bonedoctor

You might be surprised at how much difference it makes. I had an RC-7 and wasn't really impressed with it until someone suggested that I angle it down. It made a huge difference in my setup but it was about 5' off the ground and the couch was about 10ft away. I zoomed in to the reflection on your TV, inverted the image and read the logo off the front of your camera. Ok....I think that only works in the movies. I downloaded your image and looked at the EXIF data. It tells all of the camera settings when you took the photo (F-stop, Shutter Speed, Focal Length and camera model). I'll give it a try angling the center channel. It sits about 65 inches high now. Ahh, I knew there had to be some sort of embedded data that gave me away. I first shot the pics at 21 megapixels, but they wouldn't load, so dropped down to a smaller file setting. Still can't get one file to load even at the lower resolution.

Another angle, looking towards the kitchen area. The room is about 1000 sq feet, not counting the kitchen, but the system will get plenty loud. The sub is about 22 ft from the sofa, but it'll shake the floor and you feel it sitting on the sofa. I think it probably helps the sound pressure with such a big room that the floors aren't covered and the walls also provide some reflection. The rug and big furniture seem to provide just about the right amount of damping and I've never had any problems with reverb or reflectance, like what you experience when trying to talk inside a racquetball court.

Thanks. The guy I bought the house from had a theater in a box 5.1 system with the rear Klipsch surrounds (some 3650s). He had a local company do the set up including running the wiring to the two mains and a 75 ohm coaxial cable for the sub. I upgraded the rear surrounds to the 5800s and added the THX surrounds for a 7.1 system, then added the front height THX speakers when I got the Denon receiver (I had been using the Yamaha receiver). I have easy access to the entire ceiling from the attic, so it's not a bad job to run wires. I really was going for a clean installation. All eighteen speakers run from the Denon receiver in the BDI stand below the TV. They're all Klipsch, from 3650s to 5800s to the THX Ultra 2s, to the RF-7s and the RC-64. Only the sub isn't Klipsch. Hey, gotta go with the home town team....I live in Arkansas and Hope is just down the interstate from me. I bought a 6 speaker Sonance controller and will probably add a pair to the office and a pair in the other bedroom. It's just been too damned hot here this summer to even think about going up in the attic space. The TV is sitting in really the only space for it to go. I had to find the biggest screen that would fit and then find a matching stand I liked. The TV and the BDI Revo stand are virtually the exact same width. When I sell the house, the system will probably just go with it, minus the RF-7s maybe. The flag is my father's service flag from his funeral in 1976. He was a WWII vet and fought in Germany.

Thanks. Here's another angle. You can see some of the THX speakers in the ceiling. The sub is the black tall cylinder in the far corner, partially hidden by the chair. No, I don't have the RC-64 centered down at all. It just sits flat on the shelf. It's about 14 feet from the speaker to the 'sweet spot' on the couch, so I'm not sure if it would make much difference. Haven't tried it though. And, yes, it's a Canon 5D Mark II, just got it. I'm curious how you knew.

Well, here goes. Just got a nice digital camera so thought I'd post some pictures of my HT. It's a big room and other than the main speakers up front and the subwoofer, all the other speakers are in the ceiling. The TV is a Samsung 55", the first LED LCD they had. It sits on a BDI Revo stand that rotates. Behind the glass doors is the Denon 4810 receiver, the Oppo Blu Ray player, an older multidisc Yamaha DVD/CD player, a Panamax power supply, and a Sonance 4 pair speaker selector. All the wiring comes in behind the BDI stand through data port cable outlets (the kind with the fibers covering the opening). I spent a lot of time wiring this monster up and everything is very neatly zip-tied and looks like big old cables coming in the back. The mains are Klipsch RF-7s, the center is an RC-64, the subwoofer is an SVS Ultra cylindrical sub. The front height speakers are Klipsch THX Ultra 2s as well as the R/L surrounds. The rear surrounds are smaller Klipsch 5800s. The receiver can do a 9.3 system, but I have it as a 9.1 currently. I do switch between the Pro Logic IIx and IIz on ocassion. Currently there are 18 speakers running off the Denon receiver. I like the hidden look of the system and the in-ceiling THX speakers do an awesome job. All the wiring goes up into the attic, so you see almost nothing for wiring, except for the short leads for the mains. I'll usually scoot the left main over a few feet to the left to help even out the soundstage, get it a little more in line with the left height speaker. The Denon receiver has been set up with Audyssey.

