whell

My stuff is mostly Monster Cable. I have tried Homegrown Audio's Silver Lace. I, too, noticed a drop off in bass. Swapped between the Silver and my Monsters a few times and still couldn't shake the impression that the low end was rolled off. Wouldn't mind trying Nordost Blues. Have heard good things. Also, FWIW, I NEVER buy "high end" cables new. So called Audiophiles change out cables faster than I change my underwear, so I always can find a decent deal on used cables.

Van Morrison's "What's Wrong with this Picture" is a great album. Good follow up to his last studio effort. Van still sounds great singing the old style R&B stuff that modern artists would sound absolutley horrible just attempting.

How 'bout quite a bit of the early Moody Blue's stuff, but in particular Days of Future Past. Damn that could be a wonderful record but for the shakey recording. On the topic of the Moody Blue's sound quality, every listen to the end of the song "Go Now"? Where Justin Heyward's voice is almost lost in the over saturated recording? Great song, but yuck!

Let your ear be the judge. I've got a NAD DVD that I use for CD duties as well, and it sounds great to me. Not familair with Cambridge Audio's stuff, but pick the one that sounds right to you.

I have tried both moving speaker cables and interconnects from one amp to the other. I've also tried different speaker wire and interconnects. Starts to sound more and more like it is the amp, I think.

I got 2 Monarchy SM70 Pro's hooked up to the pre-outs of my Marantz receiver. Lately, an audible buzz, sounding kind of like a ground loop humm, but probably more an RF noise, has been coming from my right channel. Here's what I've tried so far to track it down: - disconnecting, then reconnecting everything one piece at a time - cheater plugs - changing power cords - changing interconnects - changing speaker wire - moving amps - moving power cords Incidentally, I do not have cable hooked up to my system, just a good old fashioned rooftop antenna. So far, nothing seems to abate the buzz. Its always been there at a very low, tolerable level. But now its louder and a bit annoying. Any thoughts on how to correct this?? Thanks!

Guys - can we please move this kind of stuff OUT of the Two Channel forum and into the General Forum. Don't really want to have folks grinding their personal axes in this space. Please take this discussion, interesting as it is, to the right forum. Thanks.

Could you describe what you think, as specifically as you can. you're missing in your current set up? Lack of bass, too bright, etc? I own the RF-3's and love the sound I get from them. What is absolutely critical with the RF-3's is placement in the listening room. Having these in the corners at the front of the listening area is a good idea. I've also toed them in a bit. For reference, follow the speaker placement suggestions in your RF-3 owner's guide. Next, I'm one of those who believe that the right interconnects make a difference. The interconnects between your amp and Denon might be experiemented with to see if you can wring some additional sound out of your set up. I use a Marantz SR-19 EX receiver as my preamp/processor. It was OK, but I was lacking some detail and richness from the music. I upgraded to external amps, as you have already done, and noticed a big improvement. Klipsch speakers are very amp dependant. Some folks here have used B&K amps with success. However, you might experiment with some of the above items first, and if you have no success, see if you can test drive some different amplifiers from a local retailer. Most of the good ones will let you take a product home to try out in your system at home to see if it is a good match.

