picky

UPDATE Hello again everyone! It's now been several weeks since I first took delivery of my Klipsch RP-1600SW 16" subwoofer. The first few days were spent enjoying it nearly in the middle of our theater room, while I constructed a sliding platform to support the sub's final location; in a false corner beneath our bar, just behind the theater seats, which is where our old RSW-15 sub had resided. The middle of the floor was hardly the best place in which to get acquainted with a new sub. Especially, in this case; this sub has so much excursion that with it facing our seats, literally every time there was a large burst of bass, a windstorm of air shot out of the port at our chairs. as if we just turned a large fan on "high"! That beast moves a lot of air! However, now that it is resting in its permanent location behind our seats, everything is perfect! I have the sub set at 180 degrees phase, because it faces our RF-7s up front. The sub gain is set to #7. The low pass frequency is 150Hz, but the receiver sub setting is set to 80Hz (THX Compliant). This allows the RF-7's to go deeper (they are set to "large"). I am running the power switch at "On" (rather than "Auto" or "Standby") because power is cut to the sub when I switch my rack-mount Line Conditioner to "Off" whenever I am done using the system. System calibration was once again achieved using the on-board MCACC system in our Pioneer VSX-49TXi Flagship receiver (Circa 2004). I also made some manual adjustments to the system settings based on specific audio and video material playback and my own and my bride's hearing. Thrilled Beyond Belief Best described, this thing is a monster that plays well with others! I played so many movie scenes with which we were familiar, so many concert videos, CD cuts, everything. Comparing it to our beloved RSW-15, there was nothing the 1600 did not do better! The 1600 goes way deeper, is more impactive during explosions and such, is much more musical and at the same time, it handles lighter duty with finesse! It's acoustic impedance is so good using the new, Aerofoil port that we never heard any chuffing! We watched our Elton John 'Dream Ticket' concert DVDs. We heard so many lower notes that we have never noticed before. This is particularly true on the 2002 Disc #2 'London: The Royal Opera House' where Elton and his band play with the students of his old Alma Mater: The London Royal School of Music, a 95-piece symphony orchestra: Incredible! Disc #1 is from 2000 'New York: Madison Square Gardens'. An amazing concert which includes too many guests to mention, like Billy Joel. We ran segments of numerous movies: 'Flight of the Phoenix' (the remake) sandstorm scene, Master and Commander (the attack begins scene), 'Open Range' (the gunfight begins), and many more. This sub made our enter system sound better and to think it's all 23 years old! My bride and I are thrilled with our investment in yet, another major Klipsch break-though product line! If you aren't aware, Klipsch now offers 4 subs in its Reference Premier line: The RP-1000SW 10", RP-1200SW 12", RP-1400SW 14" and RP-1600SW 16". They are all well worth checking out. With proper placement, I think you too, will be amazed. The RP-1600SW is nothing short of limitless! -Glenn https://photos.app.goo.gl/He5oUxsvmhfcb6qE6

Note: My above testimony has now been edited to include my first impressions.

