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Powering rf7iis+rc64ii


Destiny

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skip the RF-7ii and either buy palladiums if you need traditional towers or buy cinema speakers if you can get away with it.

Cinema's, sure, really loved that DE-750 compression driver. I can't really say that I'd spend the bucks to trade the palladiums for my RF-7ii's though, at least from what I heard. Didn't really hear anything that blew me away in terms of sound quality at least from the LCR's. Now, those surrounds, hell yes, those are some nice surrounds, very smooth and the sound was dispersed like they ought to be. No comparison between those and RS-62ii's, just ridiculously nice, they did good on those.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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Everyone is trying as nicely as they can to tell you a center is important. I'll just tell you flat out. Why would you wanna spend thousands on an amp that everyone is telling you you DONT NEED and not spend a thousand or less on something everyone is tell you YOU DO NEED!?!? Upgrade-itis? Then skip the RF-7ii and either buy palladiums if you need traditional towers or buy cinema speakers if you can get away with it. Ten times better speakers than ANY reference speakers. And there will be zero upgrade-itis as that is as good of speakers as Klipsch makes. Trust me I am maybe the ONLY person on this forum that has owned them all!

 

it is not about the money... it is about the center keeping up in the bass department to the capability of the mains... basically i don't want it to be handling much bass. I think that might be solved by putting the mains as large in the av setup and the center as small right?

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If your setup is to be in a family room environment without an AT screen, then get the RF7II/RC-64II combo, a good subwoofer, a better AVR or preamp/processor and the amp of your choice.  Experiment with crossovers starting around 80Hz on down to say 40Hz, get it set to your liking, and ENJOY the fruits of your labors. :D

 

Bill 

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skip the RF-7ii and either buy palladiums if you need traditional towers or buy cinema speakers if you can get away with it.

Cinema's, sure, really loved that DE-750 compression driver. I can't really say that I'd spend the bucks to trade the palladiums for my RF-7ii's though, at least from what I heard. Didn't really hear anything that blew me away in terms of sound quality at least from the LCR's. Now, those surrounds, hell yes, those are some nice surrounds, very smooth and the sound was dispersed like they ought to be. No comparison between those and RS-62ii's, just ridiculously nice, they did good on those.
you also heard these for a very short time. Not enough time to judge them by any means. I owned them for 6 months. I owned three different 64's over a three year period. I know the palladiums are better. I also took them to my buddies dedicated room, fed them 550wpc each and heard the mains 2-3 feet out from every wall 14 feet apart and center on a stand 3 feet out and they sounded 2-3 times better than they did in my living room. The shining speaker in that group is the center for sure. It is most likely the configuration that sets it apart in clarity over the 64's. Edited by Scrappydue
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I see what you are saying scrap, buy speakers then power. I get it i really do. To use your analogy, Why spend thousands of dollars on Palladiums and use a receiver to power them? I see your point and mine as well...I'm in the buy both camp!  

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My sequence of purchase was:

  1. RF-7II's
  2. Subwoofer
  3. RC-64II
  4. Receiver Upgrade

I tried using just the RF-7II's at first for TV/movies, but felt that they didn't provide an effective phantom center. 

 

The subwoofer addition added a nice foundation for music that I felt was missing from just the RF-7II's.

 

When we brought in the RC-64II, the front soundstage really came together for TV/movie watching. 

 

We upgraded from a weak low end Marantz 1402 receiver (50 WPC Class AB) to our current Pioneer SC-1323 (125 WPC Class D3) which greatly improved dynamics and provided a richer tonal balance.

 

Hope this helps.

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it is not about the money... it is about the center keeping up in the bass department to the capability of the mains... basically i don't want it to be handling much bass. I think that might be solved by putting the mains as large in the av setup and the center as small right?

This is solved through setting of the cross-over. Bill is right, play with the crossover setting for your center until it's where you want it to be...assuming you have a subwoofer to pick up the bass. When you're setting your crossover, you're telling the reciever/or pre the level at which lower frequency sound is passed to the subwoofer.

