MrWhite

No problem. I had a Denon AVR 3806 integrated receiver and now have an Integra DTC-9.8 pre/pro. Both had/have built-in Audyssey. The AVR 3806 had one of the early Audyssey versions. The Intregra is a current model. I believe it has been on the market for a year or less. I did notice an improvement in the Audyssey built into the Integra versus the older Denon implemenation. With the Denon's Auto-EQ, I would get silly, bad results. With the Integra, it at least seemed to be headed in the right direction. I should clarify I am not downing Audyssey Auto-EQ as a technology. For what it is tasked with, it puts up a good fight. But EQs, even automatically configuring ones like Audyssey with its strong processing, calibrated mics, high(er) rez RTA abilities, and a large amount of frequency adjustable bands, can only do so much. I supposed my main point is - putting the idea that an auto-eq of any sort can overcome large issues in a audio system's performance is a bad thing. From what I gather from the recent reviews of receivers with built-in Audyssey, it works great when used as the final tweak on an already well set-up system. Home theater users may find more benefit from the Auto-EQ, as what it really is attempting to do is give the best results it can in a 3-d "bubble" dictated by the measurement mic locations used during the configuration. This is not the same thing as attempting to make the primary listening position sound the best it can. I have not seen the code nor am I aware of how exactly Auto-EQ works its mojo but logic would indicate it allows itself to make some compromises in some or all of the listening locations to make sure all the locations are above some, probably dynamic and unique to every configuration session, baseline level. In defense of Auto-EQ, on the Integra it did do an excellent job of level and delay setting for my RF-7s and my sub. Even after experimenting with different values and manually measuring myself, Audyssey had the values dead-on. This is a simpler task than frequency response adjustments for multiple, concurrent listening positions, but Audyssey did it very well. One thing that was eye opening was the distance it chose for my sub was larger than the dimensions of my room. Strangely enough it sounded great. After looking over the Audyssey website, the company says that Auto-EQ sometimes, for the sub channel, chooses distances that correspond to the delay needed for, IIRC, a secondary or greater reflection, as opposed to primary wave. They go on to say If and when it does choose this longer distance to use it, as it should give you better results. This was the case for me.

I own a pair of RF-7s and have a similar listening setup - similar room dimensions and the speakers and couch had to be close to their respective rear walls due to walkways etc. After much expermentation my chosen spot was with them closer than 18 inches from the walls but in a spot that didn't interfere with the walkways. I would imagine placing them extremely close (<4 inches or so) to any wall would be a bad idea. I never tried anything that extreme. Currently mine are ~8 inches from the rear wall and ~10 from the side walls at the center lines and toed in with the tweeters aimed at my ears in the listening positiion. They do have a strong bass prescence but nothing extreme. No one has ever complained of them being boomy and the lower octaves of the male voice seem fine. Since you are going to send all of the low bass to your sub and highpass your mains, you should be fine getting relatively close to the rear wall. From your description, you seem to have a lot more room to play with width-wise so that should not be an issue. Experimenting with placement will, of course, serve you well. I do think you will be able to find a spot that gives you good/great results while staying within your constraints. I definitely recommend spacing the speakers at least 6 feet apart from each other and using a tape measure to make sure they are equidistant from the wall and equidistant from your video screen. I even use a laser pointer to make sure they are both aimed correctly. To be clear, each speaker should be the same distance from the rear wall and the same distance from the side walls, but those two distances do not have to be the same. For the sub, you should be just as diligent when it comes to experimenting to find a spot that gives you pleasing results. As far as Audyssey Auto-EQ, I have never had good results with it, even after trying many times with two different receivers, using a tripod for the mic, and following the instructions to a "T". Your best bet is to get everything dialed in as much as possible with placement and room treatments, even "freebies" like cloth couches, throw rugs, curtains, etc etc, and then worry about asking Audyssey or any other EQ for help. Assuming you have good components installed correctly, you should be able to acheive very pleasing results without an EQ or tone control. Once I had everything dialed in with a proper amp and good placement, I stopped worrying about auto-EQ and haven't run it since. I would not worry about the height of the RF-83 being an issue. My RF-7s with their similar design have a wide vertical dispersion. Best of luck. Let us know how everything turns out.

