cc1091

OK..I have a great idea.. Lets update the reference line with slightly newer looking, slightly less massive drivers, that have slightly less impressive specifications and then add zoobie new plasticized mortarboards hidden behind the grills and charge a few bucks more for them... Oops...too late..Klipsch beat me to it. < sorry..had to get that out of my system >

Uh oh..Here we go again. Is this one more step toward a slightly cheaper product that Klipsch can charge a few bucks more for? Is it just me or do these models (at least the floorstanders) have just slightly thinner bass response by specification? Ok, maybe they are not mean't to replace the RF5 and 7 ...yet.. More dent resistance? Whohooo!! Maybe now I can walk into my local Audio King (who will soon finally adopt the Ultimate Electronics name like the rest of the chain) and find possibly one floor model without a damaged cone? WoW! Now if I can just get them to replace the wiring between the source and the speaker with something reasonable. Guess that is more about my dealer..Better than Best Buy?? Forced to switch back to Paradigm? C'mon, there's a lot of flavors out there. I'm sure that even these new Klipsch speakers (and perhaps even the Synnergy line)will sound better than Paradigm. Seems that there was a reason why PWK seldom used a bass port in his speakers. Ahhh..maybe it was bass distortion caused by the port? Cornwall is the only exception that I know of from any of PWK's designs. Heresy was sealed to avoid ugly distortion/colorations. Klipschorn, LaScala, Belle all had horn loaded bass because it sounded cleaner/clearer/louder. All these new models (including the older RF3/5/7 model) have the bass port. I'm sure the bass will drive me as nuts as nearly every other ported speaker has. The extra bass artifacts that are more about the resonance of the box and the room than about the sound of the music always sounds very ugly to me. Just my 2 cents. Proof still lies in the listening.

I A/B compared the Definitive Tech speakers to Klipsch RP-3 and RP-5 back when the RP-3 and RP-5 were a part of the Klipsch lineup. The RP-3 and Rp-5 were incredibly clear and clean sounding compared to the Definitive Tech speakers. I bought the RP-3s and I still love them. A week or two after I bought my speakers, I re-visited the store and found that they had moved the Klipsch speakers out of the room with the Definitive Tech speakers. That room had been for the high price and high performance speakers. I guess they decided that the Klipsch at a lower price would out perform and outsell their higher priced brands. Too bad they didn't have a couple of Heritage series speakers to A/B with.

No problemo. Just build new cabinets with integral powered sub....

So now Best Buy has decided to sell Musicland Group EXCEPT for the holdings of Magnolia Audio. Its not clear what will become of Magnolia. Best Buy is also keeping what was the construction development group of Musicland. Seems clear that BB had to own Magnolia in order to leverage Klipsch to offer Synnergy in BB stores. Hence BB hangs on to Magnolia but sells other Musicland group stores. Rumor has FYE purchasing what's left of Musicland and gutting it. BB is ruthless and kills all it touches. (A la Packard Bell)

Swells - From what I hear, Canada should brace itself for the Best Buy store invasion. How can one loyal Klipsch owner hope to compete with the addition of potentially millions of Canadian buyers (even if it is the cheap Klipsch line...cheap to buy, cheaper to make)? All I can say is this: I've heard that Cerwin Vega speakers are actually quite good speakers, but since Best Buy has sold them for years, I won't touch them.