 

Setting your mains to large will essentially send the entire signal to the mains - whether they can reproduce it or not. None of the signal sent to the mains will be crossed over to the subwoofer. This is not ideal, as a good quality sub is designed to dig significantly lower than your mains are...but, again, play with these settings and decide for yourself what sounds best to your ears.

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Maybe not all DIY centers are the same?

 

I'm not sure about lobing, all I know is his custom RF-7ii center sounds amazing.

He built a horizontal RF-7ii clone with factory woofers, factory tweeter, factory horn, factory crossover, factory sized enclosure, and factory sized ports. Yeah it's pretty danged similar, not a lot of leeway there. Trust me, there's lobing going on. Do the math, there's calculators you can use online. Big 10" drivers crossed over relatively high spread apart by a horn of this size equals lobing. Doesn't really matter what little details he may or may not have done to make it a bit different than mine. It still sounds great, at least when you're sitting in front of it. When you move around the room the sound changes significantly.

 

 

Just to show what I'm talking about: 

 

http://www.mh-audio.nl/calcmaxfreq.asp

 

That horn is about 8" across and those are 10" drivers.  You're looking at a minimum of 20" or 50 centimeters center to center even if there is only 1" of space between the edge of the 10's and the edge of the horns, but this looks like more.  Even at 50 cm you'd have to cross them over at 343 hz or lower for there to be no noticable lobing.  These are crossed over at 1,200 hz.  Most horizontal centers have this issue to some extent but these drivers are so big and the horn spreads them apart so much and it's crossed over so high that it's pretty noticeable.  

 

Notice that on the Palladiums they are smaller drivers that are closer together and crossed over much lower plus the mids and highs are vertical.  That's what you have to do to prevent this.  Staggered crossover points like on the RC-64ii helps as well.  

 

 

rf7center%20(6).jpg

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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Even at 50 cm you'd have to cross them over at 343 hz or lower for there to be no noticable lobing.

 

Could you clarify what you mean by "lobing"?  I'm thinking you mean that there's audible separation between the tweeter and the woofers, but I don't want to assume. 

 

Thanks.

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Even at 50 cm you'd have to cross them over at 343 hz or lower for there to be no noticable lobing.

 

Could you clarify what you mean by "lobing"?  I'm thinking you mean that there's audible separation between the tweeter and the woofers, but I don't want to assume. 

 

Thanks.

 

 

Not really, as an overly simplistic explanation, what happens is that different frequencies get cancelled out when listening off-axis.  When you listen to them straight on they are fine.  As you move to the side, depending on the listening angle, distance between drivers, and wavelength of the frequency in question, the output of one transducer becomes out of phase with the other one, so there's big dips in the frequency response that is not uniform, it changes depending on which seat you're sitting in.  This is very noticable on the design in question.  The higher the crossover and the further apart the centers of the transducers are, the worse it is.  The wavelengths of lower frequencies are longer so they aren't affected by this as much.  

 

What I'm not sure of is the difference between lobing vs. comb filtering.  Both terms tend to both be used in the same situation.  Best I can tell, comb filtering is kind of the effect of lobing issues.  

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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  • 1 month later...

Okay, i now need some advice about the components that i have decided to buy(hopefully within a couple of weeks). I am hoping to find a parasound a31, which may or may not be available. What is a good avr that i can use as a pre amp? If i am using an external amp then i don't really need a flagship model, do i? e.g if i get a marantz sr6009 rather than an sr7009? and which avr will have the best dac quality if i use it as a pre amp? denon/onkyo/yamaha/marantz/pioneer and many others are there but i have the impression that the marantz will have a smoother/warmer sound which might pair well with the klipsch speakers. I don't really know about the sound signatures of these different avrs or which are higher in quality/durability etc.

 

Also i can get a brand new adcom gfa 7805 amplifier, if i cannot find a halo a31 in my country. Adcom's amp has 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms and is five channel too. It  is also much cheaper than parasound amps. Will there be much difference in quality in those 2? i have never seen a bad review of parasound though...

