rgdawsonco

. It was a display model, but in perfect condition. I wonder what Klipsch has coming to replace it

Heck yah! Jump on that. It's been discontinued so you can get deals on remaining stock out there. I picked up a cherry RT-10d similarly. It is spectacular!

Discontinued? Well, I'm sure glad I just snagged a Cherry RT-10D at my local audio shop. I got a heck of a year end closeout deal ($749). The thing is beautiful and the triangular shape is perfect for my application. The performance is spectacular. It replaced a SUB-12, which I think is also spectacular for the money. I'm very glad I got this baby. I wonder why it was discontinued?

I have the SUB-12 paired with some KLF-30's in the Home Theater Room. I can't say enough good things about the SUB-12. Outstanding. I also have the SUB-10 paired with some Wall Mounted Klipsch RVX-42's. The SUB-12 is worth the extra money. Get the SUB-12. You'll be glad you did.

Yup, you can easily forget the point and "become a fan of the technology instead of a fan of the art" as Ben said. I certainly have been through all this. My two cents: 1. I may get flamed for this, but, I'm more of an "an amp is an amp, wires are wires, a CD player is a CD player", especially at the level of quality you are at. I focus on the speakers and the room in combination. The speakers/room combination is 1st order, everything else is second order. 2. Audio is an "illusion" and the "perfect sound" is even more an illusion. That "sound" you remember may not really exist anywhere except in you memory. 3. We don't like to admit it, but most of us older folks do not hear as well as we used to. I know I don't. Sad but true. My advice: 1. To recapture the feeling of your early audio days, look forward not back, don't dwell so much on those old recordings and memories. Spend a half a year focusing on nothing but new music, or music you have not heard before. That's exciting. 2. Stop tweaking your electronics, they're good enough. If you must tweak, focus on the speakers and the room acoustics. But really, try focusinging on finding new (to you) artists and recordings for awhile.

The new 2006 KHorns do exactly that...they have a pseudo false corner strapped onto the back to ensure proper transmission of the higher frequencies of the bass bin (~300Hz) and then as long as the sides of the bass bin are within 1/4 wavelength of the walls (around 1 foot) you will have sufficient loading down to the bottom of its response. Or as Richard mentioned...the Jubilee was PWK's response to the placement issue. Heck, you could just get the bass bin finished in perty wood and use whatever top section you wanted. This would give you full flexibility with the position of the speaker. Btw, I just wanted to ditto the comments about using piano for testing soundstage and imaging - though I guess it depends on what people are referring to with those terms. I also wouldn't ignore the possibility of false images as a result of room acoustics...one recording is certainly not sufficient in determining the performance of any system. Now I am intrigued by the 2006 K-Horn comment about more placement flexibility. I was not aware the design was different. This may open some new possibilities. Somehow I'm not convinced that the Jubilee (in current form) was PWK's response to the placement issue because it does not appear to be intended for anything but comercial use or the most extreme horn fanatics among us. There is just no way such an ugly thing is going to make it in my formal living room. (Please don't be offended, Jubilee owners, I'm sure they sound fantastic.) The K-Horn on the other hand, though very large, is actually elegant looking. So, it looks to me like Klipsch's 2006 design is intended to address the problem a little. Does anyone around here actually have the 2006 version? I admit my little audition was not entirely comprehensive. But just for the record, it was a piano concerto (Mozart #23, Rudlph Serkin, London Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1983). It was not solo piano music. Second, it's an excellent recording as far as I am concerned and I have other rooms in the house I was comparing to. Since my KLF-20's could not image from the corners where the K-Horns would go, I was just trying to guess whether K-Horns would have the same problem. I agree with the poster who recommends focusing on fundamentals. I think the room and placement of the speakers is really fundamental and K-Horns (except maybe the 2006 design) don't leave a whole lot of easy options with regard to placement. Too bad it's impossible to try them out and see.

