Ski Bum

Klipsch is more than a bit liberal with how they label the RF7II "8 ohm compatible" or whatever. I did a quick googling and came up with this link. It has measurements cut-n-pasted from a german audio mag. I'm not sure how trustworthy they are, but finding measurements of the RF7 is a tall order, so let's roll with it. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1412510/klipsch-rf7-ii-measurements Impedance/phase is there. Looks like it dips just a tad below 5 ohms at 40 hz, and another dip to 3.5 ohms at 160 hz. At 100 hz, impedance is 4 ohms with a -40 degree phase swing. They may be sensitive, but they are NOT an easy load. So don't drive them with a bridged EMO amp or you will risk letting the magic smoke out, as per the manual. Hey, that's the same impedance/phase plot I saw. I guess I have the phase and impedance mixed up. And what's with the new formatting limits of posts these days? Can't post links, can't seem to get paragraph breaks, it makes my posts a mess!

Chris, I totally agree with the points you're making. I would love to try one of those First Watt jobs you've been recommending. Ironically, it was a Pass amp that sent me on an inquisitive trip to the SET zone in the first place. I'll be back to class A ss eventually, as I would like the low level goodness without the SETbacks. In the meantime, I still find SETs undeniably enjoyable, warts and all. They are among the most intriguing sound processors I've ever messed around with.

I find that I personally like the extreme ends of the spectrum: clean, linear, unclipped ss power on the one hand, and full blown tube processing of SETs on the other. PP is not tubey enough for me, I guess. The strange thing to me is that the approach with no redeeming technical merit achieves more subjectively pleasing results. Count me in with the distortion lovers, I guess.

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Punch is more mid-bass, in the frequencies being reproduced by your mains. Lower your sub's gain slightly. Better yet, back it all the way off, and then slowly dial it up just to the point where the bottom fills in. Further strategies such as "crawling for bass" may be in order, if you haven't done so already.

Passive bi-amping is unnecessary. Undo that and use your surround amp channels as they are intended.

The Quad II tube amps should be more prevalent over there, and within your price range.

This is not quite correct. While a tubed pre can certainly add something or other to the presentation, it won't mimic how a tube amp interacts with your speakers (which is arguably more responsible for the "tube sound"). I'm a cheapskate when it comes to tubes. I like the tube thing, but I refuse to spend ridiculous amounts of money. I would suggest a refurbed Dynaco ST-70 or Scott 299. They are typically a few hundred used, and a thorough going through will be another few hundred. Forum member Craig NOSvalves performs this sort of service, and these amps in top form fetch $600-$900 or so. They work fantastically well with forte II, and don't churn through tubes. If class A flea power is your thing there are affordable options like Decware (US made, lifetime warranty).

These doohickies are great for informing you how messy your in-room response can be[], for speaker placement, for sub integration, for bi-amped or fully active setups. Even in my system, in which I cannot apply room correction/eq, having the calibrated elecctronic ears can really help dial in placement and relative gain levels for optimum results. I've messed around with the Dayton Omnimic, which is more idiot proof and newb friendly than what you have. While you may feel clueless at first, it's more a case of becoming familiar with novel software and learning how to perform tests and interpret the results.

I think this is backwards. Low level signals are more prone to trouble than amplified signals, so you should keep your line level signal interconnects short. XLR is advantageous for really long line level runs, but in your case, Chip, the difference would be negligible.

I've always felt that this forum was generally science based, with a somewhat liberal tolerance of thermionic gear. [:^)]

I've heard the KEFs recently, and they're very nice. Sounds like you're buying new speakers, at full coin or very near to it. As this is not a small expense, you should listen to both and take some notes. What sort of return or home audition policy do the merchants have? If you can get them in your room, it will tell you more than listening in a dealership ever will. If a home audition is not an option, keep your room in mind when auditioning. What is the general character of your listening room, lively or more dead? What sort of placement flexibility do you have to work with? The KEF have wider dispersion in the upper registers than the Klipsch, and great off axis and polar measurements, so they are fairly flexible regarding room placement, but you'll be listening to a lot of "room". The Klipsch's more narrow dispersion in the upper registers will help you manage/reduce/eliminate first reflections so you hear less "room", and allows closer proximity to room boundaries without smearing the image with extraneous reflected sound. The Klipsch are less linear, but more vivacious in their presentation (better dynamics). They're both fine speakers, but different, so go listen.

Your ears do not deceive you. Woo-wire hucksters never seem willing to provide any tangible evidence of the superiority of their products, but most are never short of flim-flam marketing, often incorporating a bit of fact woven into a larger tapestry of bullshit designed expressly to lighten your wallet. Check out what the pros use. It's based purely on the functional capability of the wire to perform the task, not magic. Lots of them use Blue Jeans product.

