Old-by becoming new-by or something in between...

[BigStewMan]

One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all

The White Rabbit speaks..very cool.

[2Bmusic]

Ok, the kinds of music i listen to... It would be easier to say what I don't care for. That would be rap, heavy metal etc.

Since I used to own Snell type A that should give an idea. I am looking for accuracy and enough volume to sound full not public address loud.... if you get my drift.

I played in concert and Jazz bands in my younger years. Currently is still have a number of 1/2 MASTERED LP's. A few Tel_arc etc. Solti and the planets. I like Folk, Classical, and old R&R , moody blues, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Buffett, Gordon Lightfoot, Emmylou Harris, Jethro Tull, Blood sweat and tears, Cat Stevens, modern stuff by Ray Lynch etc.

I am thinking the Heresy would hit the sweet spot for price and accuracy. If I were to add a sub, they might come close enough to the Cornwall's so that it won't be that much of a sonic loss... specially since I would not be A compared to B ..... ing them.

How many folks here like tubes v.s. SS? or visa versa?

[BigStewMan]

How many folks here like tubes v.s. SS? or visa versa?

have ss now; but, if i think i prefer tubes. Tubes for guitars too….I'm a VOX man.

[SonicSeeker]

A 60 watt tube amp will sound awesome and is plenty for what you want.

I had a Scott LK-72 hooked to my RF-7II's and they sounded excellent.

I have used other quality solid state with them but the Scott sounded best.

[oldtimer]

One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all

The White Rabbit speaks..very cool.

I am a rabbit whisperer. Little known fact.

[Dr Morbius]

Newbie, I seem to agree with you on 95% of your musical tastes, I also like Bernard Herrmann movie soundtracks which sound absolutely phenom on my system. For $1600 you can't go wrong finding a used pair of Cornwall's.

With my set-up (which is incredible, I must say) I have an old Empire turntable and a Marantz CD player (which has great DAC's) connected to a rebuilt (by NOS Valves) H.H. Scott 299C tube amp which has about 28 watts per channel and that in turn is wired up to my Cornscala's. With my speakers I can blow the roof off with 5 to 8 watts of power from the amp. Thats between 3 and 4 on my 1 to 10 volume dial. You don't need high power with Klipsch Heritage.

[ClaudeJ1]

.... I am on a limited budget. ...I found RF7 ll's at Amazon for ~ $1,600. Next is the amp. I was told that since the RF7ll are rated at 250 watts, I need a amp that puts out at least 200 watts. ( told this by a phone call to klipsch) That means I would have to go solid state ( SS). due to money constraints. First that does not make sense to me after looking at Klipsch's sound pressure chart. But i am thinking tubes are better. Are Tube that much better? If it is would a Dynaco VTA ST-120 with 60 watts give plenty enough head room. If I choose SS, the Emotiva line looks good. I was even thinking of by-amping the RF7ll's. Which would work/ sound better. Emotiva can do that rather inexpensively. So I guess my main question is: Would a Bob Latino Dynaco VTA ST-120 have more than enough power for the RF7ll's and yield the best possible sound for the buck? I appreciate thoughtful kind responses. I have been reading for days and not really found a definitive answer! Thanks in advance Dave

Everyone is on a "limited budget," and they all have DIFFERENT limit$, that phrase is meaningless.

Now on the TECH. side of things..........it will never happen because of amplifier MARKETING, but I would like to see amps rated in DB Watts. A 1 Watt amplifier is a "Zero DB Watt" or starting point if you will. It is based on the Logarithm of regular Watts ratings times 10. So a 10 Watt amplifier is Log(10) x 10, or 10 DB Watts. It adds 10 db of SOUND pressure to your speaker. A 100 Watt Amplifier is 20 DB Watts. A 1,000 Watt amplifier is only 30 DB WAtts.

A 200 Watt amplifier is Log(200) x 10= 23 db Watts of power. You can see that every 3 db, which is barely perceptible on a volume/gain change in an amplifier, doubles the power output and REALLY heats up your voice coils into non-linearity while increasing distortion proportionally, but I digress. The person who told you how much power you needed was mostly wrong.

Once you have DB Watts, you simply add it to the speaker EFFICIENCY, which, in the case of an RF-7 II is 101 db!! Without knowing how good you are at deteriorating your hearing, meaning how much louder than 85 db in your sweet spot (OSHA limits), let's have a look at the numbers.

For a Zero DB Watt input (only 1 Watt), you speakers produce 101 db EACH, which means 104 db in stereo. PWK told me to always have 17 db of headroom for the dynamics of symphonic music. Let's round that up to a more conservative 20 db of headroom to make the numbers easier to add/subtract (what's an extra 3 db among friends, right?). LOL.

