XF-48 disappointment?

[MD1032]

My dad and I just took a trip to Best Buy today since we're upgrading to HD and were in the neighborhood and I wanted to see the TV he picked out at Best Buy (and subsequently bought on amazon.com for $400 less). While we were there, he mentioned our antiquated DVD surround system and I was showing him some A/V receivers on display and the purpose of getting an A/V receiver (with subtle hints at upgrading to some Klipsch surround speakers). We were approached by a BB employee working in the Magnolia area. We were talking and I got a sense that he at least knew something about audio or had some liking for it. He offered to show us the Magnolia listening room, so I was happy to oblige. He was doing his thing and showing us some various products and I noticed that the Klipsch XF-48's were on display. I mentioned that I was a Klipsch fan and that I hadn't heard this particular set yet and he offered to play them. Fortunately for me, he had an Eagles CD on hand and I told him to play "Take It Easy" for me since I'm quite familiar with that track. The receiver was a top-model Pioneer Elite, which I'm assuming can be trusted.

Anyway, the speakers really sounded bad. The highs were ridiculously harsh, the mids were shouty and honky, and there wasn't nearly enough bass. The first worlds out of my mouth were, "These speakers sound like crap. I can't believe Klipsch would make a product that sounds like that." I've literally heard highs that were less harsh out of crappy car stereo systems. He played some stuff through a pair of "Vienna Acoustics" speakers of a comparable price, and they sounded much, much better, in addition to, upon closer inspection, looking much nicer. I also heard a pair of Electrostatic speakers that had even smoother highs than the Vienna, although the rest of the sound spectrum was a bit compromised.

So what's the deal? I think I should post this here because it bothered me. While I have the urge to take this at face value, I'm also willing to accept the possibility that I'm just another victim of a poorly set up or rigged Best Buy setup. I've owned three sets of Klipsch speakers, all of which I love. The Promedia 4.1's were a great introduction to hi-fi, the Synergy B3's were a great upgrade from those, and best of all, now I have the Forte II's, which I bought for $400 and in my opinion could singlehandedly kick the crap out of any speaker in that room.

[DrWho]

Sounds to me like something was probably damaged...isn't the XF-48 an active speaker?

[MD1032]

That's what he was telling me. I could tell that it was working properly because it required a lot less volume from the receiver than the other speakers on display.

[DrWho]

Was it hooked up with speaker cables or RCA? At least I think it has both options if it's the one I'm thinking of. I also believe there might be a separate amplifier for the LF - and I could see some not too happy times being the result of over-driving....especially if it's a lot louder for the same volume setting on the receiver. I dunno if it was the XF-48 specifically that I heard, but I thought the XF lineup sounds pretty good...and I know the engineers are super stoked about the 48...going active gave them a lot more performance potential.

[BLSamuel]

Yes the XF-48 is fully active: http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/xf-48.aspx

I heard those and they sounded very good.

Hooked up to a receiver?

I'm sure it would sound crappy if hooked up to speaker level outputs! Would probably severly overload the line-level inputs and really mess things up and possibly severely damage the speaker. You'd think Best Buy would be smart enough to connect active speakers to preamp outputs but ya never know.

Something's definitely wrong to sound as bad as you described.

I'm going with Doc's speculation that they're not hooked up correctly.

[DrWho]

The XF48 has both line level and speaker level inputs...my concern about the speaker level is your signal path goes through extra stages that will almost undoubtably cause significant degredation. The speaker level inputs are provided mostly for cmpatability issues (like a receiver without preouts).

[Trey Cannon]

They could have had the receiver set to SMALL, thus, killing any lowend from the speakers amd making the HF harsh or to much...

IF the input level switch was set to +12db and ran with speaker level inputs, then I could understand.

The 48 is a good sounding speaker, when set right. I know BB MHT uses the speaker level connections, because of the switcher they use.

[MD1032]

I just might take a trip back and check it out. The thing is, I'm not one for "brand loyalty", however, like I said, I've owned three different sets of Klipsch speakers and heard at least half a dozen others, and if I had to admit bias, I would definitely say speakers are one area in my life where I have been heavily biased towards a particular brand (Klipsch) for a number of reasons, the bulk of which is the sound quality of the products this company puts out.