Reminds me of the little dispute I had with AT&T Boradband last fall when I had their cable modem installed at my new home. The gave me an offer that included free installation and two free months. Well it turns out, what they were really offering was a refund or reimbursement of the money I pay by using coupons that they send me. Well, they never advertised the offer in this way, nor did they mention it to me when they took my order, but there it was. To make matters worse, since I was a cable modem customer who did not use their cable TV service (I love DirecTV by the way), the coupons weren't even printed up properly to cover the $4 extra I pay per month because I don't also use their cable TV service. So after spending a lot of time writing e-mails and talking to customer service personnel on the phone who had no intention of following the old adage: "The customer is always right", I finally go fed up and contacted the state attorney general's office. The immediate response from AT&T was that they "could have no further contact with me", which of course didn't solve my problem. But it gave me the idea to make the 30 mile drive to their nearest payment office with those coupons. I walked into the office, told them what was happening and they said, "Oh, another one of these." followed by "Give me the installation coupon AND the first month coupon and we will credit your account." as they were making things right, I talked about how ill-conceived the whole promotion was. One of the ladies responded, "well you can bet we'll never do it like this again." I didn't understand the significance of the comment, but now, four months later, AT&T Broadband has sold its operations in Minnesota to Commcast. I know that the state attorney general had several complaints about AT&T prior to my complaint, but I think the guff that AT&T was getting about this final promotion was the final straw. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the state attorney general encouraged AT&T to get out of the market. ANYWAY...Long winded way about telling you to contact the state attorney general's office. Preferably the one in the state where the buisness is located and CC'd to your own state's attorney general's office. But do this only if the credit card company can't help you out first. It is my understanding that the BBB usually doesn't have any ability to pressure a company, where the attorney general has several prosecutorial powers. Good Luck.

I'm sorry I missed all the fireworks. I don't know that anyone here can be happier that ForrestThump was banned than I. I found him...well anyway, I'll just say I'm happy to hear it. And "about time (again)". But he will get a new account easily enough. can't ban all the IPs either. One would think that KAiN and Forrest would get along. After all, conservatism is conservatism wether it is done under the guise of American ultra-reactionary Republicanism or in the name of an Islamic Jihad. Can't we just put the war hawks, the radical muslims and a few other wackos in a lead lined room and seal it for a few thousand years until they're done with their foolishness?

DANG! You mean I missed an important opportunity to discuss politics and a few moronic governmental decisions on this website. Nuts! Censored once again. CC

mOOn- All I know about Magnolia is what was reported in the Minneapolis Star Tribune when the sale of Musicland to Best Buy was announced. The mention of Magnolia Audio in that article was almost an afterthought. The article gave the impression that Magnolia was originally based out of Canada before Musicland bought them (which I beliee was a fairly recent acquisition prior to BB acquiring Musicland). The article mentioned that Magnolia also had a number of stores throughout the Pacific NW. Now the information from the Star Tribune has been known to often be tainted with a regionalistic bias and notable inaccuracies (Like today's near foot of snowfall that was only supposed to be an overnight dusting..HA). The info about the eventual closings of Suncoast, Sam Goodie and the scale back of the TV display wall at Magnolia is something you can take to the bank unless BB does a mid course 180. Heres more from the local rumor mill about Best Buy: There's a lawsuit that BB has to contend with where the land for their new "Best Buy Campus" of buildings at the corner of Interstates 494 and 35W in Minneapolis (actually Richfield/Bloomington area) was acquired from the original owner through a city condemnation process illegally (the lawsuit is a fact). The out of court settlement (just announced) will add another $9.5 million to the price the city offered the original owner for the land being condemned (bringing the total price to $18.5 mil). It is speculated (rumor) that BB will end up paying the full 18.5 mil to the city of Richfield +\- a few other under the table bribes. The rumor mill also has BB in debt to their designer/contractor/A&E firm for the cost of the buildings being built on that land. The local rumor mill now has Best Buy struggling to make payments on this debt.

I would like to know this too. Not so much the KEF comparison, but the B&W vs Dynaudio. I've not heard KEF speakers in about 20 years. I've never heard Dynaudio speaks.

Here's my take on this: I really find that the B&W are quite a bit more detailed in their sound. But they don't push the sound forward like a Klipsch speaker does. A lot of audiophiles find the Klipsch in your face sound to be unattractive. The best analogy I've heard is that listening to B&Ws are like listening to a great orchestra in a very good concert hall; Klipsches are like playing in that orchestra. Taking the analogy further, you may hear all the screw-ups of the players around you with the Klipsch, but in general, the sound is great. I hear a lot of ambient noises with my Heresy's that I don't hear with my RP-3s. My B&Ws (602s) give me a lot more texture to the sounds I hear than do either my Heresy's or my RP-3s. I also like the tweeter on the B&Ws better than the drivers on the Heresy or the RP-3. Overall, I listen to one or the other Klipsch more often than the B&Ws, but I still want my B&Ws around. The Nautilus that I heard were a lot dry-er than the 602s. Could have been the setup at the store where I listened to them though. They tend to like a more dry and flat sounding system than I do. The Nautilus (along with Krell Monoblocks, MIT Oracle Cables, and some other high end CD player that I didn't get the name of) did show off the difference between a great recording and a run of the mill recording. I had never heard that difference so well defined before. Recordings that I thought were above average were often shown to be poor in comparison with others that I heard through the same system. But I do recall that the music was in this plane that was in front of me; whereas a klipsch system would place the music to my left, to my right, and in front of me.

