nightcabbage

I know a handful of folks (myself included) that have been drooling over the vintage look of the Distressed Oak and off-white Lambswool grill version of the new Forte IIIs, but aren't in the market for that size (or priced) speaker. Given the new vintage trend down into the smaller ranges, I think it would be great to have The Sixes available with that same styling - people would go nuts over it. I mean, those Forte's are about the only speakers my wife has ever looked at with a reaction other than "I don't want that visible in my house." I didn't see this style for the Sixes on the website, so I'm assuming that finish is not available today?

http://www.klipsch.com/education Looks like someone over there took my detailed post about Content Marketing & thought leadership seriously: http://thinktank.klipsch.com/forums/176351-3-marketing-ideas/suggestions/3404546-more-educational-content-marketing It doesn't have much edutainment value though. You guys over there at Klipsch let me know when you want to crank it up to the next level and then give me a call

Yes but I'm assuming there's more to it than cost for size savings...

I'm having trouble understanding the new line's models and what each would be best for or would pair best with. For instance the SW-308 is an 8" sub that only goes down to 26Hz... but I'm paying MSRP $850 for it. For MSRP $850 I can also get the SW-115 which is a 15" that goes down to 18Hz. I'm just not that up on subs, and I'm failing to understand this new lineup (SW-110, SW-112, SW-115, SW-308, SW-310, SW-311).

http://www.eminent-tech.com/main.html

Interesting thread. I would love to do this for my office setup: Klipsch Icon WB-14: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882780084 Emotiva mini-X a-100: http://emotiva.com/a100.shtm Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102033 I'm not certain how I would connect a sub to that setup though...

I got all 5 of my Reference II speakers for almost 50% off (new) at Vanns.com. Just have to wait for good sales.

I feel like I have a good "sound palette" but a poor "sound memory" for comparison. It's amazing that I can't find places to listen/compare in a city as large as Columbus.

I'm not trying to compare two Sub-12s against one RW-12d. I'm not buying another sub... I'd only buy the RW-12d if I could sell my Sub-12 so that I only pay $50-$100 out of pocket for the upgrade. BTW, when you say I have 6dB of headroom are you talking volume? Because my speakers already go much louder than I could ever stand. I'm not a big "power/volume" guy... I'm more about clarity and quality.

Ugg... now we're back to the Sub-12 vs RW-12d thing! Anyone with EXPERIENCE out there care to speak on this topic? I have a Sub-12 and saw the sale on the WR-12d today. GREAT deal. I was thinking about buying the RW-12d if I could sell my sub-12 for $250-$300, but am unsure I should if there really is no difference.

More good points in these followup posts. Thanks guys.

Great stuff. I'm also going to quote the summary paragraph at the end here for all to read because I think it's extremely helpful in wrapping up why we do what we do with our crossover settings, because most people toss around the advice and don't really know why it's there in the first place. "If you want consistent bass response from each channel of your 5.1 system, in our opinion, you're best to set all speakers to "Small", set them all to the same crossover point, and set that point no lower than what you are comfortable throwing away from the LFE channel. If your main left and right speakers are genuinely full range (be honest now!), then you are better off running them full range as opposed to high-passing them at a ridiculously low frequency. Short of that, high passing floor-standing speakers at 70 Hz is not "wasting" them in any way shape or form and in fact will more than likely extend their dynamic range thanks to the relief they'll be getting from the high-pass. Alternatively, setting center and surrounds as "Small", the mains as "Large", subwoofer as "None", and implementing an external two channel crossover to the subwoofer is a valid, and in some situations an advantageous way to go." I don't know what "full range" is, but I don't think it's quite my RF-52IIs. This also makes ryanrusty's advice seem rather short sighted, and I understand why now. (Not that I'm knocking you for giving advice rusty, but I think you should read the article too).