I own an RSW-15 and had the same confusing situation with it not "auto-on"ing during lower volume sessions. This canbe especially maddening if you have your mains crossed over and send all low-pass content material to your sub. My original freebie fix was to boost the subwoofer channel on my receiver's preamp to +7-10dB and lower the gain knob on the RSW-15 to maintain system balance. That way the sub sees a hotter input signal and turns on at a lower listening level than it would if you have the sub channel set flat. The downsides are if you have any significant system noise in your sub you just raised your noise floor by 7-10dB and your preamp will start to clip 7-10dB sooner on the sub channel than your other preamp channels, assuming you have the other channels set to 0 dB. I have never had issue with noise or my preamp clipping so this solution worked well enough. It still took a higher volume setting on the preamp to get the sub to kick on than I would have liked. My current solution is provided by using my Rotel line coditioner. It has switched AC outlets for the amp and sub power. So now I leave the RSW-15 switched "ON" and let the 12v trigger from my pre/pro control when the sub powers up.

I will agree that source and amplification can be strongs contributor. But by source and amplification, I mean anything prior to the speaker terminals. I was noticing the harshness in general on all sources but it was most noticable on "poor" sources such as the majority of broadcast television. The reference source I have been using in my quest to tame the issue has been, of all things, the soap opera "Days of our Lives". My wife tivos "Days of our Lives" and the only DVR in the house is in the room with the RF-7s. That show, which is 99% people talking to one another, is either mixed with extreme focus on the 2-8Khz range or the signal is heavily compressed / digitized / degraded by the time it reaches my satellite box. Or, possibly both. Either way, Days is my "torture test" as its soundtrack contains heavy amounts of sibilance, either on purpose to keep your attention or as a side effect of low production values and short turnarouond time. I did find that removing the banana plugs from both ends of the bi-wired connections helped even further with the harshness. Logic would indicate my wire resistance with the plugs in line was higher than it should be. The terminations could have been poorly executed by me, the plug's design is flawed, or the RF-7s are just that sensitive to fluctuations in wire resistance. Again, I imagine it is a combination of all three. The plugs were convenient, but good riddance. While I was re-cutting the speaker wires, I made sure that all the lengths were exacty the same. Come to find out some were off 5 or more inches from the others. This was something I should have done originally. I don't think it was contributing to the harshness but it is good practice none the less. ******************************************* Audio Flyn stated in his post in this thread, "It can be a bit of a long path to find the music". I think I have finally found it after my recent component upgrades and these final "fixes" to my system. Music finally sounds correct. The system was listenable enough before but now I would consider it truly hi-fi. As a hybrid 2-channel music and 2.1 home theater setup, it is working very well. This thread should attest to the RF-7's sensitivity to both good and bad influences in the signal chain. Another way to say this would be that the RF-7s are extremely revealing. If you have any issues in your setup they will quickly let you know. But feed them a proper signal and you will be rewarded handsomely. I imagine this is why the RF-7s get such slack from those who have decided they are not good loudspeakers. The common complaints of them being too harsh, having a skewed frequency response with a lack of fullness, and being too in your face are what they give you when they are not properly set up. The fact that they are relatively cheap most likely adds to their being used or auditioned in a less than adequate install or with an inadequate team of components behind them. I know I was guilty of exactly that when I first acquired them. I spent years blaming the room for my system's "quirks" - the hardwood floors for the harshness - the room's standing nodes for lack of bass - etc etc. This brings me to my one big complaint about Klipsch - a serious lack of documentation included with purchase. Their "manuals" are 1-2 pages and include very, very little information. This is especially alarming due to how easy it is for the majority of their buyers (non enthusiasts) when setting up their system to omit something the RF-7s require, such as proper amplification, or introduce something that audibly mars their performance. I can only imagine how many people have purchased them and either promptly returned them for their "poor sound" or kept them and are just ignorant of their rather lofty capabilities and how easy it is to reach them once you are equipped with the knowledge of what the RF-7s need. Sorry if all of this has been said before. Hopefully someone down the line will read this thread and not have such a long journey in getting their RF-7s sounding great.

