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Emotiva makes good budget stuff. I don't know how it'll sound on Khorns, but I use one of their power amps with my Heresies and like the sound very much. The TA-100 (at $400) should be a good amount of power, and if it sounds as good as the amp I have from the same line then you should enjoy it. Make sure to set them up in corners!

I've had a bad experience with a Yamaha stereo receiver. I bought a much lower tier one to be fair (something from the 'natural sound' line) but the sound was pretty rough. Huge distortion when pushed past a speaking volume, and that was on sensitive Klipsch speakers! They definitely fluffed the power rating on the spec sheet. Maybe the nicer ones are better, but personally I wouldn't buy from them again. For around the same price you should be able to get something nice from NAD or Emotiva. I use an Emotiva power amp with my Heresies right now and it's great. Their TA-100 would fit close to that price and should sound good.

When I was given a pair of old KG 5.2s that had never been used, I broke them in by playing video games and music with my sub off and bass tone control all the way up. Sounded a bit whumpy, but it did accelerate the process. In my experience (my only other pair that was bought new was my old Synergy F-20s) Klipsch speakers sound pretty rough before break-in so be sure to be patient!

This forum helped nudge me to decide to buy my KP201s last year and it's one of the best audio decisions I've ever made. I use them in 2-channel with a Klipsch Sub 12 (Emotiva A-300 amp and Adcom GTP-500 preamp) for music and video games and they're stellar. Mine are oak and I wouldn't want to place them outside, but if they have the more rugged commercial cabinets they'd do okay for that. I think you'd like the sound, they're tireless whether pushing huge dB or playing quietly. I'd buy them again right now if I found another good pair nearby. They might be fussy if you use a home theater receiver, I don't like receivers in general (so I'm biased here) and if there are any gremlins in its sound that'll be all you'll hear. They'll take just about any number of watts as long as they're good watts, though.

That's the nail on the head for me. My ears liked that very much when I moved to the Heresies, to me it's a more musical sound. The RP-280Fs sound like there's a whole chunk of midrange missing when I switch back to them. I can't actually vouch for the RF-7 II since I haven't heard them, so I suppose my message was that the sound indeed can improve with better speakers. The extended message then is that you should really decide based on your ears where you'd like to go in terms of how it improves! My understanding is that the RF-7 II should be a better version of what you get from the RP-280F, while the Heresy is a different sound overall. I'd like to hear the RF-7 II myself at some point. I'll say they definitely did sound more veiled than the RP-280F until I got the Emotiva amp, which seemed to open up the top end much more. They sound like they have an extra edge of dynamics over the RP-280F and I find them smoother and less tiring to listen to. Video games never become grating (even when loud) and music sounds great. The RP-280F is a much more 'airy' sound and has much deeper bass, but I don't find them as exciting as the Heresies are. The first time I set them up, I turned them up and up and listened to an awful lot of my collection all at once because of how much I liked the sound. Jazz, big band, K-pop, dubstep, I like how all of it sounds through the Heresies. Some music that I had found too bright to listen to (Led Zeppelin sticks out) sounds great to me now. Personally, I'm very committed to heritage sound after hearing the difference, but as you can see, everybody feels differently. Maybe my mind will be changed when I do get to hear the RF-7 II, they're gorgeous and built in Hope so they must be good.

Bass on the Heresies is polite, definitely not deep but it is musical. Placing them near a corner will help a little (plus they take up surprisingly little space in the room that way) Coming from RP-280Fs you'd definitely notice the light bass, I think they're really at their best when run with a subwoofer. They sound nice on the A-300 too, I was surprised by how much the treble opened up when I got this amp. They sound spacious and smooth together.

"Klipsch Community Forum & Poor Impulse Control Support Group"

I don't know about the RF-7 II since I haven't heard them, but I was really struck when I first set up my Heresies where my RP-280Fs are. I've barely used the RP since, mostly plug them in from time to time to feel like I bought them for a good reason. If you fancy an upgrade, I'll vouch for that! I can also chime in with racebum about power amp upgrades. Adcom is nice, I used to use a lower powered Adcom (GFA-535, an older model than 5500) that I liked very much, now I use an Emotiva A-300 that I like even more.