Here in Detroit in the mid 1970's, we had Almas Hifi, the Gramophone, Pecar's Electronics, Shaak Electronics, Advance Electronics & Tech Hifi, and probably w few others that I can't remember, all of whom sold what at the time would be considered moderate to high end gear. Each of those stores/chains had their own repair team in house, or had a close relationship with one of the many independant repair shops in the area (like ABL Electonics). Equipment was expensive, repair prices were relatively reasonable. Later in the 1970's, the large chains, the forerunners to today's big foot "warehouse" stores moved in: Highland Appliance, Fretters, etc. They carried much of the same equipment that the little guys did, except for the most high end stuff, at prices that were difficult to compete with. They also carried stoves, TV's, refrigerators, etc., so they had more inventory to spread out their costs. That, coupled with the recession of the late 70's & early '80's had collateral impact on home stereo: - It forced some of the dedicated hifi chains to close their doors, as price competition of the bread and butter items (receivers, turntables, moderately priced speakers) became more fierce. - The customer base for high end stereo equipment became much smaller during the recession as disposable income shrunk - Equipment changed, and businesses responded to the recession by reducing productions costs and manufacturing processes in a fight to maintian market share. - with tube equipment almost completely flushed from the scene, and transitorized equipment easier for the average consumer to use, manufacturers of mass market equipment flooded the market with inexpensive alternatives to bring hifi to the mass market. Prices fell further, and high end manufacturers either adapted or left the market. Many of these forces still dominate the market today. One of the reasons that SACD or DVD-A is looking to "find its voice" is that most consumers have found they can live quite comfortably with the lower priced alternatives in the stereo marketplace. Lets face it - the boom boxes of today are much less expensive and do a much better job of producing decent music than their forerunners of the 70's and '80's, and don't need SACD or DVD-A to sound their best. One thing that still blows me away - today's kids would rather plunk a huge chunk of change on their car stereo's, and listen to crappy systems at home. Go figure.

Just a brief explanaiton/demonstration, but might make for interesting additional reading. Maybe the best example of why we should focus on listening to the music rather than listening to the equipment. http://www.gedlee.com/distortion_perception.htm

I'm not so sure that this is an issue of the government poking into people's private lives. The issue is whether or not the insitition of marriage is going to be redefined. There is nothing stopping two people of whatever sex to cohabitate, to carry on however they wish within their own four walls. I'm all for that. However, marriage as a legal insitution has a very specific definition, and a very specific intent. It creates obligations financial, personal, moral and legal. It creates a structure within which children can come into the world within a family unit. I'm quite comfortable with the status quo, and don't care to have this insititution redefined be an apparently vocal minority. I also don't care for the apparent willingness of judges to set asside the will of the citizens of any state as was done in the state of MA on this issue.

Mobile - you're right. Lost in all of the flap about J Jackson's boob was truly the best superbowl game I've ever seen, bar none. It may not have been the best defense ever played in a championship game, but it was certainly a very entertaining game to watch. Gents - its not about morality or religion. Rules are rules, and if one breaks the rules they need to face the music. FCC is the body that has been appointed by we the people to manage the broadcast frequencies that, in this case, are not owned by CBS. They are owned by the public. If this were on a cable channel, no biggie. But the broadcast occured over the public airwaves, and the FCC has an obligation to enforce the rules on broadcast ethics that we the people put into place. And those rules don't allow for nudity. If anyone on the forum doesn't like these rules, than they can exercise their freedom to petition their government to change the rules. But, until then, CBS needs to be held in account for the material that they broadcasted at halftime. As far as all the media hype, nothing new there. Stories get overblown every day becuase the 24/7 news machines at CNN, FOX, etc, need to be fed.

---------------- On 2/2/2004 11:20:42 PM norcuron wrote: Thanks for the replies. He did offer to order me a brand new pair for 1400 out the door. I at this point have decided to keep my Chorus IIs. p.s. Shipping company said they may deliver my SVS PB2+ tomorrow Mark ---------------- Good lord! That's the 2nd time in less than a week that I've seen a VERY compelling price on a new pair of RF-7's. Last week someone found them for $1500 new, and Mark has now found a pair for $1400. Outstanding deals. I wonder what is up? Might these particular dealers be the ones that lost their rights to sell Klipsch and a now liquidating stock??

The SM-70 Pro was an enhanced design of he SM-70. Both are great amps but the Pro has a little more power, improved heat dissipation, and slighly improved dynamics.

I think both have a place in my system. Certainly there is much new music that I enjoy that simply is not available on vinyl. If the situation in the 80's and early 90's still existed where you could get your choice of either format, I'd probably still be living in "vinyl-dom".

