Front speaker choice: XF-48 vs RS-82 vs RF-62

[apkaman]

Hello All,

I currently have Klipsch Snergy SLX 7.1 home theater system with RW-12d subwoofer hooked up to Denon AVR 3808. It's great sounding system for movies but lately I'm being listening to lot's of 2-channel stuff and its' very good considering the speaker size but I feel something is lacking( probably the lows) and I wanted to upgrade my front's with better Klipsch speakers.

I currently own Snergy SLX -

http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/synergy-slx-overview/

http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/synergy-slx-reviews/

As per the review, it's great for movies and very good for music and I must totally agree to it as I own this system and been listening to it for the last couple of years or so. Most importantly, I don't simply want to upgrade to another pair of speakers and would like to see reasonable improvment

Since I live in Condo and my living room( 20 ft length by 15 ft wide) is already packed, I would like to know what are the best choices for the front without compromising sound quality.

Based on investigation, I have nailed down to these 3 choices:

1) XF-48 - Sleek Icon series currently selling for great price

I do like the fact that they don't occupy that much space still providing floor standing sound especially for Condo.

http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/xf-48-overview/

http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/xf-48-reviews/

2) RF-62 - Reference floor standing speaker

3) RF-82 - Reference floor standing speaker ( Not sure if it's overkill for Condo over RF-82 )

4) Any other suggestions are welcome

I can't find that much professional reviews for RF-82 & RF-62. I did found one for RF-63 and had great say about them. But lot's of customer/users of RF-82/RF-62 seems to be happier.

For XF-48, there are both positive & negative professional reviews, positive from Sound and Vision but not so great from ultimate AV magazine, there is also a complaint about near wall placement issue compromising sound quality.

Here are my doubts/questions:

1) How does the XF-48 compare with Snergy SLX? Snergy SLX have 4.5 woofers vs. 5.5 inch woofer in XF-48 and I'm not sure if there is a great improvment moving from SLX to XF-48. Snergy SLX is an LCR speaker versus XF-48 is been considered as floor stander.

2) XF-48 - Do they sound like real floor standers such as RF-82, RF-62?

3) How does one compare RF-82/62 with XF-48 with respect to Sound quality and Size?

Any other feedback/advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Paddy

[jrod]

Have no experience with the XF-48 (NEVER heard them). However, I love my 82's! I have heard RF-62's, and I have owned RF-25's (the predecessor to the RF-62's). Everyone is going to tell you to listen to each speaker, then choose. If you have the space (and the $!), get the 82's.

I will say this... If you go with ANY of those fronts, you will eventually want a new center for movies. Your L/C/R won't be timbre matched with your Synergy center.

[nezff]

reference series is the way to go IMHO

[apkaman]

So, If I'm replacing fronts, I should also replace the Center channel? This also means we cannot mix and match Icon/Snergy/Reference series. I currently have Snergy speakers but reference subwoofer(RW-12d). What about the rear channel?

When I compared the specs between Snergy SLX and XL-23( which is the suggested Center for Icon), Snergy SLX seems to be better power handling rating as it rated 100w versus XL 23 which is 70watts only.

[jrod]

I wouldn't mix my L/C/R. I would try to keep them within the same "line" (Reference, Synergy, Icon). The rears and sub aren't as important to match.

Could someone explain in more technical detail why this is important?

[saurabhiitd]

Its called timbre matching. Imagine a scene in a movie, where a guy is facing a road and a car goes by from Right to left. If the speakers are not timber matched, the sound of the car will be slightly different when it appears in the right speaker and then it will be different when it is in the scene(in the center of the screen)when the cound is produced by the center speaker and then again it will sound different in the left speaker when it leaves the scene. This visual effect is called panning and a mismatched speaker will cause the discontinuity.

Tweeters (both size and their construction material) are more important for timber matching and thats why it is important to stick with the line. Different horn shapes are second factor as they have different dispersion patterns and the woofers are the last as all Klipsch woofers are pretty much similar (by similar I mean all are really high quality). Our human brain detects the difference (or say is more sensitive to) more at the high end of our audible range and so tweeters are most important whereas woofers do not matter that much.

Tweeters of different construction material (Titanium/Aluminium/polymer/mineralized polymer etc.) have very different harmonics reporduction and thats why they sound different. Titanium has a higher specific strength so can produce much higher frequencies for eg. a titanium tweeter can go upto 23Hz whereas polymer dome can go only upto 15-16Hz keeping the size the same. Also a material with a higher specific strength sounds tighter with lower distortion and thats why Titanium is used in all klipsch upper range. Other materials like Beryllium and Kevlar have higher specific strength and may be better but I am not sure as nobody has ever made a kevlar tweeter.

Tweeters of different sizes produce different frequencies at different levels. The general rule (which also applied to any driver) is that smaller the size the higher frequencies they can produce and vice-versa. This is also important for the woofer sizes in the LCR for example a 6.5" LCR would be perfect, next would be 6.5" LRs with 5.25"center which is also acceptable but a 6.5" LRs with a 4" center would not be a good match even if all the tweeters are the same. Thats the reason why RF-82/RB-81 go with RC-62, RF-62/RB-61 can go with RC-62 or RC-52 and RF-52/RB-51 can go with RC-52/RC-42 and so on.

People now also match their surrounds (tweeters) with the fronts for a better front-rear panning effects but this is not completely necessary as the movie soundtracks even at this stage do not involve much of rear-front or front-rear panning.They might be used in the near future with 7.1 or 9.1 surround tracks used more and more on the blu-rays. I have now matched my fronts and rear but till last year, they were not and they still sounded perfect.

SUBWOOFER'S Do not need to be timber-matched at all (same principle of sensitivity of human mind)except that it should go lower than the biggest speakers you have and should sound tighter. Synergy series subwoofers (The Synergy series speakers are good) are really bad and The ICON series subwoofers are a little better than the reference series subwoofers as they are sealed and so tighter. The same idea of Specific strength comes into play as polymer subwoofers will distort more than the aluminium subwoofers especially at that size. Cerametallication improves the stiffness but it is hard to say by how much or if fiber-glass cones are better than cerametallic cones but definitely fiber-glass cones are 6X times stiffer than aluminium cones.