Check out BDI. I have a Revo stand with a 55" Samsung and an Avion stand, also with the 55" Samsung. The Odeon stand might work since the center channel can sit on the top of the stand. They only make one width for the Odeon, so it might not be quite wide enough for your 63".

I just recently got the Denon 4810 receiver and upgraded to a 9.1 from 7.1 system. I have a large room and I can honestly say the addition of the height channels makes a difference in this room (I'm usually a pretty skeptical guy). I had an older Yamaha RV-X1500 with the Klipsch THX speakers in the ceiling as the surrounds. The RF-7s were up front with the RC-64. The 5800s are in the back ceiling as the rear surrounds. The SVS sub is over in the corner (front right, as you look at the TV). The room is probably something like 40 x 50 ft with 10 ft ceilings. Lots of open space with hardwood floors. Do have some large oversized furniture with a large wool rug and this does a good job of absorbing stray sound. The Yamaha with the 7.1 setup sounded nice, but I just bought the Denon 4810 and installed Klipsch THX speakers in the ceiling. They're actually a sort of hybrid of height and width channels since my RF-7s are fairly wide apart (probably 20 ft). The viewing couch is about 18 ft back from the monitor. The THX speakers are in the ceiling, above and outside the fronts, so they're a cross between height and width speakers. The instructions showed them to be mounted with the horn facing back (or parallel to the side wall), but since they were out wide, I rotated the cans a little so that the horn is angled towards my seating area. I hooked up the new Denon, wired in the THX height speakers (after cutting a big ol' hole in the ceiling), wired everything up (there are 18 speakers wired to the Denon through ports in the wall behind the stereo/TV stand) and let fly with Master and Commander, Far Side of the World. I'm familiar with the storm scene and the two battle scenes to know if it sounded different, and it did. The front soundstage is very wide and tall and the storm scenes literally surrounded you. Now if the height speakers were only a few feet above the mains, I don't think it would make a lot of difference, but if you've got the space and height, it sure does. I basically have a set of wide speakers now and didn't think the system would benefit from extra width speakers (they'd be waaay far apart) as much as the height speakers. I've heard others mention that 9.1 or 11.1 might run all the sound together since you might not be able to really get the speakers apart, but if you've got a large room, it does seem to make a difference. When I fired up the system for the first time with the height speakers, I got up on my ladder to listen to them. During the storm scene in M and C, there was quite a bit of output from them and it had different content that the other speakers. The new receiver does sound a lot better than the older Yamaha (at least to me). I haven't set up the Audyssey system yet, but interested in doing that. For now it basically sounds like a full size movie theater and you can generate sounds levels waay past what's comfortable. I can only imagine what those full THX systems sound like. I probably wouldn't have popped for the THX speakers at a cool $999 each (four of them), but I ran across a Vann's sale months ago and they had the KS-7502 for $399 each (everybody else had them for $999) and I ordered a pair. They went back up to regular price almost immediately, then never returned to that price. Vann's then quit listing them, so maybe they were selling them for cost(?). Recently, a place on eBay in WI had a couple pairs and I bought the KL-7502s for $400 each. Still not cheap, but a lot better than $999 each. I really did want a full Klipsch system with the speakers in the ceiling since I like the stealthy look. About the only thing you notice about this 9.1 system is (are) the RF-7s in maple, the 55" Samsung, the center channel, and the subwoofer (only if you look over in the corner, 25 ft away from the seating). There are no wires visible and the circular ceiling grills blend in nicely with the recessed lights. I've very happy with this system and probably the only thing I might add is a second SV sub for a 9.2 system.

