Disappointed with my RF-7s....

[wvu80]

Use them as big *** wides, build a bigger front stage since I prefer extended stereo music or use them as center channels. Lots to play around with.

 

That's a lot of work to move those big boys around! 

 

I've also been playing around with different configurations, hoping my wife won't notice!  Lately I've reduced from 5.1 to 3.0 and I really like the full front sound stage without all the clutter.  I know some people might question 7's as centers, but I've also really come to appreciate a strong center channel.

 

Crazy?  Maybe.  But why not, if you can? 

[Jugger]

Use them as big *** wides, build a bigger front stage since I prefer extended stereo music or use them as center channels. Lots to play around with.

Lots to f&*k up too.

Unless you are doing it for the novelty and "watch this Clem" effect, it's pretty lame. Nice gimmick, but has nothing to do with accurately reproducing natural sound.

Shakey

Yes, you are 100% correct! My apologies I forgot I was in the 2-channel section.

[Shakeydeal]

Understood. Which is why I tend not to post in the Home Theater section. It's just not my thing.

 

Shakey

[Jugger]

Use them as big *** wides, build a bigger front stage since I prefer extended stereo music or use them as center channels. Lots to play around with.

That's a lot of work to move those big boys around!

I've also been playing around with different configurations, hoping my wife won't notice! Lately I've reduced from 5.1 to 3.0 and I really like the full front sound stage without all the clutter. I know some people might question 7's as centers, but I've also really come to appreciate a strong center channel.

Crazy? Maybe. But why not, if you can?

Lucky for me that is the ONLY room I have 100% control over. I don't even get a say on the garage and where my tools go. I haven very curious about building the bigger front stage and like you said if you can try than why not.

[CECAA850]

I don't even get a say on the garage and where my tools go.

 

Time to turn in your man card.

[mattSER]

Friend of mine was listening to my new set-up. She was familiar with my 35s, but we were A/B'ing between them and the 7s just for fun.

 

 

She put it well. She said she really like the 35s and they are nice but "They are like video. The 7s are like film"

[Schu]

Dynamic range comparisons

[Fish]

It's great you got the 7s closer to what they are, some of the best sounding speakers around. When you first said the 35s sounded better in the other set up I knew something needed fixin, congrats.

[Mystery]

Yes, I use the "Pure" audio mode with no equalization.

I was a/b'ing between the two the other night, and while the 7s have some clear advantages, the 35s sounded much fuller and more balanced.

That means my RF3's are quite good speakers.

 

Passive or fool's bi-amping is for the most part a waste of time.  If the room or sound is a problem, why use the speakers in pure direct?  Unless a room is perfect take advantage and use some EQ.  That is what it is there for.

Define passive bi-amping and I'll follow up with what I think.

 

 

 

I'm guessing somewhere in the mid 80s db range for extended periods and upwards of 95-105 for shorter lengths.

I believe 105db on RF-7's is at the threshold of melting your ear drums. 

 

 

Exactly why I'm thinking these may not be the speakers for me.

 

 

 

HOWEVER, I've just connected the Emotiva to the Onkyo's pre-outs and and driving the horns with it at about 80% gain and it sounds MUCH BETTER so far!!

 

I'm getting a tiny bit more detail and separation, but the harshness is nearly completely eliminated!

 

I'm going to play with the gain on the Emo for a little while and make sure I'm not just fooling myself, but I think I've made the right move so far!

 

 

If you are bi-amping, get same amp possible, ie, both emotiva or just get one big emotiva and skip bi-amping.

 

 

The room is carpeted and pretty "warm" overall. I don't think the room is much of a problem.

I think the issue I'm having now is the fact the I was really happy with my RF-35s and 25s, but now with these RF-7s I'm opening up a whole new road that I don't think I can really afford to travel.

And I was going to sell my 35s and 25s to cover the purchase of the 7s, but now I'm wondering if I'm going to be better off selling the 7s because they are easily worth more than the other two pairs.

I have a few months to make a decision, so I'm just thinking out loud here. :-)

And Fish, I totally get what you're saying, but I'm happy listening to the mechanics by day and the music at night. Remember, I'm in a state where "extreme listening enjoyment" is legal.

If you do end up selling the RF7s please think of me first. You did a good job getting to the seller before I could. I would love to put these next to my other RF7s.