Reading now. Though some of it is a bit beyond my comprehension now, overall it's very helpful. THIS caught my attention: "In the majority of surround sound processors and receivers, FULL RANGE copies of all channels set to "Small" are combined together with the LFE channel, and the sum is low-passed. Think about that. Strictly speaking, any* such processor with a sub/sat crossover frequency set lower than 120 Hz is "discarding" the upper end of the LFE channel. THX units are NOT exempt from this. With the standard THX 80 Hz 4th order crossover, the top of the LFE channel gets chucked. Don't panic. This has been going on since day one, and virtually nobody has noticed . . . with good reason. I've said many times before, and I will say it again: THX did not pull their crossover out of thin air. It is the product of much development, and, when used in concert with THX speakers (or others which exhibit the correct roll-off), represents the best overall compromise of minimizing localization, extending dynamic range, and as it turns out, minimizing LFE truncation. When Dolby Digital was coming to the consumer marketplace, THX looked at an inordinate number of modern 5.1 soundtracks and guess what they found in the LFE channel: not much at all in the region of 80 Hz - 120 Hz, making their original choice of 80Hz rather fortuitous. Dolby Digital's LFE channel has a digital brick wall at 120 Hz, not a roll-off, so content creators almost always roll-off their stuff, usually somewhere around 80 Hz. Therefore, chucking the top band of the LFE is no big deal but the argument here is that a standard SSP crossover set much lower than 80Hz or so may actually be costing you bass content." That's probably the most insightful look I've had into this entire topic yet! Makes perfect sense.

Rusty, please understand the setting I was talking about on point 1 was the physical knob on the back of my sub-12. I've heard many people all over different forums say to leave that physical sub knob on a higher setting and then let your receiver do the actual crossover. In other words: it doesn't matter that my sub knob's crossover would be set to 120hz or 150hz or 100hz if my receiver was set at 80hz. Basically the setting that mattered was the receiver, and I was told to just make sure my sub's knob didn't dip below the receiver's crossover setting otherwise there would be a small loss of range. That's how I've always understood it. The thing that got me thinking after reading this particular thread was all that isn't exactly true... I started to surmise (still not sure rightly so?) that my receiver's crossover setting only effected ranges for my L/R/C/SL/SR channels and NOT the LFE channel, hence the sub actually COULD be receiving some higher frequencies if the sound engineers put them into the LFE channel. So in other words, if I did set my knob on my sub down lower to 80hz or 60hz or whatever, that's not necessarily taking full advantage of LFE channel signals. My concern was LFE since obviously I already handle my other bass crossover with my receiver setting I get rolloff too but... sometimes when you're talking range settings it's just easier to forget about that Besides, speaking to the possible loss of range above: since both settings have rolloffs, you'd still have loss of range. Also in regards to number 5: if I set those RF-52 IIs to "large" on my receiver then I would surmise I don't have ANY of the L/R channel bass put into the sub. I know those speakers can go down pretty low and have a better range, but they certainly don't produce bass as good as my sub-12. So while I may be slightly "cutting the speakers short" of what they can handle, aren't I certainly cutting myself short if I'm not using my sub for any of the range sent to my L/R channels? I suppose in a perfect world I would just set a lower crossover for those RF-52 II L/R speakers, but my receiver only has one crossover setting that seems to apply to all speakers set to "small". The way I understand it is I get one crossover setting, and then I choose to set my speakers to use it, or use no crossover at all. In this case, no crossover at all seems stupid. They aren't THAT good at handling bass.