I can't speak about Tweeter since I have no knowledge of them. Magnolia Audio on the other hand, was a part of the Musicland Group that Best Buy purchased. Aside from Magnolia Audio, Musicland Group included: any surviving Musicland Stores; all Sam Goody stores; and Suncoast Motion Picture Company (a retailer of Videos and DVD's). Since the announcement of the purchase of Musicland Group by Best Buy, speculation has been about what Best Buy's plans were for these market segments. Their plans are now coming into focus. The initial speculation was that Best Buy wanted to close down all the Sam Goody and Suncoast stores (along with any remaining Musicland Stores) that were in close proximity to a Best Buy. Why? Because over the years, the Video/DVD and CD Music portion of BB's buisness has become increasingly more important. Eliminating the competition can only increase their buisness. That speculation seems to be coming true. Sam Goody and Suncoast are scheduled to be phased out. I don't know the whole history with Musicland and Magnolia Audio, but I do know that there are no Magnolia Audio stores in the area or surrounding Musicland and Best Buy's home base (Minneapolis). I've heard that Magnolia is primarily a Canadian retailer. Best Buy does have plans for a Canadian expansion, but at this point apparently is not firm enough in its plans to officially announce any phase out of Magnolia Audio stores (though there was a major redesign recently that cut out a major and expensive feature of Magnolia's new stores). Cutting Magnolia out of the Klipsch sales market is probably the first phase of devaluing the chain before BB kills it too. It seems clear that Best Buy wants to get back into a higher level of audio and audio/video sales. It seems that removing Klipsch from Magnolia and offering instead a place in the nationwide BB stores was a marketing strategy forced by BB, not by Klipsch. Klipsch, to its credit recognized how many Hi-Fi retailers that this move would affect (Including the Audio King division of Ultimate Audio that exists soley in the Minneapolis area). As I see it, Klipsch worked out a compromise that would allow them to keep a lucrative deal with BB AND maintain some of its best and most loyal retailers too. Unfortunately, we all know about the BB reputation of cheap brands and cheap service. It is easy to see what hand BB had in the reintroduction of Nakamichi into the American market. Nakamichi labeled products with Goldstar like quality were an eyesore on the BB shelves for a year or so before Nakamichi had the good sense to buy back its name and have these pretenders removed from the BB stores. Will the same happen with Klipsch? I don't think many Klipsch fans would consider a speaker from the Sin-ergy line. Those of us who own Classic Klipsches from the days when the Heresy was the little Klipsch speaker have a hard time considering the Reference line as real Klipsch speakers (though I do value my RP-3s). The move to involve BB only cheapens the brand. I also worry about the little Audio Store in my hometown of Cedar Rapids Iowa that used to sell Klipsch (and I think still does), but now has to contend with not only Ultimate Audio selling the same Klipsch products, but also Best Buy too. All these stores are less than a mile away from each other. Its hard to believe that this little store has survived until now. They dropped Adcom when Ultimate Audio moved into town, and have severely cut back on the Klipsch offereings too (though their store is one of the few Klipsch authorized dealers that I have seen a Klipschorn or Belle Klipsch in). They have maintained their relationships with B&W, Rotel, and Bryston. Their service department has been outstanding, and their sales people really love music. Unfortunately, I don't see that store surviving in a town where the metro area is about 200,000 people and the BB and Ultimate Audio stores are within a mile and more convienient to shopping areas. Klipsch has become a pawn in the electronics marketing game. Gone is the headstrong independence of PWK and the low cost manufacturing based in Arkansas only. Klipsch has entered a new world. It remains to be seen if the product will be pulled down with BB cheap.