Thanks.

 

 

If/when next ad comes up, I'll holler at you.

 

Friend of mine was listening to my new set-up. She was familiar with my 35s, but we were A/B'ing between them and the 7s just for fun.

 

 

She put it well. She said she really like the 35s and they are nice but "They are like video. The 7s are like film"

Are you sure she's listening or looking at the size?

[derrickdj1]

Passive Bi-amping is usually done with an avr or external amps.  The key point is that the passive XO's in the speaker are being utilized.  That mean that the same signal from the amp or avr is being sent to the Hi and Lo frequency driver.  Power utilization is near equal at around 300 Hz between the Hi and Lo drivers.  Below 300 Hz the low Lo driver requires increasing power to keep the Lo frequencies at equal volume to the Hi frequencies.  It is not unusual for the power distribution to be 90/10 for the Lo/Hi driver.

 

In this scenario it is eay to see by people doing Bi-amping with an exteral XO can use low power tube amps for the Hi's and high power solid state amps for the Lo's.  In passive Bi-amping the passive XO will dissipate around 90% of the signal as heat.  Active Bi-amping with and external XO allows for more precise setup of the driver and no waste of power.  This is a short explanation of the process.

[Turbox]

 

 

 

driving them with an Onkyo...not good.

 

 

QFT

 

 

I had to google that

 

 

 

 

Me too, and I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest one here

 

 

 

Are you saying were old?

[Quiet_Hollow]

Which model of Integra were you using, and how was it set up?    I've never heard a bad sounding Integra/Onkyo high-end AVP unless it was set up quite poorly--which is an easy thing to do if you are not familiar with them and haven't spent a little time using them to understand how to set them up properly.  It sounds as if your experience might have been plagued by bad calibration using Audyssey - which can result in a very poor sound indeed.    Otherwise, they are extremely transparent IMHE.

 Larry and I were both at Indy that day with the Paladiums. It wasn't our rig, it was Klipsch's. I didn't take note of the specific model, but I gather it must have been a DTR-40 or higher. 

 

..and quite frankly, it wasn't the setup. Heck, the sound from my ad hoc Panasonic setup upstairs sounded better. Not louder, not punchier. Just buttery smooth and very liquid like in comparison. You could walk right up to the Paladiums and clearly hear that they were simply passing the buck (whatever it was) from the Integra, even with my source material I had playing through it. Kinda flat and with that characteristic low-level "hash".

 

Larry comes from the tube and DAC relm and previously heard the same rig with different gear. I come strictly from the chip amp relm. We both agreed upon leaving the room that the sound was simply, "meh."   at best, which is pretty bad, considering the P-39s capabilities and the cost of the Integra.

[Chris A]

The DTR-40 is a receiver, not a pre/pro: http://redirect.onkyousa.com/redirect_service.cfm?type=sell_sheets&file=NPR_DTR_40_4_2012.pdf

 

Are you familiar with Audyssey? As in: have you used Audyssey for more than a week or two on a pre/pro or receiver? 

 

My experience is that your description sounds exactly like a poor Audyssey calibration, which is what you get when you run the "MultEQ Audyssey" program out of the box with its calibrated microphone in a typical non-HT room, i.e., a room whose RT60 curve is above 0.3--more like 0.5 or 0.6 across the audible spectrum.  This would be true for most rooms without deep pile wall-to-wall carpet and lots of absorption panels on the walls/ceiling, and lot of corner bass trapping.  In these more typical reverberant rooms, I've found that the base-level version of Audyssey doesn't do very well, and the entire EQ/dynamic EQ functionality is much better turned off (along with loudspeaker channel gains from the automatic function).  External EQ applied through something like active crossovers I've found works light years better--hence the distinction above between a "pre/pro" and an "A/VR".  Then the Onkyo/Integra pre/pro's SQ comes to life (the high-end Onkyo AVPs are exactly the same electronics inside the box as the Integras). 

 

I've actually been amazed at the SQ of the Onkyo AVP but with most of Audyssey functionality turned off.  I instead use the PEQs/shelving filters from a Yamaha SP2060 for the Jubs, an EV Dx38 for the center Belle, and the GEQ filters in the Onkyo for notionally correcting the surround Cornwalls.  All this is calibrated using REW and many up-sweeps in different microphone locations.