They list cherry RC-64s on their website (google Sound Seller Marinette WI) for $599. Oddly, they have the black ones for $799 although I paid $649 for mine.

Probably the same place. Mine came from a Roger Kahn at Sound Seller, in Marinette WI. Is that the same place? I was impressed how they took another box and took the time to craft it to the same dimensions as the Klipsch box. It took me a while to get that sucker off and pull out the Klipsch box.

Yep, third time was the charm. And also the best deal. I paid $649 shipped for a recently made RC-64. If anybody is interested, I could give you the contact info for the place. They went so far as to craft a box tightly around the Klipsch box and staple it to the Klipsch box. I probably would have put some cushioning between the inner and outer box, but the speaker arrive in perfect shape. Don't know if how they packaged it was better or worse, or decreased the chance of the odd damage we've seen with these speakers, but I didn't have that awful sound of pieces rattling around inside the cabinet when unboxing it!

Yes, that was probably me. I looked through the feedback and sent messages to the people with similar experiences as me. Ebay and PayPal (owned by Ebay) couldn't have cared less about the problems, culminating with Hi-end-wholesale sending me "PayPal's" number to call (it was a phone sex line). Ended up getting a new account number with Discover over the mess. Took a charge-back (that got their attention) and having to wait while PayPal resolved the dispute. When I left well-deserved negative, they claimed I damaged the speaker (seems to be a common claim for them). I got stuck handling the return. My feedback is from April 2009. I wouldn't be surprised if they are selling broken, salvage crap, knowingly shipping it and working a scam to make $ off the insurance claim against the shipper. I contacted both PayPal and Ebay (as instructed) with the whole string of sorry e-mails exchanged and heard NOTHING! Guess Ebay and PayPal would rather suck dirty money than do anything about a scam seller.

I bought my RF-7s locally several months ago. Clearly, they were leftover stock. I paid cash (cold, hard cash) $1400, which I thought was a decent deal for me (they wanted $1600). I noticed a few months ago that they are labelled "B stock". Nothing wrong with them, just didn't think that I got that good of a deal for buying some old stock speakers, B stock to boot, and paying cold cash.

The eBay clowns are still selling crap and piling up the negatives. From their feedback, it sounds like they sent one unlucky buyer two RC-64s that were damaged in identical fashion. Others have left feedback about the sellers sending damaged stuff and suspicions that they were buying damaged stuff, then sending it, then making an insurance claim. Not blaming anybody else. The simple fact is that these speakers have a problem surviving routine shipping. That's clearly been demonstrated. As far as large speakers not surviving shipping (which these Klipsch speakers seem to have a problem), I recently bought a very large SV Sound (SVS) subwoofer. The thing weighs about one hundred pounds. The packaging was superb. The speaker is obviously well made and the packaging couldn't have been better. Total weight of the box and speaker was at least 115 pounds. The speakers are purchased directly from the manufacturer via the internet. The shipping was $90, but couldn't have been better. Clearly Klipsch doesn't send these things out damaged, but I got two of 'em and Klipsch acted like they had never heard of this problem. The one received by the guy a few days ago from Crutchfield (and one of mine was from another good merchant, Vann's) goes to show that these speakers have a problem being shipped. If there was a box to be dropped and manhandled because of its size, it was that SVS sub box. Who knows, maybe the sheer size and weight of the box was its savior, since it was so big and heavy it was actually very difficult to pick the thing up more than a few inches. I can see the RC-64 box getting tossed around and, combined with its weight (and inertia), shearing off the speaker baskets. For a $999 center channel speaker, you just expect a little more robustness from these speakers, not something that has a good chance of arriving damaged. SVS can do it, so can Klipsch. I bought Klipsch speakers because I've always had them from way back in the day. I also live in Hot Springs, AR not far from Hope, so I bought a local product. The SVS sub is also an American made product (Ohio, I think).

