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My RF-7s - Review


Cody_Mack

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Picked these up from a local Forum member in July. It was an impulse buy for sure. I definitely did not need another pair of speakers! My listening room is 10’ x 12’ and in there I have a pair of Heresys, a pair of Bottlehead Straight 8s, a good size audio rack, a large Ikea case (for records, etc.) and a small reference table for my PC. And here I go dragging another massive pair of speakers in there?

Well I had heard wonderful things about the RF-7s so I jumped on them. I loaded up the Heresys to take out to the RV where I stay during the week. Driven by a little 10 watt chip amp with a multi-media sub added I just bet I have the best sounding system in the park [H].

Well I have listened to these for five months now with six different amps:

- a 2 watt spud amp that was being passed around on another forum. This amp had very nice tone and resolution on the RF-7s, but it had no punch at all. Bass was almost non-existent.

- a 2 watt Bottlehead S.E.X. amp. Again very nice timbre but it ran out of gas quickly.

- a 10 watt chip amp from Parts Express. All I can say is add one of these $40 gems (or most any chip amp) to your amp stable to rotate in and out. You may just be amazed! Did a fine job with the RF-7s.

- a vintage Stromberg-Carlson EL84 PP at 17watts. Now we are talking. It had a very nice tonal quality characteristic of the EL84 tube. And plenty of bass! I could live with this one full time with the RF-7s.

- a vintage Mac MC 250. Oh boy, this is the one! 50 watts really wakes up the RF-7s. This amp sounds very close to my tube amps and has serious punch within its limits. The RF-7s get loud and clean with this amp. And you can tell they are just warming into a stride, ready to break into a run upon request with some more watts!

- a Bottlehead 2A3 monoblock pair. Arguably, with the 2A3 producing the sweetest sound by any amplifier, this amp did not let me down on the RF-7s. Plenty of volume for most listening, lush midrange, and even some respectable bass, but at 3.5 watts it runs out at moderately loud levels. And we all know SET amps struggle with bass. So, depending on a few variables like room size, music preferences, desired listening volume, etc., a low powered SET amp may work very well with the RF-7s for a lot of folks.

So out of the six amps I used with them, every combination worked pretty well to very well, with the exception of the 2 watt amps lacking in power. Very nice tonal quality from all of the amps, and not a hint of harshness. Those complaining about their RF-7s being bright or harsh may want to go shopping for some better amplification.

But something is missing. Upon hooking up the RF-7s, I immediately noticed quite a different sound than the Heresy. The difference in bass should be obvious to all so it will not be factored in here. The RF-7s overall have a much bigger sound, as they should with those two large woofers and the large tractrix horn and 102 dB sensitivity. A very, very nice loudspeaker!!!

Playing the Heresys in the background at the RV during the week, I am frequently startled by how natural everything sounds. The speakers seem to be nudging me and sayin, “Hey Dummy, I’m doing something special over here; pay attention!” And it is; it simply sounds like music. And I realize that I am missing some of that magic with the RF-7s. Technically, I think it comes down to the design of the two speakers. The Heresy is a three way, which, if engineered properly should give you a more linear response across the range; especially a smoother handoff between the mids and the highs.

Klipsch Heritage may not be for everyone. And Reference may not be for everyone. Right now I am strictly a 2-channel music guy, and for me, Heritage rules!

Yesterday I brought the Heresys back home and put them in place of the RF-7s, hooked up to the SET amp. Presently, until we build our next home, I am limited to space in my man-cave, so the Heresy is going to be the better fit for now. I’ll be putting the RF-7s up for sale.

Rick

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I came to about the same conclusions with the RF-7's little brother, the RF-5. On a SET (Bottlehead S.E.X.) they were too lean and ran out of steam very quickly (despite being very sensitive, the woofers have large impedance dips and demand more current than the tubes can provide). On solid-state (an old Marantz reciever and a newer digial amp) something was "missing" from the sound. I'm now waiting for Klipsch to make my Heresy III's, which should provide an ideal partner for the S.E.X. amp.

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Rick, I also had a pair of RF7's that I sold. However I think I would give them a dance again. If so I would use tubes on the horns and SS on the woofers driven by tube pre with active crossover.

This will give you everthing you need. I have also heard the heritage line and owned Belles and Khorns ( present ) they also have "flaws".