Wow, guys, thanks for all this discussion. Yes, the purpose of my little test was to audition the room and required speaker placement and orientation of the K-Horns versus where I would have to sit. I chose the piano concerto because I was very familiar with the recording in my normal KLF-20 listening room, where I can pinpoint the piano. And also I actually have a piano in the test room that I could compare to. Voice would have been a good test, too. I wish I had thought of that before hauling everything back downstairs. Judging from the discussion, it appears common for folks to go through great lengths to get their K-Horns and their rooms to sing together optimally (false corners, extra tweeters, sacrifice the bass by not using the corners, x-over mods, rotating the top section, etc.). It's apparent to me why Klipsch seemed to be decades ahead of his time with the idea of center channel speakers. It appears you really need one with the K-Horns. Now wouldn't it be cool if Klipsch could design a K-Horn that allowed some flexibility in the direction they are pointed into the room? For example, instead of 45 degrees from the front wall, maybe 60 degrees. Something that would work on the short wall would seem better suited for typical HT room setups as well. Thoughts?

You can buy that poster at Allposters.com. Its called "Blown Away", Steigman

After living in my house for 13 years, I realized my living room might be a good room for K-Horns. It is about 17 feet by 13 feet and has a tall vaulted ceiling. My understanding is that K-Horns would like to be placed at the corners on the long wall 17 feet apart, with my listening position about 13 feet away from the center point between the K-Horns. This recommended placement seems really wide to me, but pretty close to recommended for K-Horns as far as I can tell from the K-Horn manual. So to see what this might sound like, I hauled my big ol' KLF-20s up from the basement and plopped them in the corners, aimed as K-Horns would be, to see how this arrangment sounds. Well, not too good. My test music was a Mozart piano concerto (Rudolph Serkin) and I was listening for a stable piano location. No dice. The piano was coming from everywhere. The image was just lost. Now, these KLF-20s image superbly in their original location where they are about 8 feet apart along a wall with no corners with a listening position about 10 ft away from that wall. In this case you can reach out and touch the piano. Its rock solid, every note. I have heard people say the K-Horns image well, but I'm finding it hard to believe they would with this layout. But then again, zillions of K-Horn fanatics cannot be wrong. So what's the deal? Is this a case where the K-Horns would work well and the KLF-20's would not based on their repective designs and based on the fact that the K-Horn was actually designed for a room and spacing like this?

Wow, that SandmanX setup takes the cake. After seeing that my son, at least, said, "I still love you dad. :-) haha.

I think the answer really depends on how loud you listen. The SUB-12 Spec says something like max ouput of 117dB at 30Hz. That is way load in typical home settings. On the other hand, RF-7's can play even louder if you can stand it. Their specs say 102dB at one watt, so they'd hit 117 dB at 32watts. And they can handle 250 watts continous, 1000 watts peak! If you're playing that loud in a typical room, then it doesn't matter because you likely can't hear very well anymore. :-) Or maybe it does matter because you can't hear anymore. haha. I have the SUB-12 and I'm using it with KLF-20's (not quite as efficient or powerful as the RF-7, but close). I think it works very well at reasonable volume levels. But to "keep up" all the way with RF-7's, if your pushing them, then you would need something like the RSW-15, that was designed to mate with the RF-7s.

I also have the SUB-12. It is astonishingly good. In my opinion, you should not have to adjust the gain depending on what you a listening to. This suggests to me that your sub might be in a bad location. I bought a sound pressure meter from Radio Shack, downloaded some tone generator software to my laptop and proceeded to test various location in my room at various low frequencies. I had some cases where pictures were rattling off the walls, but at the listening location, nothing, no sound at all. Other locations resulted in peaks at certain frequencies. My advice, try every possible location for that sub. Use an SPL meter to get the gain right. It's a great sub!

You could check ebay and look through completed listings to see what they are going for. You could go to www.audiogon.com and check there. They have a book value section for registered users. Last pair of KLF-20s sold on ebay for $611 without grills.

I did it the other way around simply due to the room they are in. My KSP-S6's mount on a wall and I have a wall behind me. The KG3.5's are floor standing and I dont have a wall on one side, so I put the floor standing speakers on the sides. I, too, did not give much thought mounting the surrounds higher. Then I read that's what you should do and I mounted my rear surrounds higher. All I can say is that it does work better. It give you a vertical demension to the sound that was missing before. A jet flying over actually flys over the top of you. It does seem to work better. On the other hand, my current surround setup is not all that great for music, so I listen to music in 2-channel.

Yah, my Denon manual said that two speakers should be used for the back channel and said it is important to spread them apart enough.