I'd try it out with some overlap (fortes full range, sub low passed 80-100 or so), and the gain reeled way down to start. Think Geddes approach. Room modal response is a huge bugaboo that simply adding another source of bass will greatly ameliorate. If you have an Omnimic in your toybox, use it to get ideal placement and settings for your sub. If not, just be judicious with the level you set the sub to. It will probably be lower than you expect. You want to feel the subsonics, you'll want to hear smooth bass throughout your room (bigger sweet-zone bonus), but not necessarily more bass. When it's set up reasonably close to right, it won't draw attention to itself at all, sonically speaking. If it's localizable, reduce the low pass setting slightly. Male vocals chesty, reduce the low pass. Too hot or boomy, reduce the gain. I recommend you crack out the Jaco Pastorius, maybe a Morphine album or two, and whatever else you have that's ripe in the bass through the mids, and tweak away.

Your experience with them so far has left you wanting, from the sounds of the comarison to the blue-ray/Denon combo. When you have really resolving, high sensitivity transducers like Khorns, I see how it may present a problem w/ the Emo gear. The XDA-1 has a lossy digital volume control, meaning that as you reduce volume you actually lose data, thus resolution. The sensitivity of your speakers (compounded by the high gain structure of the amp), when combined with the volume control issue, may have you running your system predominantly down in the area where resolution loss is signifigant. That's just a guess, based on how much better the Denon seemed to perform. You could simply stick with the Denon/blu-ray player combo, even for two channel listening. If that particular collection of gear is able to transport you to the Royal Albert Hall, well, that's what it's all about! You may end up spending a bunch replacing the Emo gear just to find yourself right where you are now.

What you have there is a $250 replacement for the original jumpers. No benefit whatsoever to anything, other than Monster's profit margins at the time of original purchase. Just be glad it wasn't you who paid full coin for them.

Check the settings of your XDA, make sure the L and R are not sent a high passed, bass managed signal.

You have a pm.

I've had these side by side, and the real difference is in the midrange, where forte >> RF82. In the bass, the forte seemed tight and dry compared to the RFs, which were a bit more boomin'. Either digs deep enough for virtually all music. I say repair/replace the woofs, and stay with fortes.

Active can give you much more control, but offers far more opportunities to make mistakes as well. A forte w/ Crites crossover fed w/ SS power is a very good baseline, fuss free. Passive bi-amping is typically a fools errand, but in your case it may be worth exploring. I've tried it, using 50 watts of low impedance friendly ss power on the woofs, and 6 watts of SET enhancement on the horns. Using the passive networks addresses the points djk made, at least to some extent (with high output impedance amps, the mids will run a db or two hotter than the tweet, but I don't find that objectionable). Not much, but it should be solid into low impedances. I use an old NAD 2100, rated 50w/chan, benches more like 70w/chan, and rather prodigious dynamic headroom (250w at 4 ohm, 330w at 2 ohm, IHF method). My room is ~14x19x9, and it produces very deep, wall shaking bass. Reference levels are not a problem, and I'm guessing by my back of the napkin calculation to be using maybe 15-20 watts, tops. I don't think I would go fully active again until the finances improve to the point I can afford a DEQX.

Pros and cons either way. Using the long wall for the mains, I see the 17' dimension being perhaps too constricted to accomodate enough distance between the speakers and listening positing, and from the listening position to the rear wall. +Wide sweet spot. -No stereo coverage at room's lateral exremes, back wall treatment required. Using the short wall, it may be too narrow to accomodate the Belles, only providing a wide, enveloping experience when the listening position is up in the near half of the room. +Stereo coverage would be better throughout the room, something to consider for future Khorn plans. -The big, enveloping sound would necessarily be limited to closer to the mains, and hopefully you could place the seats within that zone; treatment of side walls required. Got any teenagers you can put to work? Try both orientations before making any final, integrated wiring decisions.

Those look similar to Sound Anchor stands, and similarly priced. Gotta say, I love the look of Heritage and extended Heritage on this type stand.

Cool thread. I have not gone to multichannel simply because I don't have a room that could do my OCD desires for home theater justice. So it's a bunch of 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2 rigs. It works for us, as we listen to music all day, every day, in pretty much laid back ambient use as opposed to dedicated music geek-out sessions. I only have one system that is associated with video in any way. We use it mainly for sports viewing. It was funny to read about the Hafler Dynaquad upthread, as I use basically the most simplistic version of that approach on my video system (no Hafler processor, just rely on wiring and gain controls on the rears...yeah, it's basic). This works great for sports, sufficient for the few movies we actually watch, and works on any two channel signal so is compatible with everything we've got. One of these days I'll get with the program and move to the twenty-first century approach. Go multichannel. Digitize the music collection. Consolidate whole house control for it all. Lots of things on the to-do list. I think I'll go relax and contemplate that while listening to my super-retro-hi-fi two-channel Klipsch rig. Two channel may only be a window to the performance, but at least this system provides a big ***, clean window to observe from.

Marvel is correct, the Heresy would take up about the same amount of floor space, but their shorter front aspect and closely spaced drivers would make them better for near-field listening than RF83s, for sure. Arrange your room so the listening zone is at least 6'-7' from the speakers and you should be in great shape.

Blasphemy, schu! Heritage > RFanything, in my own highly opinionated opinion.[]