If Best Buy has their setup set up wrong, then every other customer is going to come out of that room with the same exact impression that I had, believe me. If not, the heavily biased salesperson would steer then towards the competing "Vienna Acoustics" model if they had any doubt. I can see that Klipsch might have invested some effort to make sure their model is on display in the Magnolia room rather than outside with all the other crap... or I could be wrong. Either way, the product could possibly be misrepresented.

So what's the deal with the inputs? How should they have it set up? Also, yes, he was using some extremely sophisticated switcher that had a touchscreen with a fancy GUI and everything.

[michael hurd]

I am sure something is up, they must have been set to small... or something like that, with no sub enabled.

[BuyOtherSoundEquipment]

Definitely something fishy going on there...

The problem I have with Best Buy Magnolias are that the people working in them don't ever seem enthused by Klipsch at all, and thus don't put much effort in demonstrating them. On seperate occasions, one gent insipidly "demoed" RF-62s for me by playing 128 kbps Beethoven over some kind of Apple music server which sounded completely horrifying. Another time, I was listening to the RF-82s and they were sounding great, but the guy kept switching to a pair of Vienna Acoustics Mozarts, which sounded noticeably nicer. I then thought, "at $1500 a speaker, they certainly should."

I will agree on Martin Logan though (the electrostats), they have crystal clear highs when you are seated squarely in the sweet spot and not an inch outside of it.

[Vital]

My dad and I just took a trip to Best Buy today since we're upgrading to HD and were in the neighborhood and I wanted to see the TV he picked out at Best Buy (and subsequently bought on amazon.com for $400 less). While we were there, he mentioned our antiquated DVD surround system and I was showing him some A/V receivers on display and the purpose of getting an A/V receiver (with subtle hints at upgrading to some Klipsch surround speakers). We were approached by a BB employee working in the Magnolia area. We were talking and I got a sense that he at least knew something about audio or had some liking for it. He offered to show us the Magnolia listening room, so I was happy to oblige. He was doing his thing and showing us some various products and I noticed that the Klipsch XF-48's were on display. I mentioned that I was a Klipsch fan and that I hadn't heard this particular set yet and he offered to play them. Fortunately for me, he had an Eagles CD on hand and I told him to play "Take It Easy" for me since I'm quite familiar with that track. The receiver was a top-model Pioneer Elite, which I'm assuming can be trusted.

Anyway, the speakers really sounded bad. The highs were ridiculously harsh, the mids were shouty and honky, and there wasn't nearly enough bass. The first worlds out of my mouth were, "These speakers sound like crap. I can't believe Klipsch would make a product that sounds like that." I've literally heard highs that were less harsh out of crappy car stereo systems. He played some stuff through a pair of "Vienna Acoustics" speakers of a comparable price, and they sounded much, much better, in addition to, upon closer inspection, looking much nicer. I also heard a pair of Electrostatic speakers that had even smoother highs than the Vienna, although the rest of the sound spectrum was a bit compromised.

So what's the deal? I think I should post this here because it bothered me. While I have the urge to take this at face value, I'm also willing to accept the possibility that I'm just another victim of a poorly set up or rigged Best Buy setup. I've owned three sets of Klipsch speakers, all of which I love. The Promedia 4.1's were a great introduction to hi-fi, the Synergy B3's were a great upgrade from those, and best of all, now I have the Forte II's, which I bought for $400 and in my opinion could singlehandedly kick the crap out of any speaker in that room.

Funny you mention this because my girlfriend and I were in best Buy tonight buying Blu-rays and we found ourselves in the demo room listening to the speakers thru the same Pioneer Elite I'm sure. The sales guy was trying to push us towards the Martin Logans but after playing them, then the Vienna and then the XF-48s it was very clear that the XF-48s were the top dog in that room. They sounded really good to us. The biggest surprise were the bookshelf speakers though. The XB-10 sounded better than the WB-14 to us. Not sure if it was the way they were setup or what but those little XB-10s were awesome for a pair of tiny little speakers at $499 a pair.

As for the Vienna speakers to me they sounded dead. No life at all compared to the Klipsch and Martin Logan. The Def Techs were decent but those XF-48s just sounded so much cleaner and clearer than everything else. I wasn't that pleased with the Klipsch WF-35s though, I really wanted to like them for a bedroom setup but I won't be going that route. I'm going to listen to the RB-81 this week and see how I like those. I don't know about the price on the XF-48s though, for $2400 it seems a bit steep.