So you want to be an audiophile? Venting is allowed!

[Invidiosulus]

1. How can an amp be worth 5 or 10 or 20K, what are you freeking nuts, look at the components.

Most associate highest price with best.

2. Should I go tube or ss? If I go tube; should I build my own, or buy from China so I don't speand the 5 to 20K and get really stupid.

Little experience here, but my tube receiver is a vintage Pioneer I paid $150 for, and it makes my Heresy's sing!

8. Are silver wires really worth the money?

Not when you can get high temperature superconductor wires made from made from yttrium, barium copper and oxygen. Silver is now obsolete.

9. Why would you purchase a tube cd player if the digital to analog conversion takes place in the receiver or pre amp? What do the tubes do?

They glow pretty!

10. Should I buy a quality DAC and where do I put it?

You know where to put it.

15. Why didn't Youthman (You're a good guy and this is just for fun), put a vibrating bed in the movie room for porn?

Because the virbating bed made the records skip when he had it in his music room.

17. Why do people tend to pay more on E-Bay for used equipment then they can buy new stuff for?

In some countries the taxes on new equipment is very high. It is cheaper to buy good used and skip the import tax. Domestically it is simply lack of intelligence.

18. Why don't more people go with 6.1 and hang a really big speaker on the rear wall?

Now your talking! I am a big advocate of a center rear if you have the space. I like it much more than 5.1. As for hanging it, I guess all that would depend on the rest of the system.

21. Jamison Irish Whisky is really good on the rocks...................................Rock On!

Gonna have to try that!

Regarding #21.... Yes, Jamison is good for blended Whiskey, but it's that "single malt" whiskey that can't be beat. Us Scotchofiles know this to be true.

if you don't always drink then why should we trust your opinion?

[Boxx]

1. How can an amp be worth 5 or 10 or 20K, what are you freeking nuts, look at the components.

Most associate highest price with best.

2. Should I go tube or ss? If I go tube; should I build my own, or buy from China so I don't speand the 5 to 20K and get really stupid.

Little experience here, but my tube receiver is a vintage Pioneer I paid $150 for, and it makes my Heresy's sing!

8. Are silver wires really worth the money?

Not when you can get high temperature superconductor wires made from made from yttrium, barium copper and oxygen. Silver is now obsolete.

9. Why would you purchase a tube cd player if the digital to analog conversion takes place in the receiver or pre amp? What do the tubes do?

They glow pretty!

10. Should I buy a quality DAC and where do I put it?

You know where to put it.

15. Why didn't Youthman (You're a good guy and this is just for fun), put a vibrating bed in the movie room for porn?

Because the virbating bed made the records skip when he had it in his music room.

17. Why do people tend to pay more on E-Bay for used equipment then they can buy new stuff for?

In some countries the taxes on new equipment is very high. It is cheaper to buy good used and skip the import tax. Domestically it is simply lack of intelligence.

18. Why don't more people go with 6.1 and hang a really big speaker on the rear wall?

Now your talking! I am a big advocate of a center rear if you have the space. I like it much more than 5.1. As for hanging it, I guess all that would depend on the rest of the system.

21. Jamison Irish Whisky is really good on the rocks...................................Rock On!

Gonna have to try that!

Regarding #21.... Yes, Jamison is good for blended Whiskey, but it's that "single malt" whiskey that can't be beat. Us Scotchofiles know this to be true.

if you don't always drink then why should we trust your opinion?

Yes, it is true... I don't often drink "beer." However, when I do have spirits, I prefer a single malt beverage..." As it has been said, ".... his opinion is known and accepted, before he ever utters a word."

[Coytee]

I have not changed my general thoughts since 2009. Except Jamison is overpriced

I still respect Dean's pink pillow so much that I've taken to doing my own laundry in hopes of mixing a red shirt in with my undies to turn them into pinkies...

[^o)]

You won't tell anyone, will you? [:$]

[guitarman]

Great thread! []

[Islander]

Somewhere between 5W and 500W, depending on what your interests are. Both extremes are represented here, as well as the "I don't care, I just play the music" viewpoint, in which case any old amp will do. "Driven properly" has to have some context. Trying to recreate a ballpark rock concert? Trying to elicit the maximum detail, texture and nuance? Those will require different amps.