Sub definitely doesn't need to match brands, and I myself will probably upgrade to something from Hsu later on when I have the space. Definitely jump on a Sub 12 if you see it for a good price, but if you see something better you'd probably like it even more. I'm planning to upgrade later because I have poor impulse control, but otherwise there's nothing about the Sub 12 that seems inadequate to me. Maybe I'll feel differently when I do upgrade, but for now it does its job well! For the record, I paid $100 for mine. The guy who was selling it was moving to Argentina within the month and selling it cheaply was better than throwing it out. So if you meet another guy who's moving to Argentina and needs to unload a Sub 12 for $100, I say do it.

I have a Sub 12 in a smaller space and I enjoy it very much. It gives nice weight to the sound (paired with Heresy 2) without any obvious frequency bumps. It's definitely better with speakers that have some bass weight of their own, I think if you paired it with speakers too small then you'd probably wish you'd gotten a nicer one. Music wise I've used it with anything from loud, bassy K-pop to big band and jazz and it does well with both. Blended well, it doesn't sound separate from the speakers. Video games are about as close as I get to home theater use and it's always done nicely there too. I like to turn up my preamp's bass tone control all the way when I play Star Fox Zero; it's like you're there! I can't compare to the R-112, but I can say I've never felt compelled to upgrade. I also bought it secondhand rather inexpensively, which was a bonus. They do have reliability issues, but chances are if you find one that hasn't broken by now, it should be in the clear.

You could always wait for something used, too. I see a lot of Klipsch subs around the 8"-10" range go up on my local Craigslist, usually as part of a listing with bookshelf speakers or something, that you could probably get pretty inexpensively. I got my subwoofer used, it's a Synergy Sub 12 that I paid $100 for. I turn my preamp's bass tone control all the way up when I play Star Fox Zero, and it's like you're there!

I'll hop in with a good word for Emotiva. I don't know about Khorns, but I got an A-300 for my Heresies and it's been great. It really filled out what I perceived as a rolled-off top end to my speakers and manages delicacy and finesse really well. It has great instrument separation, particularly when it comes to rendering depth. I also haven't been able to find a volume level that makes it upset. It replaces an Adcom GFA-535, but I still use the GTP-500 preamp I'd bought with it.

The R14-M are a great bargain for under $100 if you can find them at that price (I see them on sale somewhat often.) I have the older Synergy B-10s that are extremely similar (I believe I heard that the new ones have different tweeters) and they're a great bargain. Serious bang for their size and price. The bass is a bit whumpy and you may want to filter the bass if possible to protect those little drivers, but overall they work very nicely. I used to use them for computer speakers and for near-field video gaming and they never seemed tired at any volume level.

For stereo listening, I say keep the Fortes. I haven't heard them, but I have a pair of RP-280Fs and a late 80s pair of Heresies in the same room. The RP-280Fs are good, and they're the ones I had first, but I've stopped using them completely since getting the Heresies. To my ear they're more musical and more dynamic than the Reference Premiere, so Fortes should be even better. I think the new ones also sound brighter than the old ones, they seem to be missing some mids when you compare them directly. The presentation is very different between each speaker, they're hard to compare because some elements (music) that are in the background on the RP-280Fs are in the foreground on the Heresies. I see that you use mostly for home theater. The closest I get with mine would be for video games, but I prefer how the older speakers sound there too. The RP-280F's greater treble extension has a little more air to atmospheric effects, but the Heresies make me feel like I'm there. Plus, when I upgraded to an Emotiva amp, it seemed to uncover a lot of treble extension that I didn't know they had. Of course, if you're itching for an upgrade, the new Forte III is supposed to be out later this year. I know that's the upgrade I'd like to make.

The first set of Klipsch that I owned myself were floorstanders (Synergy F-20s) and if you'd asked what the advantages were beforehand, I would've told you that they produce more bass. That was still true, but it wasn't the first thing I noticed. What I really noticed was the power and presence of the midrange as compared to any of the small speakers I was used to hearing. Dad had Bose speakers growing up (he knows sound equipment very well from work, but wanted something nonintrusive for the home) and I had computer speakers, so I'd just never heard anything quite like it before. That was the biggest change for me. Plus, if you're buying bookshelf speakers to place on stands, you might as well get floorstanders anyway. I use Heresies now which I've elevated, so they're floorstand-ish, but they also spank the RP-280F in midrange and overall timbre, so they stay. Bookshelf speakers are good if your space doesn't allow for floorstanders, but if it does, floorstanders are really the way to go. Big speakers for big sound!

