jcm

I have the same combination running my home theater right now, and other than a few bugs in the UMC-1 that are being worked out, the sound is tremendous. With a little luck I will be putting them in service with some khorns later in the week, but they work very well with Reference series right now.

I would love to work a few hours a week at such a place. Who wouldn't? I would recommend that customers bring their own CDs/iPods/etc, and let them hear it at the volumes they prefer. I can't think of a type of music that wouldn't shine with a well-put-together system. Could we have Klipsch Geniuses? Would they have to know how to build a crossover network from scratch?

OK, so who's got a pair of RF-83's or P-17B's in Austin that wants to host a Klipsch sound party? I'll bring the chips and dip.

So it seems obvious that there is a problem with Klipsch customers being unable to audition Klipsch speakers. I have read a number of reasons why this is so, but I have yet to hear a good solution! The fact is that nobody spends over $2,000 on a pair of speakers based on somebody else's recommendation alone. Any audiophile knows that just because Stereophile likes a speaker doesn't mean that YOU will. Audiophile magazines simply love everything that Wilson makes. I hate every one of them. Offering a 30-day return on a pair of speakers that arrive in a crate is not a solution, either. These are not small speakers, and they can take several people to move around, especially if your listening area is not on the first floor of your house. Repacking and re-shipping them is a lot of work. Plus, if I'm ordering speakers sight-unseen over the Internet, then I don't think full retail pricing is appropriate. There is no dealer to get paid here, no brick-and-mortar storefront to upkeep, and the buyer has to deal with returns. So pass on the dealer pricing to the customer if they are willing to deal with the hard work. So, on to solutions. I think having Klipsch show up at audiophile shows is good. Anything that pits a Klipsch speaker against other speakers is good, as long as the proper pre-pro/amps are used. What else?

Yes, it was Simply Stereo! I believe Jerry was the proprietor. He was fantastic, let me listen to anything and everything in the store. I miss that place.

That's funny, as the last salesperson was trying to sell me on Paradigms, and when I had him A/B switch between the RF-82s and the Paradigms, the bass disappeared and the overall volume dropped by about 6-8dB. True, the bass was muddy and loose on the RF-82s because of the crap-@$$ receiver that was powering the speakers, but if I were a hip-hopper I would have put the Klipsches in my car and called it a day. I remember a very good Klipsch dealer in Chicago that kept everything in stock, from the smallest of the Reference series to the top of the Heritage series. The amazing thing was that when you went from speaker to speaker (going up in size/price), you just got MORE. The sound quality didn't change, but the amount of bass and the overall amount of sound just kept building. By the time he got to the Khorns the sound was just amazing. I brought in my own discs for him to play, some of which were classical, others more modern, some with a LOT of bass. The Khorns did a fantastic job of all of them. Then we put on Saving Private Ryan, and the Khorns again delivered realistic sound, even in the opening battle scenes. Truth be told, I use a JL Audio F113 sub with my Klipsches. That sub matches the Klipsches extremely well (oddly I was disappointed by the RT-12d). Together the reference system and the sub have some of the best sound I've heard for less than $20,000.

I have been to three mid-level stores recently (meaning better than Best Buy but not the kind of place you would buy Palladiums), and all three have had the same issues: They had practically nothing in stock from Klipsch, despite being an authorized reseller. What was in stock was old and unsightly. The last guy only had one pair of RF-82's, the other stores had RF-62s or lower. One dealer on the Klipsch web site was just plain gone. No store left. They did not hook the speakers up to decent equipment. Not even separates. One place had exactly one Pioneer receiver hooked up to the RB-82s and I couldn't hear the speakers for all the problems with the Receiver. I have RB-81's at home that sounded better than the 82's because I actually use decent pre-pros/amps. In each case, the rep tried to talk me out of buying Klipsch in favor of some other brand. One guy told me that they hadn't sold a pair of Klipsches in years. Then why are you a reseller?!? Nobody had the palladiums in stock, even the P-17Bs, even though they had much more expensive equipment by Paradigm et. al. They were all happy to order speakers for me, but only if you paid full price and agreed to a no-return policy. WHAT? You want me to buy $3000 in speakers without auditioning them? Even in the store? No thank you, I can use the Internet for that. Is this a common experience for others? It is very frustrating that these so-called Klipsch dealers get to keep their name on the reseller list when they don't carry stock, and apparently don't even like horn speakers. I have yet to find a dealer that even has a demo of a Palladium speaker, which I am keen to hear. I'd have to drive four hours to find such a dealer, and I live in a metro area (Austin) with over 1m people. I noticed a thread from nearly a decade ago (http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/3996/27518.aspx#27518) where other people had the same experience. Nothing has apparently changed.