Edited by Destiny
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Okay, i now need some advice about the components that i have decided to buy(hopefully within a couple of weeks). I am hoping to find a parasound a31, which may or may not be available. What is a good avr that i can use as a pre amp? If i am using an external amp then i don't really need a flagship model, do i? e.g if i get a marantz sr6009 rather than an sr7009? and which avr will have the best dac quality if i use it as a pre amp? denon/onkyo/yamaha/marantz/pioneer and many others are there but i have the impression that the marantz will have a smoother/warmer sound which might pair well with the klipsch speakers. I don't really know about the sound signatures of these different avrs or which are higher in quality/durability etc.

 

Also i can get a brand new adcom gfa 7805 amplifier, if i cannot find a halo a31 in my country. Adcom's amp has 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms and is five channel too. It  is also much cheaper than parasound amps. Will there be much difference in quality in those too? i have never seen a bad review of parasound though...

bump... any advice?

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Yes you can just get an Avr with the features you want and disregard the amp section as its not important. I'm a fan of audyssey so I prefer denon and marantz. Never owned a marantz. I hate the look of them. That little display kills it for me. But I'd take either one of them. Pioneer would be the next I would buy personally.

And as far as parasound, I personally think they are a bit overpriced myself. I've heard a few before and never left thinking oh man those were better than my emotiva amps. So if more power can be had with extra channel from ad on I would prolly go that way. Adcom makes solid amps from everything I've ever read about them.

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Okay, i now need some advice about the components that i have decided to buy(hopefully within a couple of weeks). I am hoping to find a parasound a31, which may or may not be available. What is a good avr that i can use as a pre amp? If i am using an external amp then i don't really need a flagship model, do i? e.g if i get a marantz sr6009 rather than an sr7009? and which avr will have the best dac quality if i use it as a pre amp? denon/onkyo/yamaha/marantz/pioneer and many others are there but i have the impression that the marantz will have a smoother/warmer sound which might pair well with the klipsch speakers. I don't really know about the sound signatures of these different avrs or which are higher in quality/durability etc.

 

Also i can get a brand new adcom gfa 7805 amplifier, if i cannot find a halo a31 in my country. Adcom's amp has 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms and is five channel too. It  is also much cheaper than parasound amps. Will there be much difference in quality in those too? i have never seen a bad review of parasound though...

bump... any advice?

If you're buying new and have no plans to use the internal amps yet are wanting top notch sound, why not get a preamp? Look at the Marantz 7702.

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FWIW, I've owned 4 power amps of the 200 wpc caliber.

 

Parasound HCA2205a (220 x 5)

B&K 200.7 (200 x 7)

Sherbourn 72100a (200 x 7)

Acurus A200 (200 x 2)

 

I've tested them all side by side and honestly, I couldn't hear a difference between them. 

 

I have to agree with Coleman

 

The A31 would cost more than what you have in speakers? Why oh why would someone do this? Waste of money IMO.
Edited by Youthman
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The A31 would cost more than what you have in speakers? Why oh why would someone do this? Waste of money IMO. 

 

what is the price of the a31 anyways? i don't really know... but the speakers won't cost me that cheap(i will be buying them at full price as my country won't have discounts for them). rf7iis and 64iis would cost me more than about 4.5k in us dollars. I don't think a31 is that pricey(kinda like 3k$ maybe?)... anyways, i am not thinking of getting them. I am more interesting in knowing about the preamp selection right now... a pure preamp might do the trick, without any amplifiers... is there much difference in these brands when it comes to sound? and for that matter would a flagship matter much? 

Edited by Destiny
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a pure preamp might do the trick, without any amplifiers...

Just to clarify, if you buy a preamp, you will also need to purchase an amp to power the speakers.

 

the adcom amp gfa 7805 should do the trick, i think... the reason for the pre amp without amps is to save power(assumption only)... otherwise i think almost every avr has pre outs now...

Edited by Destiny
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