whell

Umm...there still alot of us hanging around here who own solid state equipment, and choose not to go the tube route. We're not heretics or conventionalists, we just like what we like.

This, to me, is a great reason to drum up a class action suite against the cable industry. For a while, I was a subscriber to my cable provider's (Time-Warner) "Digital" cable product. The fact of the matter is there is nothing digital about the product at all! Oh, the signal does travel via fiber optic cable to a "node" in my neighborhood. But from the node into my home, it is an analog signal traveling on 75 ohm cable to my "digital" (ha ha) box. This is false advertising, IMHO. I, too, examined the box when the technician came to install it, seaching for any sort of digital out. None. When I asked why it was called a "digital box", the tech gave me the answer above. The box is also capable of supporting bi-directional signals. So, if you puchase a Pay Per View event, it can upload the charges to your cable provider, and provide you with interactive program guides, etc. BUT, if your looking for truly digital-capable equipment, the only way to go currently is satellite.

This might be considered heresy (pardon the pun) in this forum, but you might experiment doing without a center channel first. You're not going to get an exact voice match for the Heresy speaker, unless you can find someone selling a single speaker, which is not likely. However, I've toyed with listening to my RF-3's without my center channel, and depending on where I choose to sit in my entertainment room, the sound is excellent and vocals are still well centered. Try that first, and if you're still compelled to purchase a center channel, you can pick up the RF-3.

It is not an issue of being "twice as good". The RC-3 was designed to be a match for the RF-3 or RF-5 speakers (i.e. RF-3 as L/R channels, and RC-3 as center). The RC-7 is a better match for the RF-7 speakers. With your Infinity L/R front speakers, you might be better served to get a matching Infinity center channel speaker. Matching is important in a home theater speaker system. It is usually referred to as "voice mathcing". The idea is that, for example, as a sound like a car or a plane, or even the human voice traveling from stage left to stage right, travels from left to center to right front speaker, the characteristics of the sound will noticably change if the speakers are not matched.

I'll second that. Dogg Digital is associated with the "white van" scam. These speakers should be avoided. $1000 is reportedly much more than other scam victims have paid for these, by the way.

Be very careful here. There a a small number of authorized Klipsch dealers on line. Not sure if the link you posted is an authorized dealer or not. Klipsch will not honor the warranty product purchased at a non-authorized dealer.

Thanks for the feedback. I got excited when I saw these pop up in my area (Metro Detroit), with the prospect of avoiding shipping costs. Then I opened up the add and read it, and I just about fell out of my chair!

Seems to be a bit rich for these. Thoughts? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1394033826

My opinion: keep shopping. $185 is alot to pay for a turntable the you'll only listen to occasionally. There are bargains out there if you care to find them. I would rank my find as one of those bargains: Cruising through a garage sale, I found a Dual 504 turntable that was in working condition, with and old Grado cartridge. I paid $3 for it. Brought it home, cleaned it up, put a new belt on it and replaced the cartridge with a Grado Prestige Red, and this turntable sounds absolutely great on my modest system. If you want to be patient, and you're willing to apply a little elbow grease as needed, you might find a diamond in the rough for a lot less than $189.

Well, my system for vinyl enjoyment now consists of an inexpensive Dual 504 belt drive turntable (picked it up for $3 at a garage sale, cleaned it up, slapped on a new belt, and it sounds great!), a Yamaha CA 810 integrated amp, a Yamaha T-85 tuner found in a pawn shop for $50, and a pair of Infinity Studio Monitors. Pulling the info off the vinyl is a Grado Prestige Blue. I love it. I'm suffering from no listening fatigue whatsoever, unless the vinyl is in less than ideal condition. I've been spending some time in local 2nd hand record shops, and have made some great finds of late. Yesterday I found a Mobile Fidelity version of Supertramp's Crime of the Century, and dropped the Grado on it. I'm still giddy over the sound coming out of my system. I'm giving a bit of thought to dumping my "modern" system and going simple 2 channel. The Yammy is old, but it certainly sounds wonderful to me, and considering giving my Klipsch a try with it. But, I would think that there are "modern" integrateds that would compete with the Yamaha (sorry "tubies", not quite ready to go with tubes right now). But the long and short of it, I really like my Grado, have been having some really good luck with it, and would reccommend it to anyone who doesn't have huge $$$ to spend on a cartridge.

Ray: You may be correct that you're oversimplifying the explanation of 70's equipment. There were some large Pioneer and Technics receivers that got nice and loud, but often had issues with overheating. On the contrary, there were also some darn nice SS products in the 1970's that came from the "mass market" companys. I own a couple of examples: A Kenwood KA 9100 integrated amp with two nice size power supplies, one for each channel, and "dual mono" contruction; and A Yamaha CA-810 Integrated amp with a decent power supply and a darn nice phono section, though the interior layout might give someone a headache if I ever had to get it repaired! Both have excellent sound for what I use them for, with the Yamaha having what I imaginne some might describe as warm, tube-like sound.