Hello everyone! I'm afraid it's been a few "minutes" since I last posted. For those of you who may remember me, I completed the building of my Klipsch HT back in 2004 and since that time, there have only needed to be a few equipment upgrades and repairs. But the theater is still very much alive-and-well. The mains are RF7 (first edition), center is an RC7, Surrounds are RS7 and rear are in-walls that are very similar to the R-5800 W II. The original subwoofer was an RSW-15. I started out with a 78" Stewart Filmscreen and a Sharp DLP Projector. Those have since been replaced with a 75" Samsung Series 8 flat-screen. Of course, over time, I upgraded the Pioneer Elite DVD player to a Blu-Ray and then again to a Panasonic 4K Blu-Ray player. My flagship, Pioneer Elite VSX-49TXi receiver is still kicking after having to replace the DSP card about 8 years ago, but it does not have any HDMI interface! Therefore, a lot of stuff is accomplished effectively using the 7.1 discreet inputs and outputs on the Panasonic 4K Blu-Ray player and the 5.1 (SPDIF) optical outputs from the video screen. Somehow it all works and is still impressive (to me). That brings us to the subwoofer: My trusty RSW-15 (circa 2004) has been a real powerhouse of a sub. I found it to be viscerally impactive during motion picture scenes and because we collect a lot of music concert videos, the RSW-15 is also extremely musical, including with my CD collection and vinyl, in my humble opinion. So then, why replace it? First, the sub is now 19 years old. Back in 2015, I had the internal amp's power supply let go when the 15" driver's voice coil went to ground. I had a local lab repair the amp and I replaced the driver with a new Klipsch OEM driver, thanks to the Klipsch parts department inventory. It was an expensive repair, but it bought me another 7 years use out of the sub. It failed again last September (2022). So, having been without a sub for the past 11 months (brutal, huh? LOL), I finally had saved up enough money to buy a proper replacement: The new, RP-1600SW. The 110-pound sub (137 pounds shipping) took exactly one week to arrive (free shipping - Thank you Klipsch!) and this past Tuesday, this enormous, semi truck with a 48-foot trailer pulled up in front of my little house and delivered this monster of a sub to my garage. The box was 29" x 30" and would not fit through my 29" side door to the basement. So, my son Bill and I unboxed it outside and moved it downstairs with an appliance dolly. We temporarily placed it on the floor below our screen and in front of our theater seats. I must build a small platform to support it before I can install it in it's permanent spot, beneath our theater's bar, where the old RSW-15 had always sat, behind the theater seats and set to 180 degrees phase. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: After a busy day of installing the sub and and another day where I had other obligations, yesterday, I was finally able to re-calibrate my system with Pioneer's on-board, MCACC acoustic calibration system. It had been several years since I last needed to re-calibrate, so back to the Pioneer Elite owner's manual I went, as I no longer could recall the exact procedure. After about an hour of "beeps" and "boops" and fiddling with some settings manually, I began using source material that I am very familial with, to fine-tune the system to my ears liking. I wound up with the two front RF7s set to large, all the other speakers set to small, the sub set to plus, the crossover frequency set to 80HZ so the RF7s can go deep and I added 3db volume to the rear channels and 2db volume to the sub. As for the sub settings, Phase is set to zero, low pass is set to 150HZ and volume is set to 9 out of 11. Yes, those design geeks at Klipsch do have a sense of humor: It's the only volume control I have that actually goes to "11"! The source material I used for now was Master & Commander DVD scene 4 "Under Attack", one heck of a canon-ball battle, the first couple of songs on the 1999 concert DVD of Peter Frampton: Live in Detroit and Top Gun Maverick, which I am seeing for the very first time (Wow, what a movie!). I found immediately that the 1600 goes much deeper than the RSW-15. The visceral elements I had with the 15 were still there with the 1600 only better. Musically, I think I would say that I found the 1600 to be even more musical that the 15. It's subtlety has more finesse than the 15. The front port of the 1600 moves an incredible amount of air! In some scenes I thought we had the floor fan on!! Because of the 1600's exclusive, port design, not once did I hear any port "chuffing"! Nice job, Klipsch! It's incredible how much excursion the 16" driver has on the 1600! Overall, for the moment, I must say I am not disappointed with my purchase. I'm impressed. And I believe that once I get this monster under our bar in it's own little false corner, this sub is only going to sound better! Stay Tuned!