Reminds me of the odd corner cabinets I saw a few years back in a funeral parlor in southern Iowa. I wonder if they would think me weird if I visited them again and poked around at those cabinets...? I hadn't realized what Patricians looked like til now.

I agree that this sounds like an electronics problem with the Amplifier or Receiver. My old NAD from about 1985 has a mechanical switch that is pitted and would be extremely hard to replace. When the switch was in the wrong place on the speaker selector, it would eliminate much of my treble through my 1981 Heresys. Also the sound would be much less crisp. The problem could also be the speaker wires, etc. I also found that my Heresys from nearly the same era benefitted from resoldering all the connections on the crossover network. Though I am not sure why it made any difference since all the connections seemed to be secure when I started (I was trying the mod to the crossover that was suggested on this board a year or so ago, but found it wasn't to my liking, so had to resolder one connection..which lead to resoldering all connections). Also, if you are looking for a small project, I would suggest replacing the speaker connecting block with a more modern connector. If the wires secured to this narrow little mounting block (and I am assuming that your mounting block is similar to mine) get too close to one another, and your system has some power, any crosstalk between the wires could create a scratchy sound, or worse, blow out your amp. If your certain that your amp is fine, and the speaker wires are properly connected and in good repair, then I would consider looking at the drivers to see if there are problems with those. Good luck

The experience I've had with my Heresy speakers (1981 Heresy I) is that finding the correct woofer to match the two horns AND work with the resonant volumes of the box AND work correctly with the crossover is a very difficult matter. I have long heard an ugly/annoying vibration around 100hz in the Heresy. Replacing the driver may have cured the ugly 100hz sound only to introduce a number of other compromises that only made the unit sound worse. Adding a 200 watt Rotel amp to the system only added to the +/-100 hz annoyance. Same for 100 and 200 watt Adcom amps I have tried. NAD 35watt (85 watt peak) was darker sounding, but took some from the airiness of the sound of the upper end. Best answer I have for you is to go out and find a subwoofer that you like the sound of (if you can find a dealer who will loan it to you for a few days for in home testing, all the better), and use that with your Heresys. Though my crossovers are set to 90hz, the loading at the 100 hz area (geeze, were not talking a great deal of pitch change between the two here) is different enough so that the speaker is much sweeter sounding. I bought my Klipsch KSW10 sub with the intention to fill out the lower end of the spectrum (originally for my B&W 602s, then I tried mating it with my Heresys that had been in mothballs for a while). KSW 10 is not a great sounding sub...don't bother with it. Amazingly, the Klipsch RP-3 speaker's sub pairs nicely with the Heresy, but I don't reccommend buying the RP3 just for its sub. It has never been clear to me if the Layne Audio "Heresy Replacement" woofer was for the Heresy I or the Heresy II. I believe the Heresy II to have a 12" woofer, and I know my Heresy I has a 10" (diameter) woofer (contrary to what this website's specifications say for my speaker). Can someone tell me if there is some strange method of measuring a woofer that would cause Klipsch to list the Heresy I woofer as a 12" instead of 10" woofer? Does someone who has both models want to measure the woofer on each and let me know what the difference is? I'm just curious.

No Klipsch T-Shirts (maybe that's a good thing). FYI - Haacker Pschorr's NA is called Thomas Brau. They would be just as well drinking Canadian. The women to men ratio seems about right for Canadian (from what I've heard).

Justin - Go to the doctor (oh, maybe you have already). Take your meds. Listen to your Klipschs while you get some sleep. Forget about finals. If you have a note from the doctor, they have to let you test later. CC