Mobile: The rise of "popular" music (i.e. the death of "quality music") was in the works long before Reagan took office, IMHO. When I first started buying music in the early 1970's, the best place to find what you were looking for was at the local record shop....and these type of shops were plentiful. I sure most remember how these stores were merchandised: records in bins in the center of the store, 8 tracks on the walls, and "head shop" paraphernalia either across the back of the store, or in the glass case up front near the cash register. The music playing in the store was usually so loud you might not be able to hear yourself think. If the store was truly on the cutting edge, they might accept "Master Charge" or "Bank Americard". But the employees and the owners of these stores were true music fans who lived and breathed their passion. But the advent of the large national and regional record retailers was gearing up by 1974 or '75. Retailers in our area (specialty retailers like "Peaches" who mis-managed themselves out of business, and Harmony House, who recently has filed for chapter 11 because they were eventually beaten at their own game) were starting to flourish, at the expense of the locally owned record shops. Eventually in the early to mid '80's, Musicland and similar retailers were becoming commonplace in malls, where the mom and pop record stores could not begin to afford the leases, and certainly could not match the buying power of the chains. Given what was then perceived as the budding demand for hifi recordings, even many department stores were expanding their record departments. The now defunct local department store E.J Korvettes had a thriving music department, though not nearly the selection of some of the smaller mom and pop stores. Most importantly, though, the retail chains and large department stores (K-Mart, etc.) started to change the terms under which record companies distributed music. Prior to the advent of the large music retailing chains, recording companies dictated the terms under which their product could be sold. After (I'm guessing) 1978 or so, the retailers were largely in control, and the terms for distribution of music in my opinion, favored quick turnover of inventory, larger pressing runs (many times resulting in inferior quality of the pressing) for vinyl, shorter production runs for music that did not meet the retailer's standards for sales volume, regardless of the quality of the music, etc. These changes created an incentive for recording companies to emphasize music by artists that would result in high sales, and quick inventory turnover...reinforcing demand and sales for what used to be called "bubble gum" artists and music. This was supported by changes in the FM world, and the way consumers were first exposed to music. The "corporatization" of radio lead to shrinking play lists and reductions in the number of radio formats. In Detroit alone, the number of Album-Oreinted Rock (or AOR) stations dwindled from 4 to 1 by 1984 (Folks with "Detroit memories": correct me if I'm wrong, but the 4 AOR stations used to be WABX, WLLZ, WRIF, and WCSX. Now, all but WRIF are gone, and WCSX has changed to a "classic rock" format). Radio became the medium for car stereos rather than home stereos, and radio formats changed in hopes that that the "push button happy" car stereo listener would stay put for longer than one song, and the belief that hgih rotations of music targetted at the largest possible audience within a particlar demographic would be the key. Of course, by then, MTV was the rage and became a much bigger influence on how consumers first "experienced" new music. Remember the Buggles tune: "Video Killed the Radio Star"? That's my $0.02 anyway. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD This message has been edited by whell on 09-18-2002 at 04:52 PM

I ran a Yamaha RXV 620 with my Klipsch for a short time. I no longer own that particular HT receiver, because the Klipsch, as revealing as they are, brought out all the shortcomings of the unit. I DO have a much older Yamaha integrated amp: a CA-810. Very warm and smooth with Klipsch. Not sure what has happened to the state of "Natural Sound", but my older Yamaha had it in spades over the newer unit. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Here's one that has always been a mystery to me: Why do record companies, in this case, Columbia I think, change the content/version of tunes on CD as compared to their earlier vinyl counterparts. Example: on Santana's Open Invitation album, the version of the song "One Chain" is different on vinyl than it is on CD. Frankly, I think the version on vinyl is WAY better. Why does this happen? ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

This might be one of those "your milage may vary" comments, but I had and RC-3 and RB-5's paired with a Yamaha RXV-620 receiver and I didn't care much for the results. The music sounded lifeless and dull, and the dvd sound was not as dynamic as I would have liked. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Well, I would certainly hope that just about ANY separate amplifier (save some very entry level amps), when connected the the pre-outs of ANY receiver, would be an improvement. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD This message has been edited by whell on 08-03-2002 at 12:06 PM