D-Rex: I agree with the majority of solutions our fellow forum members above have suggested. Another area of possible contingency that was not really mentioned is "Bandwidth". It sounds to me as if your display is possibly not a "Smart TV", is this so? I believe it may not be because you did not mention using WiFi, nor a CAT6 cable directly top the TV. I assume this is why you are streaming via your DVD player. If this is so, that is fine. However, if I am mistaken and your TV is a smart TV, by all means, please do connect a good CAT6e cable to your TV and possibly eliminate some of your latency issues with your video feed. Since the pandemic began, Internet provides have needed to go to "Throttling" their bandwidth, so there's enough to go around. This is because over half of our workforce is now working from home and kids are schooling virtually. For example, my son has a family of 4. He and his wife are both very connected with their portable devices as well as video streaming, etc. My son is also a gamer. They have two teenaged kids who both are connected at the hip to the Internet. Plus, their son is a gamer as well. Their bandwidth draw was akin to a well going dry. If they were to get a dog, they'd probably name it "Latency". Three weeks ago, my son had the provider install Gigabit service (1,000 mbps). HUGE difference! In my situation, there are simply my bride and I, but we too are heavily connected to the web. We had 400 mbps service for quite a number of years, but lately we have been noticing the throttling and pixilation on our displays there used to never be an issue. Just this week, we upgraded to 600 mbps and there is a marked difference! Just a suggestion to consider.Best of luck! - Glenn

I agree. When I suggested a Heresey IV, my intention was that it is to be used upright. I probably should have been more precise. - Glenn

Me too! - Glenn

Perhaps, I'm way off base, but why not try a Heresey IV? It has a larger squawker, similar to the Forte and a lower profile.

DizRotus: Claude's Livingroom coffee table sub Gradation scale: Audiophile Enjoyment Level (AEL): +8 Wife Approval Factor (WAP): -7 - Glenn Sent from my SM-A205U using Tapatalk

buddyjenkins: Welcome to the forum! I too, had to have my RSW-15's power amp repaired after about 14 years of service. It turned out to be that the 15" driver's voice coil had developed some shorts in it. It caused the capacitors on the amp's power supply section to explode, along with a power transistor or two. I purchased a NOS 15" driver from the Klipsch parts department and had a local technician repair the amp. I used to run the sub on standby all of the time. But since the repair, I have opted to turn the sub on and off each time it is used in hopes of gaining some longevity. When I reassembled the sub, I left the original fiberglass insulation inside. I am very familiar with the mineral wool-type insulation of which you speak as it is similar to the Rockwool. I am currently using mineral wool to isolate my son's new dedicated home theater we are nearly done building. The mineral wool is amazing at helping to block sound between walls. It is very dense. It never occurred to me to use it inside my sub or any other speaker enclosure. My question for you is, if you go through with using the Rockwool in your sub, what differences are you expecting to be able to notice? -Glenn

Kentucky Gentleman: Welcome to the forum! If to do not plan to add ATMOS to your room, I would suggest you consider Di-Pole side surround speakers. However, if you do plan on incorporating ATMOS speakers into the mix, then I would recommend using direct speakers as you referred to them. This is the same recommendation given by Dolby. Best of luck! - Glenn

JLB: First of all, welcome to the forum! I experience the exact same issue in my theater. I have a Samsung UHD 75" and an older Pioneer Elite Flagship receiver. Because my receiver is older, I purchased it in 2004, it does not have HDMI connections. Therefore, in order to process the return audio from my screen while using streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, I do the same thing as you: I send the audio feed to my Pioneer over the Digital optical (Toslink) cable. When entering Netflix (or Disney+) I initially hear the sound during the Splash Screen and show titles. But when I actuate "Play" to run the movie, the sound briefly interrupts and suddenly, I hear this loud "POP"! Not great for tweeters!! To counteract this, I used to shut off the receiver and turn it back on. I stopped doing that when I discovered it is much less hard on the receiver to simply switch the receiver's input selector to another device such as CD or VCR 1 before hitting "Play" until I see the movie start and then go back to the Optical input. I immediately hear normal sound and no "POP"! I have to believe this abrupt noise is caused by a "handshake" issue between the TV and receiver because I am not using the HDMI audio directly as my return sound. Yes, it's a pain in the butt, but until I have several grand to replace my legacy receiver, I can live with it. I hope this helps you. Best of luck! - Glenn