The best I have ever heard with my 7's was running a Scott 233 push pull 40watt tube amp. I also ran with a 299B Scott but sounded a little bright. You should borrow an active croosver and give it a whirl before selling. If you were close to me I would bring my stuff and have a listen.

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After owning the 7's for over a year now I would have to agree that for straight 2 channel listening I'm going to build my jamborees and be done with it but the difference on the amplification of the 7's is very valid as I have run a few different configurations on mine. That said, I will not part with my 7's as with the right amplification and with the rest of the 7 line for HT, including a great sub, they will be the cornerstone of the HT set up as they are a very fine speaker.

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I came to about the same conclusions with the RF-7's little brother, the RF-5. On a SET (Bottlehead S.E.X.) they were too lean and ran out of steam very quickly (despite being very sensitive, the woofers have large impedance dips and demand more current than the tubes can provide). On solid-state (an old Marantz reciever and a newer digial amp) something was "missing" from the sound. I'm now waiting for Klipsch to make my Heresy III's, which should provide an ideal partner for the S.E.X. amp.

The S.E.X. amp works very well on my Heresys so it should do even better with the H-IIIs. It puts out more bass than my 2A3 amp. Pretty amazing little amp that uses a $5 vaccum tube that was used in TV sets! I use mine at work with a mid-end pair of Senns. Its claim to fame is for headphone duty. It is super quiet.

Did your build your kits? I also have the Seduction, the Foreplay III and the Paramour II monoblocks. Pretty amazing gear for the price. It is a blast to build also. If I sell the RF-7s I plan to use the cash to fund a new amp project; probably a 300B.

Rick

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I think RF-7 owners need to step up with some rock solid tube power for those reference speakers. I'm definitely a heritage guy but I have spent some time with RF-7's and I see no way possible the little heresy's could hang with them if the RF-7's were powered with proper tube power. Yes they are never going to deliver the big boy heritage performance but Heresy's! they should trounce them without breaking stride. I think every amp listed in this review was being severely taxed (except the MC-250) trying to power the RF-7's which in turn severely skews the results.

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Rick, I also had a pair of RF7's that I sold. However I think I would give them a dance again. If so I would use tubes on the horns and SS on the woofers driven by tube pre with active crossover.

This will give you everthing you need. I have also heard the heritage line and owned Belles and Khorns ( present ) they also have "flaws".

The best I have ever heard with my 7's was running a Scott 233 push pull 40watt tube amp. I also ran with a 299B Scott but sounded a little bright. You should borrow an active croosver and give it a whirl before selling. If you were close to me I would bring my stuff and have a listen.

Thanks for the reply. Going active is definitely in the future plans. That is one reason I am busy gathering amps. Since I seriously started this madness about four years ago I have gathered quite the collection. Problem is I have overloaded my space, and at the moment the RF-7s are the odd man out. Or maybe the Straight 8s? Hmmmmm

Rick

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My issue with the Reference line, which replaced the KLF series as I recall, is they tried to get more out of that two way design than it's capable of doing. You are asking a lot from that single horn and two 10" woofers especially when it comes to some of the upper mid-range frequencies. I, and others, have noticed a hole in the upper-mids when compared to say a KLF-30 or Forte 3 ways. Also, way too much plastic, small wood screws holding the woofers and horns to the MDF baffles, bargain caps in the crossovers etc., etc., etc.! As I recall, the price difference between the Reference line and KLF line was signifigant as well. It cost a bunch more to buy an RF-7 (TOL) than the superior sounding, IMHO, KLF-30 (TOL). As for me, I'm keeping the 79 La Scalla's!

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While you may have tried different amps, you only went half way down the path and turned around. If you would have kept going, stepping up to and ending with some quality 200w SS and/or 60w PP tube amps, I think you may have been a little more impressed with what the RF-7's are capable of.

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I came to about the same conclusions with the RF-7's little brother, the RF-5. On a SET (Bottlehead S.E.X.) they were too lean and ran out of steam very quickly (despite being very sensitive, the woofers have large impedance dips and demand more current than the tubes can provide). On solid-state (an old Marantz reciever and a newer digial amp) something was "missing" from the sound. I'm now waiting for Klipsch to make my Heresy III's, which should provide an ideal partner for the S.E.X. amp.

The S.E.X. amp works very well on my Heresys so it should do even better with the H-IIIs. It puts out more bass than my 2A3 amp. Pretty amazing little amp that uses a $5 vaccum tube that was used in TV sets! I use mine at work with a mid-end pair of Senns. Its claim to fame is for headphone duty. It is super quiet.

