Sundevil

Just thought I'd provide an update. It appears that being patient has paid off. Was cruising the web today and stopped by the Emotiva website to see that they were having a sale. Decided that I wanted a proper foundation for whatever speakers I end up choosing and I picked up a UMC-1 and I treated myself a littl e bit and got an XPA-5 as well. Pretty happy that I was able to snag some good deals!

Hi everyone- I'm trying to decide on a Powercenter. I've looked at ACS, Panamax, and Monster options. I've even tried contacting a few of the customer service departments for help. So I figured I'd ask the experts here since I haven't gotten any substantial assistance after phone calls, forums searches, and googling. How do you select what size/model to buy? I don't want to take shortcuts but I also don't want to overbuy and have WAY more than I need. I've really honed in on the Panamax products, as I've used them in the past and had no issues with them. I'm looking to protect a 47 inch LCD, emotiva umc-1, emotiva upa-500, blu ray player, Xbox 360, directv hd dvr box, and then the rf82 pair and rc-62. I've tried to add up my total max wattage and I think it's roughly 3000 watts. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Sundevil

Alright, great. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on my home theater build. I'm going to start ordering things in a couple of days. I'm just trying to figure out a final few things before I make my purchase.

Yeah, I'm sure the entry level harmon kardon receiver with no tuning is probably the culprit in the sound. I'm hoping when I get the UMC-1 and UPA-500 all hooked up the sound will be what I expected. I'll be sure to give them a call. I'd love to support a local brick and mortar store but their pricing just can't match online dealers. My local dealer had RF-62's for $50 under MSRP, which I thought was a fair price though. They were only willing to give me an 10% additional price break if I purchased an entire 5.1 system. They were telling me that if I got the towers, center, rears, and sub they'd throw in the center for free and give me 10% off the top of that. That's just more speakers than I planned on buying, haha. I'm still undecided about the 62's vs 82's. I know the 82 is more sound than I want right now, but it's just a minor change in price that I should just go forward with it for the long term investment.

Well based on the feedback, I'm betting that the receiver/amp was the main issue with the speakers. I've done a little more research and I've found where others experienced this at having a lesser amount of power to each speaker. I know the Reference series is a good product and realize that this was probably just a fluke that it wasn't sounding right at a lower volume. The feedback everyone has left also reassures me that this is the case. When I demo'd these they were not in a good setup position by any means. I'm sure the sound was bouncing all over the place. I'm slowly going to start piecing the system together over the next month or so. Does anyone have any experience with open box items from Acoustic Sound Design? It seems like in most cases the speakers were just taken out of the box to setup and then put back in the box. Buying things that way may help with my budget a bit. Thanks to everyone for their continued knowledge and feedback. It's really helped!

No worries, I re-read that first post and can see where I made it sound like it had to do with the harsh/bright sound. I thought it was really odd too though. I'm assuming based on your explanation that it was probably the recevier that was causing the issue in the store. However, like you mentioned, I'm hoping others can chime in on this issue I encountered to see if it's a common concensus that it was the receiver causing the problem. While I didn't nessecarily expect to have a lot of low's at a lower volume, I surely expected the mid's to be more pronounced than they were. Even the guy helping me was like "hmm...there's absolutly no mid's or low's right now". I will say though that the clarity of the high's was very impressive.

Alright, I appreciate the feedback. It's hard to pinpoint and explain exactly what was bothering me about the sound. At a reasonable TV watching audible level or even movies late at night, I completly lost any mid's and low's in the sound (I'd say this was around -32 to -34 volume) but the second it crossed over to -24ish volume it completely came alive. It's not that I can't tolerate the speakers being that loud because trust me I've had 2 12" ported subwoofers in my car for years now and I like listening to things louder than the average person. I'm more concerned with others not being able to tolerate the loud sound, whether that be my neighbors or even my guests. When I was at a reasonable level for the high's I had ZERO mid's and low's in the sound. The sound was completely flat and like I mentioned it reminded me of my HTIB Panasonic system that I used throughout college. I even compared it in the store to it sounding like the speakers were just pissed off that they wern't louder. You could almost hear that they were begging for a higher volume. I guess this really comes back to finding out if it was purely the setup in the store that was causing the loss of mid's and low's or if that's just what Klipsch is going to give me at what I deem a reasonable listening level.

so guys...I'm having a couple of issues. I went to my local authorized retailer today and worked with a guy that was incredibly knowledgeable about the products. I listened to the 52's, 62's, and 82's and decided that the best option for me is the 62's. I just couldnt notice much of a major difference between the 62's and 82's to justify the price increase and honestly only when I was further away from the speakers (well beyond my distance from couch to speakers) I could tolerate them. However, this is where the problem starts. These speakers sound FANTASTIC at anything under -26 or so. However, at what I deem a reasonable listening level, something over -30 the mid's and low's are completely gone. It honestly sounded like a HTIB system, even the sales guy was shocked because he said he really only demo'd them for people at their higher volume. With my current living situation, playing it at -26 or lower really just isnt an option for me on a regular basis. On another note, I was wondering if the speakers were just losing the mid's and low's because they wern't getting enough power to them. They had recently sold their floor model Marantz receiver and they were powering these using an entry level Harmon Kardon receiver (I think he said they were pushing 50W to the towers). Is this why I'm not getting any mid's and low's at what I deem a reasonable listening level? Only when I added a sub to the system in the store did I gain back some of the mid's and low's at the -30 level, however I could hear the rattle and I know that's not something I can have in my current living situation (next 2+ years). I was really impressed with the product, I'm just a bit concerned that I'm buying large paperweights if I can't get any mid's and low's at a reasonable listening level. Thanks as always! Sundevil

Alright, I'm assuming that's just all based on how you set them up?