Interesting. I haven't had that problem, probably since I have two wide dispersion surrounds in back, mounted several feet apart. But my receiver will only do 6.1 not 7.1, so They are playing the same channel until I upgrade my receiver. I noticed in Klipsch's THX Ultra2 manual that they put the wide dispersion speakers as side surrounds and forward radiating speakers as the rear surrounds. I have it the other way around. I wonder how much difference that makes.

I had what I thought was an excellent 5.1 surround setup. KLF-20s in the front, KLF C-7 Center, and KG 3.5 for surrounds. Then one day my teenage son was wresting in the house. They knocked over a KLF-20 and the midrange driver/horn snapped in two. Arhhggg! Then while wating for parts, I put the KG-3.5s up fron and pulled a set of KSP-S6's out of storage for the surrounds. (I was really missing my KLF-20's!) When the parts arrived and I fixed the KLF-20 and then realized I could setup 6.1 surround. (Don't ask me why I never thought of it before.) So I went to Dolby's web site to actually study up on exactly how surround speakers are supposed to be positioned. I arranged the KG 3.5s as side surrounds directly left and right of the listeing position. The KSP-S6's (these are wide dispersion type surrounds) were in the rear mounted about a foot above the ears. Observations: Wow, wow, wow, this is so superior to my previous old 5.1 arrangement, which had the KG 3.5s in the back corners. I am really surprised at how much better it is for movies. On the other hand, music (Pro Logic IIx) does not work well in this configuration, so I've gone back to two channel for music. The other thing I learned was that mounting the surrounds high, as recommended at Dolby, is important. And the wide dispersion type surrounds in the rear work very well for movies (I've never liked them for music, which is why they were in storage). I'm just happy as a clam at "discovering" 6.1 surround. It's the only way to go.

Well, Im back to this forum after a 5 year hiatus. Back in 2001, I started a thread lamenting the discontinuance of the KLF series in favor of the (then) new Reference series. In my opinion then, I felt, well, Klipsch was a fine speaker company, but for rationale business reasons, had to abandoned its roots, meaning the three way horn loaded designs like the Legacy Series and Heritage Series. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> Today I find Klipsch an even more successful speaker manufacture with an amazing array of products in every class. Their decisions have proven rationale. But what got me excited again was the reintroduction of the Heritage Series. Ahhh yes, here is where true Klipsch passion seems to live. The guys that, when asked by their wife, Me or those big speakers gotta go answer Im gonna miss you, honey care about <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Cornwall, K-Horn, LaScala, Heresy. A long time ago, I once asked an old audiophile friend what he thought about Klipsch. Interestingly, he didnt talk about the sound of music, but the sound of a car door being slammed. He said, Those Klipsch reproduce the sound of a car door slamming so accurately that I cannot tell the difference, and they are they only speakers I have heard that can do so. They sound exactly like the real thing. This same guy also told me a story once where an audiophile, after listening to a front row live piano performance, quipped, my stereo sounds better. The point being that some people dont necessarily like that accurate, right in front of you sound. They like the more vague mellow sounds of wider dispersion speakers. But me? I like the traditional Klipsch with mid range horns. I cannot count the number of times I have been watching a movie and have gotten up to answer the phone, the door, or otherwise reacted to being totally fooled by the sound coming out of my KLF-20s. When you hear sounds coming out of your system that sound that real, well, then its over, your hooked. I applaud Klipsch for reintroducing the Heritage Series. They are to Klipsch what the Corvette is to Chevy. I think there ought to be a forum here dedicated to the Klipsch Heritage line. And I would love to hear people fortunate enough to own them tell us how they sound. Tell us your OhMyGod experiences with them. Tell us how your friends are converted into awestruck, stuttering fools when they hear them. Tell us about those vintage Cornwalls you found at an estate sale that still amaze you. Tell us how the number one criteria in looking for a home is a place for your K-Horns. Share those love stories. J