I was just reading through this thread. I kind of knew some of these things before, but think I understand them with more clarity after reading through this. Thanks for the discussion. A few things I'm wondering if I've got right... Sounds like you always want to set the knob of your sub at 120hz or above, just so it can receive signals that high if they're coming from your LFE channel (or if you've set your crossover on your receiver higher). For example: if I have my crossover on my receiver set to 120hz, and my sub's knob set to 80hz... I'm effectively loosing everything in the 80hz - 120hz range? (Not that I would do that.) I'm assuming that when I set my crossover on my receiver, that is ONLY effecting the frequencies going to my L/R/C/SL/SR that get sent to the sub and NOT capping the LFE frequency? So if my crossover on my receiver is at 80hz, my sub could still receiver 120hz signals from LFE during a movie? My Yamaha receiver has a "level" for each channel, including the sub. Basically like a volume or output or gain or something. I'm assuming that effects ALL bass output to my sub, whether it's from LFE or taken from the other channels? When I listen to movies it sounds like there's a lot more bass than when I listen to music. I'm constantly having to push up the aforementioned "level" of the sub around 5-10dB more when listening to music. I'm assuming that's because I get both low frequencies from L/R/C/SL/SR AND LFE in movies, and only low frequencies from L/R when listening to music? (Kind of annoying constantly having to adjust the bass.) I have RF-52 IIs for my L/R (36Hz-24KHz), RC-52 II for my center (67Hz-24KHz), and RS-42 IIs for my SL/SR (62Hz-24KHz). Due to the range of all these, I'm assuming I need to set my receiver crossover at around 80hz. However, I'm wondering if I should set just my RF-52 IIs on "large" rather than "small" so they aren't effected by the crossover? Or is that not a good idea? In my head, even though they go a lot lower, seems like perhaps there's bass going to L/R channels that would probably be handled by my SUB-12 better, but wasn't sure. My Yamaha receiver has a "BASS OUT" with options of Front, Sub, and Both. Anyone know what that's about? Does it effect only LFE, only channel crossover, or all bass output? Any expert opinion on the above would be appreciated

Some of this is a tad hard to grasp for a newbie... though I understand the overall concept. I have RF-52 IIs and am about to upgrade to a Yamaha AVENTAGE 7.2 receiver. Those receivers have the ability to "bi-amp" by using the back surround channels as the 2nd outputs for your L/Rs. Would you recommend it with my particular setup? Is there anyone out there that could outline EXACTLY what I need to do, either physically with the speakers (since there's talk of that above) or with settings on the receiver, such as freq/crossover settings related to the bi-amp? Random questions that pop into my head are: Is it true "bi-amping" coming from one receiver? Even if it isn't TRUE bi-amping, will it still have an advantage? Much talk about bi-amping says the two terminals in bi-ampable speakers are for A) tweeter/midrange and woofer sections. I consider the RF-52 IIs to have midranges and a tweeter... so does that mean bi-amping won't be as noticable because of the smaller midrange woofer size? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Appreciate you reposting the product description/spec page, but sometimes Marketing jargin gets in the way of truely understanding differences between a manufacturer's product lines. I should know... I work in Marketing []

I saw them at Best Buy and they do indeed appear to have lower craftsmanship quality in some small ways. Didn't hear them though. Just wondering if they are Synergies with a more simple look.

Hello again! Interesting that the Fatal1ty card re-encodes analog surround into a digital codec like DDL or DTS so your receiver can re-decode! LOL. (It is similar to what my Blu-Ray player does... re-encodes all tracks into DTS for my optical out so I still get menu sounds.) I don't think my original X-Fi does that. A really useful feature to be able to run just the one digital SPDIF rather than all those splitters. I still run it through those into my receiver's multi-channel inputs though since there's no real issue with it... so basically my Yamaha A/V Receiver is just an amp :-) The only thing that has changed is I actually don't use my Ultra 5.1 system anymore! I ended up getting the new RF-II Reference for my home theater, and so my Quintet IIIs and a Sub-10 went to my computer... and the Ultra's with the BASH amp were left over! My friend is going to be buying my Ultra 5.1 system as they are still working great, and I owe that to you for filling me in with your methods. A shame that the Ultra line ended up being a blight on Klipsch's record with the amp issues, but it wasn't enough to counter-act my love for the quality of the speakers... as my buying habits will attest to! I only wish they would have done something to show appreciation to those loyal customers that were burned by that in the first place. Oh well, in the end I'm listening to crystal clear sound either way. I hope others will find this thread and it helps them out. I've had fun along the way and learned a lot.

So what's the deal with these new Icons? http://www.klipsch.com/icon-speakers I'm not sure where they are supposed to fall category-wise. They look like a cross between the Synergy and Reference line, as if Synergy parts were put in more of a Reference style housing... http://www.klipsch.com/f-20-floorstanding-speaker http://www.klipsch.com/kf-26-floorstanding-speaker http://www.klipsch.com/rf-62-ii-floorstanding-speaker Sometimes the amount of different "lines" from Klipsch can bewilder me.

