'breaks in' are the listener's ears. There's a huge difference in the sound between my old Advent Legacies and the RF3's. It will take several months for my ears to adjust to the new and superior sound of the RF's. And yes! I did initially have 'ear shock.'(Original Legacies are still damn good speakers though)

I've had 30 years of experience working with different types of speakers. With all the different brands that I have owned and the dozens of bands I've worked in I never heard of any speaker that needed 'broken in.' Is there a technical reason that 'Klipsch" speakers requires a break-in period? Is it the composition of material which the speakers are manufactured with? If the 'break-in' period is indeed necesary and factual,what type of improvements in their performance can I expect? The model of speaker is RF-3.

Boa...Yes indeed!!! There were alot of those...:-)

After messin' up my attempt at italics...now I find it...lol ... Brackets instead of carats!

<i>That's strange your RX-596 sounds bad</i>. Klipschguy...That's what I don't understand. Back in the late '70's,I knew three people who had the Yamaha/Klipsch combo and they all sounded great. All three had the Yamaha 2040. Two had Cornwalls and 1 had LaScallas. Perhaps I got a lemon because I had it for a month and a channel blew out on it. Speaking of LaScalas...In one of my old bands(approx. '77) we used LaSallas for our PA. system. Between gigs our bass player would use them in his van wired to a 4 watt per channel Pioneer Supertuner. It pushed those Lascallas with no problems. PhilH Thanks for the info on the 8511. I'm very seriously considering a purchase of one very soon. If it's anything like my old unit,I know I'll be more than satisfied with it. Incredible knowledge on this board!!!! :-)

edster00 The old 2040's and 1020 Yamahas kicked butt and sounded great with LaScalas. Too bad Yamaha doesn't make 'em that way anymore. :-( I learned the hard way...I tried RF-3's with an RX596. The 596 is now history.

Gentlemen... Thanks alot for the input! :-) The reason I asked is because I thinking about buying a new Onkyo no. 8511 reciever. Since my Yamaha RX596 sounds absolutely horrible(jeff George is 100% correct) with my new RF-3's,I switched to my 21 year old onkyo TX3000 and it sounds 1000 times better than the Yamaha. It's old has has a minor problems but is still functional. The Yamaha damping factor is 200 but it still sounds like garbage with the mids and highs. My old Onkyo has a 40 factor and the bass is tight and punchy and the 8511 has a 60 factor. So,I guess that's a decent number and anything higher could possibly be inaudible anyway. So,if Onkyo still 'makes 'em like they used to' and they still have the warm and ambient sound I will buy one ASAP.

I know the damping factor of the amp controls the amount of speaker vibration once the signal ends. How audible is it and what would the lowest acceptable measurement be? Is 60 at 8 ohms decent?

OK!!! I found the problem!!..:-) It's spelled Y-A-M-A-H-A. I spent the afternoon switching everything over to my old Onkyo TX 3000. The RF's sound absolutely outstanding on that 21 year old amp. I know it's not an audiophile quality amp,but it puts that Yamaha to shame with only half the power and it sounds superior. I'd like to hear the RF's on something with superior quality. That must be pure 'ear candy.' It's all there now...crisp natural sounding highs,depth,imaging,detail and punchy bass,the way I like it. The harshness is gone along with all the other problems I described in my first post. I actually have to add 'treble' to everything instead of turning it back as far as I can. Did I mention...'soundstage?' If I knew for sure that Onkyo still made recievers on par with my old one,I would rush right out and get a new one.....their mass-marketing concerns me though. For sale...one garbage Yamaha reciever. 'Sounds' like someone rattling an old tin box! Thanks for the help everyone!!

samuel....yup!! I spent many hours reading the reviews at the audio review website and this one too! I know they're great speakers because I heard them at 3 different dealers. My wife and I toured Pa. after using the dealer locater on this site. We drove as far as 85 miles to find one! At one time,there were 4 dealers within a 30 mile radius of here ,all but 1 went under. I guess they were victims of the mass marketing retailers such as 'Circuit City.' I always checked what type and model of amp they were running them through and only one used a higher end Yamaha. I haven't liked that thing since I bought it and I've been thinking about selling it for some time now. I think what I'm going to do is give them time to 'break in' and if there's not much of an improvement,I'll dump the Yamaha. I'm sure that's most likely the source of the problem. thanks again samuel and BobG!

samuel...I think the amp has alot to do with it too. I'm using a Yamaha RX596 model. It's 85 watts a channel and I still regret buying it for $399. The RF's do sound better through my 21 year old 45 watt Per channel Onkyo though. I hate to say this but they sound just awful so far. I'll just keep tweaking and hope the RF's age gracefully as I understand they need a break in period but I never heard of that before. Even the Smoglifter cables just seem to be braided 12 gauge zip,but BobG recommends plain zip so I'll try that too. Thanks samuel!..:-)

I should have known about the 'Smoglifters.' They were given to me by an financially 'well to do' old friend in the early 80's. He had a Yamaha with Cornwalls and that's probably why he got rid of them. At the time I was using an Onkyo TX3000 and the cables seemed to work fine with the TX. I forgot I had them and just dug them out a few days ago. I'll try the zipcord since I used it for years anyway and had good luck. When I first considered buying the RF's,I knew the listening environment could be an issue but I wanted them anyway. I have some ulpostery and some wall hangings but probably not enough and I took that into consideration when I first heard the RF's in my environment. Since my first post,I've been experimenting. My old Onkyo was setting next to the Yamaha just in case the Yamaha blew another tranformer. So I switched to the Onkyo to try a different music source. The improvement was immediate. Some harshness left and a bit of warmth was restored,also the detail was much better. Since I bought the Yamaha I've had buyers remorse and wish I would have returned it. Perhaps Onkyo is a better match for the speakers. I've been thinking for some time about dumping the Yamaha and going back to Onkyo because I like Onkyo's sound much better. I know the RF's are a fine speaker and I was not implying in my initial post that they are crap,because they're not!...:-) Thanks for the adice and suggestions and as I 'Tweak' the RF's I'll keep posting! :-)

I just purchased a pair of RF 3's and The sound is not what I expected. They sounded great in the showroom and I spent a month doing research on these speakers. I read hundreds of reviews and decided that they were the speaker for me,but I'm somewhat disapointed with their performance thus far. The first thing I did was bi-wire them because that is what seems to be reconmended. I'm using older speaker cables that I've had since the early 80's. They are called 'Smoglifters' if anyone remembers them. They're 12 guage braided cables and gave immense improvement to my 'Advent Legacies'(original model). I notice the RF's have a boxy,shrill,canned,harsh,ear piercing, annoying and fatiging sound even at low volume levels. They seem to lack detail and warmth and the soundstage is almost non-existent and all the intrustments seem to muddy up when all are playing at once. In other words, they're very unnatural sounding. Now I understand that the RF's need to be 'broken in' and the undesirable aspects of the speaker will dimishing with time and the overall sound will improve with age. I was expected them to sound as I described above,but not to the extent that they do now. I've experimented with different placements since I have the advantage of having them in a 30' x 36' room. The room is non-carpeted and I have tried with and without the spikes. There's not alot of upolstery but my old 'Advents' sounded really good in the room. At this time I'm extremely disappointed with the 3's but am willing to give them time and hope for improvement. I'm running them off a Yamaha RF596 reciever so I don't think the amp is the problem. So far I believe I've done everything proper and I hope 'aging' will mellow the sound and improve their performance. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!