I apologize for my delayed response. I've been out of town the past week or so and I've just gotten around to replying to things. I'll be sure to check out different options for my speaker wire and HDMI cords. I really like the Monoprice HDMI's that release on 7/30. Do you have any suggestions on sound proofing? I just checked out my townhouse for the first time this past week and I'm a bit concerned that I may be "that neighbor" with my proposed setup. Are the low's in the 82's going to bother my neighbors? I don't know exactly what type of blocking they have between the walls but I never heard anything other than people going up and down steps when I was there. Thanks again!

Thanks! I'll be sure to search around Monoprice for my cords. I really like that RCA cord, it will look fantastic! Once again, thanks for the really insightful and lengthy response explaining everything. I'm going to slowly piece this all together over the next month or so while I'm in transition between moving my things from Arizona to Ohio. However, I figure with things like cords and the Emotiva products I can go ahead and place my orders sooner because of the inflexibility in the pricing for the most part. Going to shop around on quotes for speakers at different places and see what type of deal I can get. As the system is priced right now, cords excluded, it's $2841 if I was going to buy the speakers directly from the Klipsch website (which I wont), the UMC-1 and UPA-500 from Emotiva online, and the Monster Power Supply off of Amazon (which is a suprisingly good deal in my opinion at $193). I'm hoping to be able to get that down around $2600-2650 by getting some deals on the RF-82's and the RC-62, if possibly even lower than that. I suppose it just depends on what type of deals I can find. Thanks Again, Sundevil I'm still trying to decide about in-wall routing of my wires. I've got a rental agreement on a townhouse for the next 2 years and I'd like to avoid having to patch the walls at a later date if at all possible. They don't have any touch up paint or color code for it at the leasing office for some reason so anything I patch is going to be a trial and error experiment.

Thanks for the advice on that. I'm gonna start looking out for some deals on the UMC-1 and the UPA-500. However, I'm comfortable within my budget to buy them new if I don't end up finding a good deal. There's a "mint" UMC-1 on Ebay right now for $350, however buying it new and selling my upgrade card brings me to about the same cost and in that case I'd prefer to just buy new from the manufacturer. I'm really happy with everything I've read on the Emotiva stuff. I guess one of my final questions before I start pieceing this all together is what do I need in terms of connection cables. I'm only framiliar with standard speaker wire that comes in the HTIB kits. I have friends that are into home audio and they've already pointed me in the direction of banana plugs. Outside of HDMI cords, what other connections do I need? I was looking at the amplifier and noticed it would do fine with standard banana plugs but what goes from the amplifier to the receiver? Is there a specific gauge that I should be using for my speaker wire? Are all brands fairly similar? I know a lot about the whole HDMI myth and that as long as it's gold plated it essentially does the same thing, but if I'm investing this amount of money into a speaker system I want to make sure they are hooked up with the proper cords to ensure I'm getting the most out of my speakers. Thanks, Sundevil

First off, as always THANKS SO MUCH for the wealth of knowledge you are providing me. Weather was beautiful during graduation! It was a really great time. I'm sad that it's come to an end, but I'm sure I'll get oppertunities to go back and visit ASU from time to time through recruiting undergraduates for my work. Like Tmassey suggested, I think I'm going to go with the UPA-500 for now and then if I feel I need to get something bigger to power the 82's I can always go with an XPA-2 or another brand to power the towers. While I've stated that I'd like to stay between $2500-$3000, I do have the capability if needed to spend more to get exactly what I want. My only problem with that is I'm eventually going to want to upgrade from an LCD to an LED tv and I'm trying to start saving a little bit of money for that. But I will agree, budgets do suck. I'm most interested in seeing what type of deal I'm able to get from a retailer on the actual cost for the speakers. From my research it doesn't look like I can buy Emotiva anywhere else so I'm guessing I'm stuck with their pricing on their website for the amp and receiver. The price I'm able to get may dictate if I'm willing to stretch the budget a little bit or not. Thanks again, Sundevil

I really like your point about using the UPA-500 for now and then if the 82's need more power I can go to the XPA-2 and use the UPA-500 for everything else. It really does help out my budget a little bit because I'll be able to get a good solid foundation without having to spend what it costs to get a bigger amplifier. Is the only place to find these on the Emotiva website? I started searching around and I couldnt find any other retailer for them. Thanks, Sundevil

I haven't talked to any dealer's yet but I'll be sure to check with everyone here when I get some pricing to make sure that it's a relatively good deal before making my purchase. I got my parents to lend me their Def Tech rear's yesterday that were in a box in their basement since they don't have them setup. So I have some rears in the meantime to tide me over until I can afford some myself.