HornEd, Guess what? From what I have read and discovered for myself is that perfect timbre matching is nearly impossible to achieve in the practical world. Why? because the speaker location for the center is different and it react to the room differently. (Heck, in my room, the left and right speakers don't event sound identical due to the room.) And very few people can mount a center channel such that its tweeter is at the same height as the tweeters in the L&R speakers. So its going to sound different. Did you know, sonically, the C-7 should be mounted vertically? Nobody does it but that's the way it would sound best. But hey this is a hobby and your idea of making a center out of a damaged KLF-30 sounds like a cool idea. Here's my advice for what its worth. Rotating the horns is a good idea. (I wish Klipsch would have rotated the horn in the C-7). That way you'll get 90 degrees dispersion in the horizontal and 60 dgrees vertical like you want. The way the C-7 is usually mounted, you get more floor and ceiling reflection and inadequate horizontal dispersion. I also think putting the woofers on opposite ends is a good idea. If anything, at least the bohemoth will be better balanced relative to weight. Theoretically, the spreading of the woofers will narrow the combined radiation pattern of the woofers in the horizontal, but at 750Hz and below I don't think it will be appreciable and might even me beneficial. You can work out the math with a little geometry and see. As for the ports, I do not see the need to split the two ports and mount them on opposite ends. This will just waste space. I guarantee you that, sonically, it makes no difference, because you cannot localize 34Hz. So I'd keep the ports configured as they are. Finally, don't screw around with the crossovers. Go for it! This message has been edited by rgdawsonco on 06-17-2001 at 09:33 PM

My take on the cuttoff frequency diffs between the 20's and the 30's. In a nutshell - power handling. First the mid-range. Both speakers use the same mid-range driver, but the 30's must be able to handle more power. So I assume that explains the higher cutover to the mid-range you see in the 30's. Next, the bass. Rather than focus only on the bass response curve as the curve at 1 watt, 1-meter, as you see in the specifications, think of the maximum output curves. The maximum output curves are limited by power handling capability (excursion and/or heat). You see, at higher output levels, I would expect to see the 30's significantly outperform the 20's in bass extension and output. I could be wrong, but this explanation makes the most sense to me. --Greg Dawson

Psssst...Hey buddy, keep it quiet or the whole world will be bidding on them I already warned my wife if the KLF's ever go on e-Bay I'm getting a set. She reminded me I already have some and don't need any more. I said, "Yah, but if they go on e-bay I'm getting another set anyway, period. "A man has to do what a man has to do." hehe

For the guy with Heresy's and 2 KSW-15's who is barking mad... I read somewhere that using two subwoofers usually ends up resulting in inferior sound. Not always, but usually. Something to do with the way the two subs will usually interact. Again, a real expert could probably get it right, but in most cases (I read, but don't remember where) the result is worse than just having a single good sub. --rgdawsonco

OK, I guess we can close on this issue for now. No more whining from me until I hear the RF-7's. I admit I was trying to provoke a little controversy. But I'll be looking for evidence that the radiation pattern is well controlled in the area of 700-2200 Hz (where there is no horn). I agree if you can do it with a one way, you would. That never was the point. I just want to see how Klipsch does it without a horn. This message has been edited by rgdawsonco on 05-31-2001 at 05:16 PM

"fun, but pointless" - I admit I am having fun. Now I have to think about just what my point is. I guess it is this. Until now, Klipsch's most important and fundamental speaker design philosophy has been based on the horn. Now it is not. Why? I'm hoping BobG will chime in with an explanation. With the enormous amount of expertise Klipsch has, they can't offer a speaker that uses a tractrix horn for the mid-range frequencies, whether two-way or three-way? What's next, dome tweeters? This amazes me.

Ray, I was not saying a three-way design is better BECAUSE it is three-way. But rather only the three-way designs happen to provide the so-called "controlled directivity" of a horn down through the mid-range frequencies. I believe this controlled radiation pattern in the mid-range is a key ingredient to the "Klipsch Sound" and the RF-7's won't have it. To me this is like Harley-Davidson building a Honda-like motorcycle. May be a better bike, but its not a Harley and I want a Harley. I once thought Klipsch understood this sentiment when BobG said Klipsch would always offer a three-way design for those passionate Klipsch-maniacs out there. While it might be easy to say it's only the sound that matters, that is not always the case. Sometimes art is important more because of the artist than the art. Klipsch speakers are important to me for reasons that go beyond just good sound. I can buy good sound from other manufacturers. I want a speaker with a horn-loaded midrange because Klipsch has said/proven this is important for the last 50 years. Why is it not so important all of a sudden? Horn loading was a fundamental Klipsch trade-mark and I'm surprised to see it abndoned to any degree in their premium series.