My thought is that the universe of individuals who are truly passionate about music AND the equipment are a very small subset of the folks who enjoy listening to music. My wife and my mom are great examples. They enjoy the way the music makes them feel, but don't really care if they get the best sound. Truly, I think folks with very pronouced "left brains" can appreciate music in a way that I can't. They can listen to music that is produced from whatever source, and their imaginations and emotions become much more responsible for the "listening experience" and enjoyment than the sound coming from the speakers. While I can certainly get emotional about a piece of music, I need the music to be reporduced with a level of sound quality not needed by my wife to get the emotional reaction.

By the way, RF-7's for $1500/pair is a pretty darn good deal, IMHO. I'd jump on it.

I think you could find a pair of Klipsch RB-5's for around $500, if you're patient. There are two on Ebay right now, "new in the box", with 2 days left.

Max - I feel your pain. Really can't listen to the RF-7's much until the daughter is napping or tucked in for the night. One the bright side, however, the RB-5's get a fair amount of play on the system in the basement. Meg loves to dance, either on her own or with daddy, when I put on any music with a beat. So, I'll throw a record on, and she'll immediately go to the top of the stairs with a big smile on her face, and bounce back and forth to the beat of the music. Then she'll come find daddy and ask me to dance!

Gents: Just my $0.02 here, but if I were in the $2000 and up budget range, I would at least consider separates. With what good quality used amps are going for, you can get all the amplification you need, a separate preamp/processor (which, also on the used market, might get you all of the features you really need), and great flexibility for upgrading later on.

Here is my take on the cable debate: I think its the best thing that ever happened to us budget conscious audio freaks. Why? I do think that good quality, multi strand speaker wire is the way to go. I also think that bi-wiring has subtle but appreciable effects. I was able to shop around on the net, be patient, and purchase a very premium internally bi-wired set of speaker cables for a song, because so many audiophile-types have terminal upgrade-itis....especially with regard to cables and interconnects. Thus the "used" market is replete with great deals on quality cables...and components for that matter.

The tuner info site posted above is mandatory reading for anyone shopping for tuners. Another spot I would suggest looking at is: www.antennaperformance.com. These guys take classic tuners, align them, tweak them, and sell them for a fair price for what you end up getting: a classic, well built analog tuner with improved performance that has been serviced and aligned by pros. The challenge with Ebay is that you're really not always sure what your getting. That may not matter if you're comfortable poking around inside of the unit and can do an alignment yourself If not, at least the Antenna Perforamnce guys guarantee their work. You'll sometimes find tuners pop up in the "For Sale" section of this site that have been serviced prior to sale: http://www.classicaudio.com/ There is another guy who collects vintage Fisher tube tuners and rebuilds them, and sells them for slightly above your stated price range. The results of the rebuild are supposed to be wonderful. If I can find his site again, I'll post it here.

Welcome. Prepare to be besieged by those would have you convert your entire system to a glow-in-the-dark (tube) concotion of flea powered amps. Your system will, I'm sure, sound great. But be open to experimenting with some of the suggestions that the senior members of this board will convey in various posts. I've learned alot just hanging around here. For an amp, I can't reccomend the Monarchy Audio SM-70 Pro's enough. I'd take a long serious look at the Monarcy amps that are currently available on Audiogon. One guy is selling his for $299, which is a crazy low price for an SM-70 pro! There's another guy selling a pair for $750, shipping included. I'd jump on these straight away. They sound GREAT with Klipsch.

The two are quite similar. However the RF-35 is a refinement of the RF-3. The tweeter is a bit different and the crossover sends any info below 2600 Hz to the low frequency drivers. The RF-3's crossover point is a bit lower, at 1975 Hz. This might result in a smoother midrange. However, if you could place yourself in a situation where you can hear and compare both, that would be ideal.

Some additional information on room size and the amount of space you have available for the speakers might be helpful, as well as the type of music you listen to. However, I own the PM 7000, which is the same as the PM 7200, only in black. I have the amp paired with RB-5's, since I do most of my listening nearfield with this set up. So far, the RB-5's have proven to be a great match with the Marantz. I love the low end that I am able to get out of the RB-5's with this set up. Rock and jazz are the two primary genres that are played on this set up. I'm looking to see how a few classical LP's that I have do on this system.