What do the Klipsch Moderators Have??

[Guest JimG]

Boa,

The Stage One does not use mute circuits on its outputs. That is a good way (although sort of cheating) to get the unit to be quiet. As I mentioned, the high-end rig we had here did indeed mute its outputs. Yes, the Ref30 does use a Motorola DSP. They use one about 3-4 generations ago, while the Stage One uses the newest one. The biggest difference is in the ability to support new formats. The noise doesn't really come from the processor, but rather from the surrounding circuitry. There are a million places to get noise from in a processor and it is very hard to get one to be quiet. I'm not saying ours is the most quiet ever, but it is pretty quiet. Keep in mind too that the Ref30 is a cheaper piece than ours and is kind of dated in terms of technology so in some respects, its not a fair comparison. I understand that they have an upgrade coming for that piece though soon. I'm interested to see what they add to it or if they decide to do a new piece entirely.

The big thing we wanted to have on our processor is ease of use - most processors out there aren't very easy to use, especially for people who are just getting into seperates. That's why a lot of people never step out of a receiver. It's too intimidating to try to set up most of the processors on the market today. Just about anyone can appreciate the difference in sound quality though. We tried to eliminate any negative aspects of seperates when designing the Stage One. I think we did a pretty good job. It was even more difficult to do since the Stage One is one of the first THX Ultra2 controllers on the market and we had to incorporate all of the new THX modes and parameters into the unit and still make it easy to understand and operate.

As far as dealers go, Aragon and Klipsch are being marketed as two seperate brands entirely. Our internal sales force handles both brands. Just because you are a Klipsch dealer doesn't mean you'll be an Aragon dealer and vice versa. We're trying to find the best fit for Aragon in the market. Some Klipsch dealers may not want to carry it if it doesn't fit in with the electronics lines they already carry. No doubt, there'll for sure be some dealers that do indeed carry both lines though. Aragon distribution is just now starting to be fleshed out and a lot of dealers will want to wait and see how the line does in the market before they displace another line to make space for Aragon.

Jim