The Heresy has always had an annoying rumble in the 80hz to 120hz frequency range (a range that I would always turn down when I had only my Heresys and used an equalizer). I have used the Heresy with the Klipsch KSW-10 running the KSW through the subwoofer out of my receiver or full frequency through speaker leads. The first set-up helped the rumble in the Heresy, but replaced it with the ported bass rumble that I hate. The Rp-3 uses the same bass driver as the KSW-10 (though different model number) but this time the driver is mouned in a sealed enclosure. The result is a much tighter bass that extends far beyond what the Heresy could manage. I'm not sure where or if the MIT cable splits the low frequencies from the upper frequencies, or where that split occurs, but it seems to clean-up the Heresy greatly while still using the Heresy's woofer to cover the range from 700 hz to whereever the break is made (hopefully at 90 hz where the RP-3 expects it to be made). The success I have had with this combination has made me seriously consider a rebuild using the components from the two speaker systems to make one speaker that sounds goo to me. I just don't want to mess with the cabinets and then find that the volumes for the woofers is all wrong. Cabinet design is another thread though. I wrote MIT with essentially the same question. Though they were not familiar with the RP-3, they felt that if it was like any other powered subwoofer, the load on the low frequency portion of the bi-wire cable would be negligible, so essentially it (the whole circuit of Heresy plus RP-3 bass) would be seen by the amp as an 8 ohm load. They also offered that there would be no problem with the proprietary circuit that is a part of the MIT cable. Thanks for the input.

I can't count the number of times my screen name has been shortened to cc109. Usually it is the same person who does it. Sure its *intentional*. either that or they have had their pinky cut off. In any case, just keep prodding them.

Condolences my friend.

You're right Justin, I remember those. I wish Klipsch would just post the curves for their speakers with their product descriptions.

No. But I too would be interested in seeing the frequency response curves for the reference series speakers. Anyone?

I have my speaker wires connected to my 1981 Heresy model 1 speakers (8 ohms I believe) and the Klipsch RP-3 powered tower speakers (also 8 ohms). Since the RP-3s have a separate high frequency and low frequency input, and my MIT bi-wire speaker wires have separate output wires for high and low frequencies, I have the speaekrs connected like this: High frequency wires go to the Heresy, low frequency wires go to the RP-3 sub-woofer only. Since I believe that the heresy is 8 ohms, and since I believe that driving half the RP-3 is equivalent to 1/2 of 8 ohms or 16 ohms <(1/2)*(1/8) = 1/16 or 16 ohms> then I believe that my amplifier is pushing 1/8+ 1/16 = 3/16 or 5.333ohms. Is this correct? What damage may result to my MIT crossover by driving the highs with an 8 ohm load, and the lows with a 16 ohm load? What could I do to balance this load before I feed it back to the speaker wires without getting too close to a 2 ohm overall load?

Rudy - I have heard my 1981 Heresys connected to: A Sony STR-25 (25 WPC) Carver Receiver (I think it was 150 WPC) NAD 7130 Receiver (35 WPC with a lot of db headroom) A Proton amp (I think it was 85 WPC with 7dbs of peak headroom) Adcom GFA-555 (conservative 200 WPC) Denon AVR 2700 (5 channels at 65 wpc each) A Rotel RB-991(200 WPC) A Cary tube amp (sorry, I didn't get the model number, but about 35 WPC..maybe 50 WPC) A Heathkit single channel tube amp (12 WPC). I was surprised that the two tube amps mated to the Heresy never produced satisfactory results. The heathkit was woefully underpowered, and old. So maybe it is unfair to think of it with the rest of the company listed here. But the 12 WPC produced loud sound...not extremely loud, but loud enough for most listening situations. The Cary really made the Heresy's midrange squawker squawk (not trying to be funny here, it just became clear why it is sometimes called a squawker). Didn't make the tweeter sound as clear as some of the solid state amps though. Of the the 150-200 wpc range amps, I've only used the Carver and the Adcom to really push the sound limits with. Each time it was close to painful (okay, it WAS painfully loud) with still some ply left in the dial (in truth, the Carver did reach the end of the dial, but we were all 50 feet from the speaker - diaphrams survived). I presently use the Rotel in my system. The 200 watt potential adds a soldness to the transients even at low levels. I don't know if this is purely psycological or based on fact though. Just sounds good. On the other hand, the 35-85 watt range amps had all that these speakers really needed. Could drive them louder than you would want, usually had nice silky smooth sound too. The belles are more efficient than the Heresys, but move more air too. I'm sure a nice dynamic 85 WPC amp would be satisfactory.