Mark, I hate to disagree with someone with your knowledge and experience, but I seem to be getting lots of detail, texture and nuance with my pair of Class D power amps, with enough headroom for arena rock volume when I feel the need. []

[garyrc]

just how many watts will these take to be driven properly.

Not an easy question to answer. As one person pointed out, if we measured rim shots correctly, some
would be off the charts, and no amp/speaker could handle it .... but
most survive, perhaps because many speakers can tolerate a touch of
clipping. The old AR company used to rate their speakers for the
maximum percent of the time they could endure clipping.

Do you still have the RF 7s?

In 22 years of daily music playing, my Klipschorns rarely needed more than about 12.6 watts (according to my peak reading
meter) ... Here is a list with the power needs of Khorns and the power
needs of RF 7s at various levels. The translation was done assuming
probable sensitivities of 104 dB for Khorns, and 101 dB for RF 7s.

Maximum power needed for

Most reproduction (including loud passages): Khorn 12.6 watts -- RF-7 25.2 watts

Very High SPL: Khorn 25 watts -- RF 7 50 Watts

Earth movingly loud, and dangerous (once in 22 years): Khorn 125 watts, RF 7 250 watts

For the record, PWK (and earlier, his staff member Keele) found 63 watts sufficient to run a Khorn at the highest
recommended level (115 dB "average" for loud passages in a 3,000 cu ft.
room, R= 200 ... this level was marked "too damned loud" on the
chart), with very brief peaks that were as much as 10 dB higher (they
said that peaks this brief would be passed by a good amplifier rated at
63 watts RMS). Many amps have much less dynamic headroom, and as the
10 dB mark was approached, those peaks must have been very brief,
indeed. See The Dope from Hope, v. 16, No. 1, January 1977 I guess that would be about 126 watts into a RF-7.

Of
course, this is not the whole story. Many people say that,
subjectively, RF 7 sounds better with higher powered amplifiers. More
powerful amps present less of a chance of clipping long enough to be
damaging. It may be something other than the higher power of more
powerful amp or the sensitivity figure of the RF 7 that is responsible
for the RF7 having more subjective punch (according to some listeners)
with some amps that happen to be more powerful.

From another perspective, THX requires a maximum level in their
commercial theaters of 108 dB, although they admit that broad bass
samples as high as 110 dB were found in testing with The Empire Strikes Back.
Paul Klipsch said to reproduce the "blood stirring" levels of a full
symphony orchestra, you would need "115 dB at your ears." That's
certainly true in the first few rows of a concert playing something like
The Great Gate of Kiev (Pictures at an Exhibition), or Fanfare for the Common Man. In a 3,000 cu ft room, 115 dB would require those 63 wts from a Khorn, and 126 watts from a RF 7. To get the same SPL out of a typical speaker (90 dB @ 2.83v & 1M) it would take something like 1,700 watts.

[fini]

Somewhere between 5W and 500W, depending on what your interests are. Both extremes are represented here, as well as the "I don't care, I just play the music" viewpoint, in which case any old amp will do. "Driven properly" has to have some context. Trying to recreate a ballpark rock concert? Trying to elicit the maximum detail, texture and nuance? Those will require different amps.

Mark, I hate to disagree with someone with your knowledge and experience, but I seem to be getting lots of detail, texture and nuance with my pair of Class D power amps, with enough headroom for arena rock volume when I feel the need.

Well, Pat, maybe you're not an audiophile! Have you ever considered that? Huh??!

[Islander]

Well, that's good news! I didn't want to be one of those guys in the sweater with the suede elbow patches and the fuzzy slippers...

[Pete H]

Do you still have the RF 7s?

I still have them and many more since first posting this thread. Brings back memories as I was diving back into audio, back when I had a lot more money and a lot less equipment. I have since driven the 7's with a number of different amps, none of them tubes to date but really like running a QSC DCA1622 with the 7's. I still like a little Jamison on occasions too.[]