Did your build your kits? I also have the Seduction, the Foreplay III and the Paramour II monoblocks. Pretty amazing gear for the price. It is a blast to build also. If I sell the RF-7s I plan to use the cash to fund a new amp project; probably a 300B.

Rick

I've built the S.E.X. w/C4S boards, Seduction w/ C4S boards, and the new Quickie, which I modified to use plate chokes and snuck in two OPT's for high-impedance headphones. I'm going to do the Magnaquest iron upgrade and swap out the parafeed and interstage caps next.

Bottlehead is truly is class act, and their kits are so much fun to build! I can't wait to hear what the Heresy III's will sound like.

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My issue with the Reference line, which replaced the KLF series as I recall, is they tried to get more out of that two way design than it's capable of doing. You are asking a lot from that single horn and two 10" woofers especially when it comes to some of the upper mid-range frequencies. I, and others, have noticed a hole in the upper-mids when compared to say a KLF-30 or Forte 3 ways. Also, way too much plastic, small wood screws holding the woofers and horns to the MDF baffles, bargain caps in the crossovers etc., etc., etc.! As I recall, the price difference between the Reference line and KLF line was signifigant as well. It cost a bunch more to buy an RF-7 (TOL) than the superior sounding, IMHO, KLF-30 (TOL). As for me, I'm keeping the 79 La Scalla's!

I agree - I think the main beef I had with the RF series was the fact that as two-ways, the horn crossed over pretty high and the woofers had to handle frequencies in the 2kHz range as a consequence. I find 3-ways to be much clearer, especially for jazz. Ideally, you want a driver that can handle from 500 or 600 Hz up to 5-8kHz so you don't have to ask a big driver to play high frequencies or a tiny tweeter to handle the mids. Also, this keeps the crossover out of the most important range of music. I think PWK once said "the midrange is where we live..."

I also want to point out to other posters that many push-pull tube amps have a high Z-out just like SET's, and can have cheap transformers with poor inductance at low frequencies. The combination of the two leads to anemic low frequency response. An ideal amp for these would have an effective output impedance of less than an ohm (on the 8-ohm taps, the S.E.X. is about 2.5 ohms, for example), a flat response down to 30Hz, and the ability to handle large amounts of current. A good deal of tube amps don't fit that description - many have a high Z-out (in comparison to transistor amps), have transformers that hit a -3dB point well above 30Hz, and are limited in terms of the ability to handle large current swings without coloring the signal. Hence, I've always thought of solid-state being preferable to tubes on the reference series. Just my opinion, of course.

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I think RF-7 owners need to step up with some rock solid tube power for those reference speakers. I'm definitely a heritage guy but I have spent some time with RF-7's and I see no way possible the little heresy's could hang with them if the RF-7's were powered with proper tube power. Yes they are never going to deliver the big boy heritage performance but Heresy's! they should trounce them without breaking stride. I think every amp listed in this review was being severely taxed (except the MC-250) trying to power the RF-7's which in turn severely skews the results.

Hey Craig, This would be the perfect opportunity to get into specifics as to exactly what you would suggest for the RF 7's. How much tube power ( and maybe some suggested amps) Tubes for just the horns and SS for the 10's? I think that anyone on this forum respects your opinion on the subject and I've e-mailed you a couple of times and looking for the right pieces to start with, but I think many people could benefit from your advice on this.
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My restored Marantz 2325 receiver has never met a speaker it didn't like! I highly recommend most late 70's early 80's Marantz gear. Receivers like the 2275, 2325, 2385 etc. are great, almost tube like, with plenty of low end punch! Most will need some cleaning, tuner alignment and some caps but the result is awesome in my expereice. One lower power sleeper that can be had on the cheap is the 2230. Great little machine!

post-18652-13819524659824_thumb.jpg

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My restored Marantz 2325 receiver has never met a speaker it didn't like! I highly recommend most late 70's early 80's Marantz gear. Receivers like the 2275, 2325, 2385 etc. are great, almost tube like, with plenty of low end punch! Most will need some cleaning, tuner alignment and some caps but the result is awesome in my expereice. One lower power sleeper that can be had on the cheap is the 2230. Great little machine!

I just picked up a 2325 recently. I'm pretty confident it will run one pair of RF-7's with authority........but what about two pairs at the same time??
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