I'm definitely going for those features for my next preamp. They're very relevant to modern listening and for some reason seem like they'd been neglected for some time. Bass management seems like a must, there's no need to bother the speakers with very low bass. I've looked at Parasound and Emotiva there and if I were going for Parasound, I'd want the P5. It has filtration for both the speakers and subwoofer, while I believe the 2100 only has it for the subwoofer. I'd personally be more interested in the speaker filter than the subwoofer filter, so that's the one I'd get.

It's great to hear that impression dtel! I'm excited about these. When I have the appropriate space, they seem like they'd really be a great upgrade from the KP-201s.

I have a pair that someone gave me, too! They're fun speakers for sure, they have nice treble extension. I haven't set them up in a while, but I liked them especially for video games. Their treble gave a nice sense of space to atmospheric sounds in a Legend of Zelda title, they made the game more engaging. Have fun with them!

RP-280Fs produce low frequencies, but not with the same power of a dedicated sub. That's not a bad thing either, I find that full-range speakers plus a good sub just have much more power in the end compared to smaller speakers with the same sub. Plus, you won't need to set your sub's filter very high, so it can stick to doing what it's good at.

No joke about horn dynamics. I recently borrowed a pair of B&W 602 from my dad (he bought a few of them secondhand for pretty cheap) because I wanted to see if I could really hear 'horn coloration' compared to the Heresy. They were perfectly agreeable, noticeably warmer than the Heresy, fairly detailed and with more low end than you'd expect, but the sound was very two-dimensional by comparison. (And I didn't hear 'horns' when I switched back)

Indeed, the sound is surprisingly spacious! I had merely accepted a more 'rolled off' sound as the Heresy's character on my old amp, while they really open up and show depth on this new one. I was skeptical about a higher-powered solid state amp being a good match for speakers that are known to pair well with tubes, but it's been great.

Great news! I'm looking forward to reading reviews and more impressions of these, it's nice to see the Heritage speakers coming into the spotlight like this. I'd really like to upgrade to a pair when I have the space.

I use just a 2.1 channel system for everything I do. Few movies, but plenty of music and video games, and I've never felt like I was missing too much. I'll upgrade to 5.1 in the future (or more, depending on what the next Nintendo console supports) but I'm not in a huge rush. My sound goal was to have power, detail, and emotion dynamics, and for it to be smooth and neutral. That's more important to my ears than having more speakers. Plus, you can always compound your system, which I think is really the best way to go. Start with RP-280Fs, then buy RF-7s later and use the RP for surrounds. You can have a satisfying upgrade without having to closet your old speakers. (I've heard RP-280F but not RF-7 though, maybe someone who knows both can weigh in on whether each speaker would blend well)

Without hearing either pair, I'd guess the RF-7 III will be aimed more toward home theater and the Forte will be aimed more for music. I haven't heard either series, but I've heard the step before each speaker in the RP-280F and Heresy. The RP has a bigger top-end and more air, but the Heresy has incredible midrange. It sounds better to me on much more content than the RP speakers do. And the Heresy's top end opened up much better when I got a better amp, so now they seem to give the whole package I'd be just as excited to audition a pair of RF-7 IIIs, but assuming a similar difference in tone on the new speakers, my choice will be the Forte III. The RP-280Fs have more of a modern hifi sound to my ears that some people might prefer, while the Heresy sounds more natural. It's Klipsch's way of keeping fans of both sounds happy.

Most of my friends have heard me talk up my Klipsch setup once or twice. We're all into video games and music and it's a bit of a shame that so many people have no idea what they're not hearing in content they enjoy. A high energy game like Star Fox Zero or Mario Kart is a fundamentally different experience on a great sound system than through TV speakers or a sound bar. I call it seriously enriching, I would never go back to listening to music or playing games on anything less. People my age are used to hearing music through TV speakers, phone speakers, laptop speakers, bluetooth speakers, cheap headphones, 'designer' headphones, car radios, et cetera. I'm looking forward to hearing impressions of the Forte III through CES and especially once they start selling. That mid-horn just looks like good sound.