Here are a couple of comments from the Asylum relating to your observations that seem to come to a different conclusion: "When I went to work as a salesman at Tech Hifi in the middle '70s, our flagship speaker was the impossibly efficient Ohm A. A short time after its introduction, it was replaced by the Ohm F. Though more efficient than the A, the F was still the least efficient production speaker of its time. The acid test for any amplifier in the store was to hook it up to these miserably inefficient (but otherwise hair-raisingly realistic) speakers. Of all the separate power amps in the joint, the Phase Linear 700B did the best job. Among the receivers, only 2 were capable of driving them to decent levels: the Sansui 9090; and the Tandberg (the model of which eludes me at the moment). It is instructive to note that while the Sansui is extremely powerful by any standard, the Tandberg, which did at least as good a job, was rated at 45 watts per channel. We can, then, derive 2 lessons from the foregoing: power isn't everything when driving inefficient speakers; and the Sansui 9090 is one hell of a receiver. PS I don't recall any problems attendant to the 9090; few if any were returned to the store. " "We saw our share of returned 9090's due to being combined with Ohm F's - the common failure was open power transformer primaries. Detroit liked it LOUD! :-)" ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Word of caution that I've heard about the "DB" Sansui units: the build in dolby circuit poops out, and is quite difficult to bypass electronically (and replacements parts are not available unless you can canaabilize parts....but then you run the risk of those parts developing the same issue). That is why I jumped in a 9090 (as opposed to the 9090DB) when I found one recently). ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Found a reasonably good deal on a receiver that I have always admired since my high school days: the Sansui 9090. This is in museum quality mint condition. Only the "Source" knob is in need of some attention, and probably only cleaning at that. The tuner section is super. Got it all hooked up and have been playing it quite a bit over the last few weeks. Simply put, it is one of the nicest pieces of electronics I have listened to in a while. I've got my Marantz system sitting upstairs, yet I find myself sneaking downstairs more and more often to listen to my music. Warm in the middle, more that sufficient high end detail, and, most noticably, the bass. The low end is detailed, but not thumpy or boomy. My old Infinity Studio Monitors, when hooked up to this receiver, all of a sudden have detailed bass that I didn't know they were capable of. Question: Has anyone ever tried Klipsch speakers with a 9090? I know many here favor tubes, which I am not ready to try. But this system to my ear sounds as warm and as detailed as any SS amp I've heard in a long time. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

If you favor the sound of the RF-3's, you might give the RB-5's a listen. They of course are the bookshelf sized speaker in the current Reference Series. I love how they sound, and they would certainly fit within your wife's space requirements. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

I recently found an old Sansui FR-D3 turntable at a garage sale. No cartridge or headshell. I paid only $5 for it. It has a universal headshell mount, and I have one on my other turntable, so I tried it out. When I attemtped to play a record, it was obvious that the turntable was not able to play the record at a constant speed. No amount of adjusting the pitch control rememdied the problem. This is a direct drive unit. The unit is in excellent cosmetic condition, with the exception of issue described above. The local electronics shop charges $75 minimum repair. Is this unit worth the repair? Is there an easy fix I might be overlooking? ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Similar pawn shop experience, only with a tuner. Found a Yamaha T-85 tuner, sitting in a pile of tuners, at my local pawn shop. Bought it for $50, and talked the salesperson (if that's what they're called in a pawn shop) down from $100! That same tuner regularly goes between $250 and $300 on Ebay. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

Since we've covered the subject of polarity and phase, lets try this one: Going through my old owners manuals, I can across this reference for my Kenwood KA-9100 (one of the "Direct-Coupled" or DC amps that Kenwood made in the 70's). There were two references that seemed at variance: Frequency Response: 5000 hz to 60000 hz and Power Bandwidth: DC to 100000 hz What is the difference between these two performance benchmarks? ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

I owned a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 5i's for a few months. While not a direct comparison to the 8i's, I can say that they are a nice sounding speaker line. At the end if the day, after hearing the Klipsch line, I traded them back in for RF-3's. High end detail in spades with the Monitors, warmth in the mids, not terribly efficient, limited bass. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD

At the outset, let me specify that I am an owner of a 5 channel amp: the Marantz MM 9000. I like the performance of the Marantz, as 5 channel amps go. However, it strikes me that the more channels you put in a box, the more compromises that are required by the manufacturer to make it all fit in a box that will fit in your entertainment center. If you are committed to 2 channel audio, then you really would benefit from auditioning 2 channel amplification, IMHO. If you like the sound of the NAD, when you audition it, then that might be your best option. ------------------ Mike - Livonia, MI Klipsch RF-3 L/R Klipsch RC-3 Center Klipsch RB-5 rears HSU Research VF-2 Sub Marantz SR-19EX receiver Marantz MM-9000 Amp NAD T550 DVD Adcom GCD 700 CD This message has been edited by whell on 07-08-2002 at 10:51 AM