That's exactly what my two(!) damaged RC-64s looked like. The second was from Vann's, double boxed with packing. It had only one cone damaged. The first one had both the cones on the same side damaged. It had been lazily shipped in its Klipsch box.The pushed out cones look just like mine. I just recently bought a new RC-64 from a place that had some listed on eBay for $649. That's a very good price and I bought one. It arrived nicely packed in an outer box wrapped tightly and stapled to the Klipsch box. I think either UPS or FedEx delivered it. Yep, Barbara Miller inspected it, too. She also did my RC-7s from a few years ago. When I got it, I rocked the box around for the tell-tale sound of stuff rattling around inside (I'm sure you got the pleasure of hearing some disconcerting sounds coming from the speaker) and unboxed it. It arrived in perfect shape. It's set up and sounding great. I got the black one, too. I did notice that the two styrofoam pieces in the ends of the box had a 'fracture', so it did get a little rough handling somewhere along the way. That's the best price I've seen for a new RC-64 in full factory box. It was even a recently made speaker, July 2009, unlike the speaker from Vann's that was something like two years old. Like Vann's, Crutchfield has been around a long time and has good customer service. They aren't the cheapest, but problems are easily handled, unlike the first set of idiots from eBay I dealt with (Hi-end-wholesale). That was a nightmare. They accused me of damaging the speaker and gave me a phone number supposedly for PayPal to check on my refund. It turned out to be a sex phone line. Took about three months, reversed charges, and a new credit card number (for security) to resolve that mess. NEVER buy anything from Hi-end-wholesale on eBay. I was really hesitant about buying another one of these that had to be shipped, but the third time was the charm.

Maybe the title of this post will get somebody's attention, since nothing else seems to! Here's the latest sorry update on the trashed RC-64: I e-mailed the very same Tech Support person on Friday, the day I got the trashed speaker. This is the same guy who claimed never to have heard of such a thing. I attached the e-mail to the previous e-mails about the eBay damaged speaker. Guess what I heard back? Nothing. Another member of this forum sent me the e-mail of a Klipsch employee who happens to have the same last name as the company that made the speaker (hint, hint), and who apparently is head of Customer Service. I sent him an e-mail with the string of e-mails sent to Tech Support. I even offered to have them take a look at my speaker (I live in Hot Springs, AR, not far from Hope) since Tech Support claimed never to have heard of such damage before. Guess what I heard back? Nothing. I wrote again to this person yesterday because I was really trying to avoid just sending the speaker back to Vann's so it could be tossed into the Missoula, MT landfill. I even offered to have the damaged speaker driver replaced, since the rest of the speaker looked okay. Guess what I heard back. Nothing. So, I can't avoid FedEx anymore and had to put the speaker out today for them to pick up (3rd and final attempt). I really thought I would hear SOMETHING from Klipsch, especially the guy whose last name happens to be Klipsch and who apparently is the head of Customer Service. Guess I was wrong. So I got the pleasure of loading that heavy speaker back into the box, tape it up, then man-handle that box into a larger box, tape it up (including a repair job from FedEx's previous rough handling), then lug this giant box outside to leave it unattended on my front step (as Vann's says, at 'my risk'). Couldn't put it out this morning because wje've been having a lot of thunderstorms lately, so I got the pleasure of coming home from work after my case in the operating room (I'm a surgeon), hoping to beat the FedEx guy (I think I did) so they can pick up this speaker on their 3rd and final attempt. As I said in my last e-mail to Mr. S. Klipsch, Customer Service, maybe FedEx could finish the job they started and completely destroy the speaker on its trip to a landfill somewhere in Montana. All I can say is that hunk of crap better not be on my doorstep when I get home today. Final thought: I can't stand companies that don't stand behind their products, don't give a crap about customer service, and leave the customer holding the bag. If I acted like Klipsch, I don't get a simple complaint, I get sued. Now I've got $999 tied up from this RC-64, nearly $800 still tied up from February from the first RC-64, I've had the pleasure of lugging TWO RC-64s into my house, unpack them, discover them damaged in the very same odd fashion (and Klipsch claims never to have heard of this.....BS), then repack two RC-64s, lug them back outside and wait until FedWrecks carts them off to be discarded. Oh, almost forgot, I had to get a new CC account number from the eBay fiasco, and the jackasses gave me 'PayPal's' phone number to check on my 'refund'.......and the phone number was a sex phone line. Yeah, that looked real good on my business line at work. I had to finally reverse the charges and then still give them 30 days before PayPal moved forward to refund my money (still don't have it). Thanks, Klipsch. I can buy any speaker in the world, but chose Klipsch speakers. No more, however, after this episode. I'm GONE as a customer.