I stole diamonds and died in a blaze of gunfire. A little less obsecure of a reference. Will have to check out the Pelham 123 flick. Sounds like something I might enjoy.

Leo, I am happy to say you appear to have been dead on the money. After reading more about how interference and poor electrical power can cause what I was describing, I took a trip to my local shop and picked up a Rotel line conditioner. I figured it could be promptly returned for a refund if it did not help. The addition of the line conditioner seems to have helped greatly with the harshness / excessive sibilance, as well as cleaned up the video to some degree as well. I owe you much thanks. I misspoke when I said that Dolby D encodings were mixed bright as a rule. I should have said THX. Again, I am just repeating what I have heard but I believe THX mixes with a slightly trending upward high end due to the reason I mentioned in my previous post. Does DeanG still offer the crossover mod? If he does not, how can I go about getting it done? How do most people describe how it affects the sound?

leok, Thanks for the response. I have noticed that when listening to CD's there is far less to no issues with the sibilance. I would like to hear what others think but after more varied listening it may just be poorly or brightly produced/mastered sources that are my issue or that exacerbate the symptoms. Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't most Dolby Digital encodings intentionally mixed brighter as they are expected to be reproduced with all or at least the speaker(s) playing the dialog placed behind the display screen? I would also expect the soundtracks for television shows to be mixed to translate well to TV speakers or, at a minimum, mixed bright with the dialog pushed up. I believe the standard remedy to such issues is to run the pre/pro/reciever in THX or some other similar mode that rolls of the high end gradually. My older integrated Denon receiver would allow me to use THX mode with my "2.1" speakers but for some reason my new Integra pre/pro will not.... calling Integra on Monday to see if it is possible. I don't have a PWM or digital amp to try out but I will assume, for now, that my Rotel is not the cause of the issue. A professional reviewer had favorable results pairing my exact amp with B&W's 802d, another speaker that is very revealing, efficient, and benefits from high powered, high current amplification. Members of this forum seem to have good results pairing their RF-7s with the amp I have, as well. I will look into Belkin offerings but can you (leok) or anyone else give me a recommendation on which model or other brands and models I should check out? For clarification, it is possible that RF interference in the power could be causing these issues with no other noticed symptoms? Could poor speaker wire connections or the wire I am using cause my issues as well?

3 or 4 years ago purchased a set of RF-7s and soon after an RSW-15 for my first set of "real" speakers. They are currently pulling double duty as my primary "2-channel" music setup, as well as my home theater / TV speakers. The rest of my components are: Rotel RB-1080 bi-wired to RF-7s. Monster XP speaker cable. Integra DTC-9.8 pre/pro with balanced connections to the to Rotel. I am unsure of the brand of the balanced IC's. Oppo DV-980h, Xbox 360, and DirecTV satellite for sources, all connected via HDMI. I love my RF-7s but I have a problem with sibilance grating on my ears that I notice on many sources. I have tried letting the Audyssey AutoEQ function on my pre/pro attempt to remedy the issue. It did seem to balance out the percieved frequency response and limit the sibilance, but I found it removed much of the realism and, for lack of a better term, organic feel to the sound. Imaging also felt less focused, but was liveable. After two weeks or so of listening, I found I enjoyed the non-Audyssey tweaked sound but I am still on the hunt to tame the sibilance. I have read much about the benefits of room treatments but unfortunately, not much can change in the room the RF-7s are in as it is my only "living room" in the house. The hardwood-floored room is approx 14' x 10' and I sit approx 2 feet from the rear wall on a giant couch. The fabric couch wraps around the room and can seat 6 easily. I mention the couch as it is rather large relative to the room and it, combined with a synthetic leather ottoman, covers at least 50% of the exposed floorspace. The RF-7s are located on the other end of the room, slightly towed in, and sit about 1.5 feet from the forward wall. One is about 2 feet from a side wall. The other is about 4 feet from the other side wall. A closet door on the forward wall is the reason for the off-center orientation. Can anyone offer me any suggestions, tip, or tricks I can try to help tame the sibilance? I have read some about the crossover upgrade option for the RF-7s but am unsure how to proceed with having it done and if it will be effective for this particular issue.