sbach11

So after listening to the RB-61 II's some more and angling them up slightly, I'm pretty happy them. They seem to sound better than they first did, but maybe its in my head. I was going to sell the RB-35's, but have decided to hang on to them until my two new tweeters come in (one tweeter is bad, but I figure I'll replace both, but they are back-ordered). I want to do another comparison before letting them go..

Well, the RB-61 II's are here, and as someone above suggested, they do not have the "presence" of the RB-35's. The RB-61 II's seem to play just as low, and just as high as the RB-35's, (and in fact, the bass in punchier on the RB-61 II's), but the sound is just "smaller" and less open somehow. Perhaps this is not a surprise given that the RB-35's are both bigger and more expensive than what I am comparing them to. Rats.

Yet another interesting spec is that the RB-61's cross over at 2000hz, while the II's cross over at 1500hz. Oddly (to me anyway) the RB-35's cross over at 2350hz. The woofer actually puts out some treble. I know because one of my tweeters is blown right now, By the way, does anyone have a spare k-130 or k-137 tweeter to sell me? (Klipsch does not at the moment.)

Thanks for the responses from inder19 and SuBXeRo -- very helpful. I noticed another interesting spec. The RB-61 II's weigh nearly 5 pounds less each than the RB-61's. Makes you wonder where those 5 pounds went, and why the newer version does not play as low. Today you always have to wonder if a new version of something is "improved" or if they just found a cheaper way to make something that looks the same but is actually inferior. With that said, my RB-61 II's will be arriving Tuesday. [] In the end, I do like the slight cosmetic redesign of the II's, and I'm hoping that Klipsch has improved the mid range/high end in order to give up some of the low end -- which is fine by me. I will be using a small sub just to pick up the stuff under 50hz (which is working out great with the RB-35's), so maybe I will not miss the few extra hz anyway. Unfortunately I won't have a set of RB-61's to compare them too, but we'll see how they do against the RB-35's, for whatever that comparison is worth. Again, thanks for the replies..

Hi, I browsed the forum and did not find too much on a direct comparison between these two speakers. However, being new to Klipsch (and audio generally), I have a more basic question. What is the deal with all of the constantly changing speaker models, especially, it seems, with Klipsch? For example, the RB-35's (which I currently own) were made from 03 to 06, then replaced with the RB-81's for a few years, now there are the RB-81 II's. Do the new generations tend to be improvements on the prior generation, or not necessarily? Specifically, I am now looking to trade in my RB-35's for a set of RB-61's. But looking at the specs between the first and second generation RB-61's has me a little confused. The RB-61's have a frequency response down to 43hz. Fairly impressive (I guess?) since the RB-81's with their 8 inch woofers only get down to 46hz, and the RB-81 II's only get down to 44hz. But, while the 81 series improved in the low end frequency response from generation 1 to 2, the 61's actually went from 43hz to 45hz. I guess this comes down to two questions. Do the RB-61's play noticeably lower than the RB-61 II's? Overall, are the RB-61 II's an improvement over the prior generation? First post. Thanks a lot.