A couple of updates: After reading some other forums, I decided to switch all my speakers (even the front RF-52 II floor standers) to "small" and change bass out to "sub" instead of "both". Apparently this will set all low freq from all speakers to LFE out. I think changing those two settings helped a bit with clarity... hard to say. The one setting I'm really still pondering is the center EQ. I'm not sure if it's necessary to adjust that when you have a center that is paired up so well with your fronts like mine are... it even has the same size woofers. And yet, when I do a test tone that produces white noise that flips between left and center, I still here a distinct difference. Do many people adjust their center EQs when the center and fronts are all part of the same set like mine? I'm still not extactic with my sound... feel like they need to "open up". Any suggestions are welcome.

I meant different sides to the left or right of the center... not front or back. However, I understand what you're saying. Yeah, I just had to really jam it past a spot. Hard to do with just your fingers (since there's no hex/slot at the end for a tool). Finally went in. I thought I was crazy! Thanks for the help.

I'm embarrassed to even ask such a silly question but I'm a bit confused. My RC-52 II came with one long bolt that has a nut and washer on it, as well as a pad on the end... I'm assuming to be used as a tilt foot to angle the speaker. The problem is that the bolt is very long, but doesn't seem to want to go very far into the threaded hole in the bottom of the speaker... hence it is tilted down way too far (my speaker is above my monitor). I'm also just a bit confused why the two threaded holes are so far from the center of the speaker and on different sides... I'm also a bit miffed the manual doesn't diagram some of these things. Kind of a silly thing to skimp on with speakers of this caliber.

Finally got my RF-52 II Home Theater System: http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/rf-52-ii-1-overview/ Just moved into our new house and was able to set it all up. Have them connected to my Yamaha HTR-5960: http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/av-receivers-amps/htr/htr-5960_black__u/?mode=model Using my old Sub-12 for sub. However, I'm finding them to feel off somehow. I'm just not completely happy with how they sound. Let me describe as much as I can for you and I'm interested to see if anyone has any advice for me. Room: We have these in a semi-large room. Our house isn't big at all (around 1200 square feet), but our dining room/livingroom/kitchen kind of all connect as sort of a large room with a high ceiling. The living room portion is completely carpeted. DVD player: if it matters, I've got the Samsung BD-C6800 Blu-ray player... but I would say my issues span not just movies, but also music coming in with stereo jacks or TV coming in from optical. Settings: I tried the auto setup with the optimizer mic that came with my Yamaha, but in my opinion it really really jacked up all the settings. The speaker levels and distances were all over the place and seemed off, and it keeps setting crossover really high.. like 160. Makes no sense whatsoever to me. So I finally reset everything and manually adjusted some things. Have crossover at 80hz. Center gain up just a few dBs but didn't touch L/R. Took surrounds down a few dBs because they are so close to the couch, and took the sub down as well just because of how much bass it puts out. Put L/R size to "large" and the center/surround to "small" (no idea if this was the right choice for this set of speakers). Center EQ hasn't been messed with, so those 5 levels are all defaulted to the middle. Have bass out set to "both" rather than just "sub" or "front". When I am watching movies I have it set to "Surround Standard" (which is without DSP effects AFAIK) and when I'm listening to music I either do 2x stereo or 7x stereo. That's all I can think of right now. How would I describe why I'm not happy? Well... that's a key question, and yet difficult to answer. Overall, I feel the POWER of these things to be sure. I also feel they have great range. However, I also sort of feel like there's this "blanket" over them, and they're trying to break through that muffled barrier with sheer power. LOL, that's the best way I can describe it. I feel like the seperation and clarity is there, but its all muffled or the levels aren't right between range or something. Hard to describe. It feels forceful, and maybe even a bit harsh, instead of elegant. I never felt this way with my Quintets set up with the same receiver/sub. I know these are much different speakers, but they were also much more EXPENSIVE speakers... so its odd I would feel that way. So I know this is a broad question, but does anyone have any suggestions?

Well I just got the RF-52 II's from Vanns for 50% off and they are absolutely AMAZING. I think everyone here is going to tell you to go with Reference series. Generally people will tell you they have a warmer, fuller sound and are less harsh and fatiguing than the Synergys.