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Klipsch RF 42 II Floorstanding speakers.


Bones9965

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I cant find a lot about these... I can pick up a new pair for $400. Going in a small/medium room to play some tunes. Good choice? Not a big room and just want something inexpensive that sounds good. Have you heard these? Not a lot of reviews online.

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These are a nice choice for a small room system if you can accept that they aren't going to produce very low bass too well. Also, having a rear port, they will need to be pulled a fair distance out into the room to allow proper imaging (figure around 16-24"). They also won't need much power unless you like extremely high listening levels. What are the dimensions of your room and where will you be sitting when listening to them? The smaller Reference Series speakers image incredibly well when properly set up. I use RF-15s in a near-field listening arrangement and they are quite amazing (see my profile for details). Are they being sold by a dealer which offers a return privilege in case you aren't satisfied?

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Thanks for the reply. I will be running this with a harman kardon 3490 2 x 120 (with two subwoofer hook ups so adding a subwoofer would be an option to help with the low end?.. we will see how it sounds when they arrive Tuesday). I kept in mind the rear ports and they should sit nice where I am planning to put them. The room is around 10x20 and when seated you are right in the middle of them and maybe 6 ft back.. The dealer will accept returns but I have to pay to ship them back as I understand it. I got them new for $399 so I was happy with the price.
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You will certainly have more than enough power to drive them!!! And, yes, if you find them bass deficient adding a sub will make a huge difference (keep in mind that placement of the sub, and the crossover frequency, can be very critical and may require a lot of experimentation to get just the right location and blending with the speakers). Listening to them from 6 feet away is definitely a near-field arrangement so you may have to experiment a bit with the spacing between the speakers, and their angle relative to the listening spot, to obtain a soundstage which is very deep and wide. Please post after you set them up and describe your initial impressions.

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I've never found the need to use a sub, so I can't advise you as to what would be best. You need to keep in mind that many subs simply produce lots of "boom" and not sonically accurate bass frequencies. So, if you feel that you need one, post a query in the "Powered Subwoofer" forum on here and you will probably get so many opinions that your head will spin!!! The 42s should give you decent bass output down to 50 Hz or so; depending on the type of music you enjoy, that may be quite sufficient. So, live them for a while and play with their positioning before you go the subwoofer route.

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i had the rf-10's which are the last line, basically the older rf-42 II's and they definitly lack in the bass department. As you turn up the volume the drivers have work really hard to keep up with the bass. A good crossover for those speakers would be around 80hz and add a subwoofer to handle the low end. If you want a more self sufficient speaker, i would advise getting larger towers like the rf-52's or the rf-62's trying to keep cost concious of course. OR, get the bookshelfs.

I see you have had these speakers for a short while probably, how do you like them? If you arent keen on doing a subwoofer you could always use the money you would have used for a sub and invest it into getting the rf-82's which are absolutely fantastic speakers with an awesome low end. They can definitly carry their own. The rf-62's can as well. My old listening space was a 10x10 and i had rf-10s, rf-3 ii, rf-5's and rf-7's in this room at different times. The rf-7s were a bit on the large side for the room but all of the others speakers, the rf-5's and rf-3's fit the space perfectly. Check out your local craigslist as well for there can be great opportunity there. Eveerything ive bought klipsch speakers wise has been used from craigslist!

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