 

If you buy the "MultEQ Audyssey Pro" version for the pre/pro...that is, an additional $550 worth of firmware/software from a separate Audyssey upgrade offering...I'm told by Rudy that it works much better in "automatic" mode than the base version of MultEQ, with better visibility and control of what it's actually doing. 

 

Note that Rudy's HT room is much deader acoustically than my listening room - his RT60 curve is much closer to 0.3 across the board, which probably explains why his setup works much better using MultEQ Pro.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

[Mystery]

Passive Bi-amping is usually done with an avr or external amps.  The key point is that the passive XO's in the speaker are being utilized.  That mean that the same signal from the amp or avr is being sent to the Hi and Lo frequency driver.  Power utilization is near equal at around 300 Hz between the Hi and Lo drivers.  Below 300 Hz the low Lo driver requires increasing power to keep the Lo frequencies at equal volume to the Hi frequencies.  It is not unusual for the power distribution to be 90/10 for the Lo/Hi driver.

 

In this scenario it is eay to see by people doing Bi-amping with an exteral XO can use low power tube amps for the Hi's and high power solid state amps for the Lo's.  In passive Bi-amping the passive XO will dissipate around 90% of the signal as heat.  Active Bi-amping with and external XO allows for more precise setup of the driver and no waste of power.  This is a short explanation of the process.

 

Okay then.

We are talking about the same thing but I won't call it bi-amping, there is only one amp in bi-wiring so bi-amping doesn't sound right whether passive is added or not.

 

Bi-wiring helps with any speaker. It helps frequency path separation thus keeping signal separate/clean.

 

However, there are speakers that are specifically designed keeping bi-wiring in mind.

For example, Vandersteen 3A Signatures that I own.

 

Very few speakers are designed to take more out of bi-wiring.

Here is what Vandersteen found after research and thus the specific attention in crossovers for bi-wiring.

http://vandersteen.com/support/faqs

 

 

What is bi-wiring and what are the advantages?

Bi-wiring uses two separate sets of speaker cables to connect a single pair of loudspeakers to an amplifier. Coupled with a crossover designed specifically for bi-wiring, it offers many of the advantages of bi-amplifying the speakers with two separate amplifiers without the cost and complexity of two amplifiers.

We began experimenting with bi-wiring back in the early '80s, an era when horizontal bi-amplification was considered the ultimate way to drive quality loudspeakers. (Horizontal bi-amplification used one amplifier to drive the low-frequency section of a speaker and a second amplifier to drive the high-frequency section.) We noted that speakers sounded better when bi-amplified by two amplifiers than when driven by a single amplifier. Surprisingly, this superior performance was evident even when the speakers were bi-amplified by two identical amplifiers at a low volume level and the amplifiers were each driven full-range without an electronic crossover. We initially believed that the double power supplies and other components of two amplifiers were responsible for the improvement, however building amplifiers with twice the power supply and doubling-up on other critical components failed to provide the bi-amplification benefit.

So we looked at the speaker wires. With two amplifiers, bi-amplification used two sets of speaker cables so we experimented with doubling-up the speaker wires and with larger wire. Neither duplicated the bi-amplification improvements. Then we considered that in a bi-amplified system, one set of wires carries the low-frequencies and the other set of wires carries the high-frequencies. We modified a speaker's crossovers to accept two sets of cables and present different load characteristics to each set so that the low-frequencies would be carried by one set of wires and the high-frequencies by the other set of wires. Finally we heard the sonic improvements of bi-amplification with a single amplifier.

Additional experiments with a Hall Effect probe revealed that high-current bass frequencies created a measurable field around the wires that expanded and collapsed with the signal. We believe that this dynamic field modulates the smaller signals, especially the very low level treble frequencies. With the high-current signal (Bass) separated from the low-current signal (Treble) this small signal modulation was eliminated as long as the cables were separated by at least an inch or two. (To keep the treble cable out of the field surrounding the bass cable.)

