skifastbadly

Oh man, I love those. I bought a pair of KG4s in 86 and they were the first set of decent speakers I owned. They came to a tragic end when my wife ignored me, left the amp on with the door to the cabinet closed, which caused the amp to overheat and blow up everything connected to it. I replaced them in 99 with a pair of KLF 30s which are still rocking. Take care of those.

I knew it would lead to this. Component insecurity. Soon I'll be testing my speaker wires for the purity of the copper.

Hey, all, I'm not trying to start an argument or find a cheapskate way to make a pair of RF7s in my garage out of radio shack parts and plywood. I'm a long time Klipsch fan and was just wondering what was the 'holistic' thing that drew me to them. I'm not trying to dissect the brain to find the soul. Unless, you know, you can do that.

Interesting point you make about having the support of Klipsch behind the product. It never occured to me that I'd ever need that. Only by joining the forum have I come to realize that if I needed help, parts, whatever, the company would still be there. This stands in direct contrast to my experience with one of my motorcycles, a Buell which is no longer made. The parent company, Harley Davidson, would just as soon we all went away. With tee shirts, if possible.

I knew joining this forum was going to be a problem for me…So far the damage is minimal, I’ve upgraded the diaphragms in my KLF20s from the distained plastic ones to the revered titanium ones from Bob Crites. So far so good. But while I had the tweeters out to replace the diaphragms, I started thinking “So, what makes a Klipsch a Klipsch?” The horn was a fairly simple plastic molded part, the magnet seemed like I dunno, a magnet. You can buy a set of upgraded crossovers for a couple of hundred bucks. ..I assume the cabinet dimensions have something to do with the sound, but couldn’t I make a similarly dimensioned box out of solid wood, line it with some cheap foam, put the same tweeters and woofers in, and have a speaker that sounded the same for far less money than I paid for the KLFs? What am I missing here?

I hope I didn't come across as doubting that. You're right I am new to the forum (but not forums). I didn't even know there WAS a Klipsch forum until a couple of weeks ago, and imagined this to be the kind of place where specs/prices/sales were discussed. I'm suddenly thrust into a world where people are hacking their crossover networks, re-bracing the speaker boxes, and swapping out plastic tweeters for titanium. It's a lot to absorb. I fear this innocent venturing into the forum may end up eventually costing me a lot of money....

So are these swap out/in? In other words, and please forgive me as I have never looked *inside* of my KLF-20s, do they just screw/bolt/replace what's in there now? Or do I have to figure out a new mounting system of some sort? Thanks

Thanks. I don't understand the bracing. Are you saying that as they came from the factory the speaker boxes were not rigid enough? I doubt I'll be cutting out the bottoms and adding more wood, I don't see how that could match. I feel a bit like I was just told "Yes, that BMW's a fine car, but if you replaced the engine, the suspension, the transmission and the brakes, and stiffened the frame, THEN you'd have something....

Ok I'm new to the party. I have a set of KLF 20s that I've owned since new in 1998 and never felt a need to screw with them...until I came across this site, of course. So, these upgrades: what's the deal? Is there truly an audible difference? In other words, is it worth risking taking my speakers apart? If it helps, the music I listen to is a broad range of rock/country/americana at moderate volume. Thanks

That's no lie. When I joined 2 years ago all I owned was a transistor radio. You had transistors? All I had was a crystal radio and a stick.

Must resist these mythical titanium tweeter dome replacements. Sounds complicated. On a *somewhat* more serious note, the KLFs: I got googled into thinking that they should be bi-wired, so I removed the metal connectors between the pairs of posts....and then I moved to a different job/state/house. Since I had to run the wires under the floor and drill holes in the hardwood floor to, as my wife puts it, "hide the damned wires", I dropped an email to the folks at Klipsch asking if bi-wiring actually did anything. I got a nice response from an engineer saying as far as he was concerned it didn't make a difference (given proper gauge) but they made them 'bi wireable' mostly for marketing purposes. Anyway, I only ran one set of wires but somehow in the move I've misplaced the original gold plated connectors and have them bridged with some wire, which doesn't make any difference sonically but sort of bugs me from a feng shui perspective. Anybody know where those can be obtained?

Yeah thanks everybody. I must tell you I have a gnawing feeling of doom. When I joined the motorcycle forum I ended up with new gear, a new bike, all kinds of crap I didn't know I needed. I've already spent an hour looking at the discussion on tube preamps, god help me.

There are only two things more important to me than music and motorcycles. One is beer. The other, I can't remember.

Hi Bill, You're right the center is an RC 64. I very much like the RF 63s, I've never listened to them in an dedicated two channel audio set up. I would someday like to do an A/B comparison between the RFs and the KLFs but they're on two different floors and all weigh a ton so unless I get super ambitious, that's not gonna happen. I would say the RFs sound a bit brighter than the KLFs but as the engineers say, that's linear rectal extraction.

Noted. I'll bring the donuts, you bring the Moose Drool.

Hello. My name is skifastbadly, and I am a Klipsch-a-holic. I didn't see a better place to introduce myself. It all started in the mid 80s, when I had some real money to finally spend on a stereo system and upgraded from my crappy collegiate ultra-linears. Those were the days when there were actual high end stero shops that employed knowledgeable audiophiles selling serious equipment. I purchased a set of kg4s. And I loved them to death. I powered them with a Harmon Karmon integrated amp. I played LPs through them, and eventually CDs. It all came to a sad end though one day when my wife a wonderful women but who doesn't listen too well, closed the door on the cabinet containing the amp, causing it to overheat, which fried the amp which in a last gasp of life fired out a death charge through the speaker wires. And that was the end of the kg4s. But they gave me ten or twelve great years of service, so off I went to another serious stereo store (I had no idea these places were facing rapid extinction) and got a pair of KLF 20s powered by an Adcom GTP 455 tuner/pre-amp and Adcom GFA 535 amp. This was about 1998, and the fact that the pre-amp didn't have a phono input didn't really bother me... Since then I've upgraded the 455 to a 500II (which has a phono input) and the 535 to a 555. I also moved all my CDs to the computer in lossless format, and take a direct digital feed out of it to an Adcom GDA 700 DAC. It rocks. Eventually I purchased a home theatre system, that's powered by a Rotel RSX 1067 and using Klipsch RF 63s for the left and right channel, a similarly spec'd Klipsch center channel which is too big for me to move and check the model number on, and some lesser Klipsch floorstanding speakers for surround that apparently Klipsch was too embarrased about to put the model number on. So, that's who I am and that's what it is. If my behavior pattern here matches other forums I've joined, (you can find me on advrider.com) I'll be piping up on occasion, giving bad advice to people asking questions, and making the occasional snide remark. I'll also be watching the advice given to others on speaker wires, bi wiring, bi amping, vinyl vs. digital, and other fascinating irresolvable topics. See ya!