Don't know what the drop standards were at my previous career. I do know that I wouldn't want a Klipsch RC-64 in full packaging dropped on an leg or arm from 4 feet! Then my current career would be most useful (ortho surgeon). That's a lot of weight, and from 4 feet (FedEx must really be optimistic), that's a lot of inertia. Maybe the FedEx workers should take a 1 pound brick and drop it on their foot from one foot. Probably will hurt a little, but no biggie. Take that same brick and drop it on their foot from 4 feet and they'll probably be coming to see me!

I don't find fault in Klipsch for making them with plastic baskets. To me, the blame is on the shipping company. If I drop something in the store and it breaks, I can't go to the clerk and say you should have made a better product. I'm responsible. If I test drive a car and back into a pole, again, that's my problem, not the manufacturer of the car. Klipsch makes speakers that are capable of cranking at high volumes and as long as they can do that well and accurately, I'll put my blame on the shipping company. If anyone is to blame it is either myself, since I designed the Ref IV line, or the shipping carrier... ASTM STANDARD We test to a drop test standard but UPS chooses to "loosen" that standard for their issues...process of conveyers or just plain money saved. The ASTM standard requires drops at a certain distance on each the six facea and on of each of the corners. For this weight of 61 lbs plus carton which is about 65 lbs, I believe we dropped the carton at a distance of 18 inches. Now you may think that this is not very high, but this is a lot of kinetic energy, which would damage many floors. This drop is done on a concrete floor. There are corregated panels on two sides that are in excess of 1.5 inches I believe. To pass a 48 inch drop test would probably require side panels 3-4 inches thick with foam on the inside to vary the density. This would allow the velocity of the shock to shift more gradually. Speaker Driver Design The RC64 is a very HOT design for the motor structure. It is also shielded from stray magnetic flux so there is not only a large magnet but a bucking magnet and thick metal cap. On some models we even included a metal plate on the wall. The plastic basket we consider an upgrade. It is more expensive than a stamped metal frame. The reason we use it is to eliminate the short circuit that occures when using a metal frame. Maybe we could improve this frame by adding more radii and thickening the frame. There may be sharp edges or corners which promote stress areas. I doubt that much improvement can occur without a more robust frame structure to the cabinet to support the magets. That we may have to look at on the next version. The down side of all this is that it will add cost in packaging and construction which would need to be passed onto the consumer. Will you still buy it if it is 20% more in cost? I guarantee that the sales numbers will go down. On top of all of this is the economy. If anything we might need to reduce the current cost on the next design. There are a lot of conflicting concerns here folks. So that is the type of things that engineers have to think of on a daily basis. Can we improve on the current design? Certainly. Can the shipping companies do a better job of taking care of the package? Absolutely... Best rules of thumb. 1. Buy Local 2. Inspect the product before you buy 3. Pay by credit card or check so you can dispute the charges. 4. Buy Klipsch, because we care! The first one was shipped lazily in its Klipsch box and had one corner a little mushed, but certainly nothing to suggest what happened inside. Everything looked perfectly fine until I took off the grill (well, actually, I knew something was wrong when I started hearing stuff falling around inside the cabinet as I put the speaker on its side). The Vann's speaker was in its Klipsch box, with air-bags around and an outer box. The outer box did have a corner split, but nothing scary looking. The inner Klipsch box looked almost untouched except for a short corner split. The box and packing material certainly looks adequate to me, but I can see how the mostly-rigid dense polystyrene foam 'blocks' on the end that cradle the end of the speaker could transmit shock to the speaker. A hard inpact to either end (with its flush mount end cap that cradles the speaker closely) could certainly transmit the shock right to the speaker. As another person mentioned, it's not the fall, it's the sudden stop at the end that does the damage. These speakers have a lot of weight (and inertia), so I can't imagine how FedEx could think a single one could survive a four-foot fall, even if it were to luckily fall directly flat on a side to spread out the impact. Usually you like to control motion and have things fit snugly, but maybe the packaging is a little too rigid. Maybe a little 'wiggle room' would allow these speakers to survive shipping. The eBay speaker box had a mushed corner, so that was probably a lot of force that got directly transmitted to the speaker and sheared off the two right-side speaker baskets.