The crossovers in Vandersteen bi-wirable speakers are engineered with completely separate high-pass and low-pass sections. The bass inputs pass low-frequencies to the woofers, but become more and more resistive at higher frequencies. The treble inputs pass high-frequencies to the midrange and tweeter, but become more and more resistive at low-frequencies. The output from the amplifier always takes the path of least resistance so deep bass frequencies go to the bass input (Low impedance at low-frequencies) rather than to the treble inputs (High impedance at low frequencies). For the same reason, treble frequencies go to the treble input (Low impedance at high-frequencies) rather than to the bass inputs (High impedance at high-frequencies). At the actual crossover frequency, the output from the amplifier would be divided equally between the two inputs as they would both have the same impedance at that frequency. Because of the different reflected impedances of the cables, the crossover between the woofer and midrange actually occurs at the wire ends where they connect to the amplifier.

The benefits of bi-wiring are most obvious in the midrange and treble. The low-current signal to the midrange and tweeter drivers does not have to travel on the same wire as the high-current woofer signal. The field fluctuations and signal regeneration of the high-current low-frequencies are prevented from distorting or masking the low-current high-frequencies. The back EMF (Electro-Mechanical Force) from the large woofer cannot affect the small-signal upper frequencies since they do not share the same wires.

The effects of bi-wiring are not subtle. The improvements are large enough that a bi-wire set of moderately priced cable will usually sound better than a single run of more expensive cable.

All the cables in a bi-wire set must be the same. There is often great temptation to use a wire known for good bass response on the woofer inputs and a different wire known for good treble response on the midrange/tweeter inputs. This will cause the different sonic characteristics of the two wires in the middle frequencies to interfere with the proper blending of the woofer and midrange driver through the crossover point. The consistency of the sound will be severely affected as the different sounding woofer and midrange drivers conflict with each other in the frequency range where our ears are most sensitive to sonic anomalies. The disappointing result is a vague image, a lack of transparency through the midrange and lower treble and a loss of detail and clarity.

Some of the benefits of bi-wiring are from the physical separation of the high-current bass and low-current midrange/tweeter wires. So-called bi-wire cables that combine the wires in one sheath do not offer the full advantages of true bi-wiring although they may be an excellent choice for mono-wiring the speakers.

The cables should all be the same length. This is not due to the time that the signal takes to travel through a cable, but rather that two different lengths of the same cable will sound different. If the cables connecting one speaker are a different length than the cables connecting the other speaker, the resulting difference in sound between the two speakers will compromise the imaging and coherence of the system. If different lengths of cable are used for the bass and midrange/tweeter inputs of the speakers, the effects will be similar to those experienced when using two different cables as described above.

Since short runs of speaker cable sound better than long runs, consider placing your electronics between the speakers rather than off to one side. If for convenience or aesthetic considerations, the electronics must be located a considerable distance from the speakers, it is usually preferable to place the amplifier between the speakers and use long interconnect cables and short speaker wire.

[jvanhambelgium]

Onkyo is fine with most speakers but not 7's. Not slamming the Onkyo, it's nice, but not for pre either cause that's where you get the sound.

 

Well,in my setup, my Onkyo beast (NR5010) drives RF7-II's and this sound spectacular good. No harshness and certainly no listening fatigue.

So either this is only valid for the RF7 "first generation" or perhaps some very low-end Onkyo ?

[Shakeydeal]

In the end, an Onkyo receiver is an Onkyo receiver. My disdain for such beasts is world renown (or at least site renown). A good tube amp, or in a pinch, a good SS amp will deliver much better results.

 

Usual disclaimers apply; YMMV, IMHO, yada, yada........

 

 

Shakey

Edited November 21, 2014 by Shakeydeal

[Schu]

I Used to think my Onkyo 806/Heresy combination was the nuts... until I listened to separates.

[Chris A]

In the end, an Onkyo receiver is an Onkyo receiver. My disdain for such beasts is world renown (or at least site rennown). A good tube amp, or in a pinch, a good SS amp will deliver much better results.

 

...and Klipsch is also not good enough, too...right?

Edited November 21, 2014 by Chris A

[Shakeydeal]

I Used to think my Onkyo 806/Heresy combination was the nuts... until I listened to separates.

Exactly. It's all about frame of reference.......

 

Shakey

[Shakeydeal]

 

In the end, an Onkyo receiver is an Onkyo receiver. My disdain for such beasts is world renown (or at least site rennown). A good tube amp, or in a pinch, a good SS amp will deliver much better results.

 

...and Klipsch is also not good enough, too...right?

 

Was that directed to me?