Now if you listen about 10 feet away from each speaker, there will be no more than 10 db of attenuation and dispersion of sound into the room, so what arrives at YOUR EARS, with that 1 Watt input would be 94 db, which, is a hearing destroyer if subjected for too long and for too many years.

However, if you can back off the volume by 10 db or so, you will be down to 84 db at your ears, in your room, which is a VERY satisfying level on most recordings. This means that you will be listening to about 0.1 Watts per channel or a Negative 10 db Watts. So if you want 20 db headroom above that, you will need a 10 db watt amplifier, which means a 10 Watt amplifier will do the job without ever clipping or putting your speakers into overload mode.

So if your are worried about low power tubes, don't be it will be OK. However, Solid State amps have better bass control than tubes (Saul Marantz himself told me this and he designed the best tube amps in the world at one time).

What I'm saying is POWER is not your problem with super efficient speakers like these RF-7's. If you are considering Heresy's, then you would start with 96 instead of 101, but the dbWatt arithmetic works for any speaker.

Edited March 13, 2014 by ClaudeJ1

[ClaudeJ1]

A 60 watt tube amp will sound awesome and is plenty for what you want.

I had a Scott LK-72 hooked to my RF-7II's and they sounded excellent.

I have used other quality solid state with them but the Scott sounded best.

This man is RIGHT. Whoever told you that you NEEDED 200 Watts is providing a "safe and generic" answer that would not meet your personal criteria, as far as I can see.

[joessportster]

Ah Ha, I see our listening tastes run very much the same, my suggestions to you would be

Buy used cornwall, can be had for less than the heresy 3, you mentioned start watching craigslist and ebay for something local, I am no bass head but i can tell you

I was not happy with the heresy bass

Now integrating a sub thats another PROJECT, Most Home Theatre subs dont integrate well for music, and with a single sub setup is tricky, I personally was never able to listen to a single sub (I was always able to tell the bass was coming from the sub, CAVEAT I know people will disagree with this it was my experience) 2 or more subs will integrate MUCH EASIER (now you are adding the cost of subs to your budget !!!!)

The cornwall will make most people happy, set and forget (untill upgrade bug bites you)

For amps, I would suggest Tube's and power with cornwalls can be from 3 watts per channel to 60+ watts per channel.............A lot of the music you listed is of acoustic nature and tubes will make that sing even at low Watts per channel, There are tons of choices for tube amps, Finding one in you budget is key

The dynaco models mentioned are nice if you can find a refurbished one by a reputable seller, tech, As this is likely your first tube product I would suggest getting something auto bias and newer, Justin whom has chimed in here a couple times Builds superior amps at a reasonable price that will last a very longtime with no service other than tube swaps......and paired with cornwalls would easily hit levels that prolonged listening could damage your hearing.

here is a link to justins site, you can pretty much buy a new amp for the price of alot of the dynaco refurbs and you wont have to worry about biasing. and paired with cornwalls and a decent pre-amp I would bet you will be very happy http://ampsandsound.com/

I am not sure where you are located but if I were you I would put out feelers and see if there are any local members that have tubes and cornwalls.

My first experience with cornwalls and tubes was by invite here on the forum by Garymd His cornwalls with a 17 watt integrated scott tube amp BLEW ME AWAY, I went straight home and promptly sold my SS 200wpc amps and bought tubes

Edited March 13, 2014 by joessportster

[justinsweber]

For most listening... I use a .75watt SET amp on my cornscalas and love it... You dont have to go big to sound great.

Re: budget.... I woudl invest all you can in getting a set of hertiage speakers... La Scala or Cornwalls can be had for 700-1200 for the pair.

Buy the emotiva A-100? (50watts stereo with vol nob). I own one, Dave owns one. They sound great and can be had for $220 new. Then save and buy a tube amp in the 1watt-60watt range of whatever you like and youll be golden. The Emotiva will give you years of dependable great sound. You will get better sound with a Tube amp but this will allow you to save. I would not sugest a diff SS amp if you are thinking about tubes. The price, build and performance is right.

If tubes... yeah I likemy own stuff... but others as well. Many of the builders here loves SET amps...but in the 1000-1500 range you can go custom amp or Dynaco clones... BOTH SUPER SOLID CHOICES and much better than buying used.

Used heritage or RF series speakers are hard to beat... go with new electronics.

[ChuckAb3]

I am very happily driving Cornwall III's with a Parasound SS pre-amp and amp. I used to have a Marantz integrated which did a fine job, as well. If you go SS, you might want to check out both lines of amps as both pair well with Klipsch. It's just me, but I prefer the crisp reproduction of music with SS as opposed to the lush (and to my ear seemingly less accurate) sound of tubes. Everyone has an opinion on this and none of them are "wrong." Just gotta figure out what you like. OTOH, I like the sound of tubes for MAKING music. I play a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie tone cabinet and it's tubes all the way. Go figure. Good luck and cheers!!