Especially since the RC64 is manufactured right there in Hope Arkansas! He might be able to get them so fresh he could still smell the lacquer! mmm lacquer mmm I got a stale one, I guess. It was made in November 2007.

FedEx is 'two for two' trashing these speakers. I have a hard time accepting that a $999 speaker can't even survive shipping with a reasonable chance of arriving undamaged. The second one from Vann's was in its Klipsch box, surrounded by air packets, inside an outer box. FedEx managed to wreck this speaker, too. I guess I should give them credit, however. This speaker had only one basket sheared off (the right side outboard speaker), whereas the eBay speaker (shipped only in its Klipsch box) had both right-side speakers trashed. Guess FedEx is getting better! I wonder why these high $ speakers have plastic baskets for the woofers? Doesn't seem to make them any lighter and clearly there's a problem with them surviving even routine shipping to the customer. The second one was made in Nov 2007 and the first one was Dec 2008. It's clearly a design flaw that hasn't been addressed. Surely they've (Klipsch) has heard about this problem long before now.

Klipsch is gonna hear about this one! I called, but they were closed, so I sent a not-so-happy e-mail about the latest speaker attached to the previous e-mails about the first speaker (the one where they said they've never heard of this happening and can't imagine what could be broken loose and rattling around).

Yep, not too far from Hope. Just up the interstate in Hot Springs. I did buy my RF-7s locally several months ago. There's an authorized dealer here in Hot Springs. I should probably just go buy the thing there, but it will be $999 + the sales tax.

you see, this is somewhat COMMON- what kills me is that someone at Klipsch had NO IDEA what was occurring. Did they sign their name to that 'cut-n-paste' email 'response'? Bet not! arrrgghh M They did actually sign it, but I'm baffled how they haven't heard of these problems before. I've now read at least a few stories of people getting damaged speakers on at least two(!) ocassions, including me. For $999, you just don't expect a speaker that seems to have a lot of difficulty being shipped. My first one was shipped lazily in its Klipsch box with no outward signs of damage. Vann's shipped the second one in the Klipsch box with the bag-o-air packing material around it, with an outer box. Geez, if it still got damaged, then there's a real problem with moving these things!

Here's the copy of the e-mail: "I have never heard of this happening to one of our speakers. It sounds like there may have been some sort of shipping damage. The only thing that I can recommend is to contact your dealer so that they can either exchange or replace the speaker for you. What dealer did you purchase this from?" Checked PayPal tonight and just got the refund for the first trashed RC-64. Hey, only three months later and nearly $800 tied up, still no center channel speaker. Could be worse, I suppose.

The first one was shipped only in its Klipsch box. The second one (from Vann's) was shipped with an outer box and fairly good packing. The outer box took some damage, but the inner Klipsch box looked fine. My working theory was that if this heavy speaker was dropped, it could shear off something and I think you've supported that theory. I contacted Klipsch technical support via e-mail and that's what they told me. I think I've just about had it with these speakers!

I did a little search and found a recent post (Jan 2009) that described the exact same thing. Hmmmmm, sounds all too familiar. Guess $999 for a center channel speaker just doesn't buy what it used to and the plastic speaker baskets or magnets get sheared off, rattle around and proceed to trash your high-$$$ speaker.