HTXNeewbie: Welcome to the forum!! I understand that you are building a 5.1.4 In-wall system with a budget of $1500-$2000 for all speakers and subs and placing them in a 17'x14' room and you'd like to know what is the best. Please let me start by saying that your budget (no offense intended) may prove to be unrealistic. Given the compromises exhibited by most in-wall systems, and there are several, you may be hard-pressed just to purchase the 5 speakers needed for LCR and Surround duties alone. In order to try and gain the "best" performance from in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, I would recommend you consider units which have at least, 8" woofers. The least expensive Klipsch in-wall with an 8" woofer is the R-3800-W II priced at $384 each. Five of them would cost $1,920+tax and any shipping: Boom: You're over two grand. For ceiling speakers, I would recommend the CDT-2800-C II at $304 each. Four of them would set you back another $1,216 + Tax and any shipping. $1,920+$1,216=$3,136. Finally, the minimum size sub I would recommend for a room that size (17'x14') would be a 12" Sub, but it really may need a 15". There is one Klipsch in-wall sub with two 8: drivers, the RW-5802-II, however it may not be available as there is no price currently listed. Currently, Klipsch has their SPL Series subs on sale: The 12", SPL-12 is $449.00 ($3,136+$449=$3,585) and the 15", SPL-15 is $749.00. ($3,136+$749=$3,885) Naturally, there are many other smaller-sized Klipsch in-wall speakers (and subs) that have smaller drivers and prices, but they would most-likely be an additional compromise in performance, which may prove to be a deviation away your "Best" metric. I hope this information helps to get you started in your decisions. Best of luck! -Glenn

Duncan: I am definitely, not a hater of RF-7's. My own 7.1 home theater is based on RF-7 I's. My rooms dimensions are small, too (11.5'w x 19'd). In looking at veera's 12.5' x 14.5' room, I recommended that Heresey 4's be considered over the towers because of the shallow depth of the room. With your room and mine being somewhat deeper, in my humble opinion, there's a bit more time for driver convergence to occur than in veera's. My seating distance for front row is 10 feet from the motorboards with 9 feet remaining behind the seats. As I'd stated in my post, my son's room is nearly identical in size to veera's and his 3, Heresey III's coupled with two 15" SW-115 subs really rock it! I also agree with pretty much everything you mentioned in your post above regarding not being able to crank the speakers up to their full potential in a room that size, which is why I believe my son's smaller Hereseys are such a good choice for a room smaller than ours. Plus, he has the added advantage of 3 Hereseys in an L-C-R array across the front, thereby making them timbre-matched while still clearing the bottom of the video screen. My son's screen is an 82" which hangs fairly low on the wall. -Glenn

JoeJoeThe3rd: I'm happy you found my post to be of some help. Please let us know how you made out, as well as what your opinion is of the machine you chose. -Glenn

JoeJoeThe3rd: I too, was interested in getting an Oppo. However they vacated the disc player market (at the top of their game, I might add) a couple of years ago (Samsung has vacated the disc player market as well) and newer offerings from various manufactures have more advanced features and updated video codec compliances than the older Oppo's. One machine, in particular that some reviewers have claimed to have matched Oppo's playback (video and audio) quality is the Panasonic UB-9000 4K UHD Disc Player ($999). However, being on a budget, I opted for the 9000's little brother, the Panasonic UB-820 4K UHD Disc Player ($499). I bought it a few weeks ago during Prime Day from Crutchfield for $100-off ($399)! It's a wonderful machine and the primary difference between it and its big brother is that the UB-9000 has superior build-quality: The 9000 weighs17 pounds! The UB-820 weighs 5 pounds. The 9000 has an onboard DAC and HDMI, Discrete Analog, Optical and Coaxial Audio output. The 820 has HDMI, discrete Analog and optical, no coaxial. For the money, the UB-820, especially if you can find it on sale, is the best buyer's choice, in my humble opinion. For a review on my findings on the Panasonic UB-820, please refer to the link to my post in AndreG's post above. Happy shopping! Best of luck! -Glenn