Gnfanatic Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 hello everyone, new guy here. I am hoping you can help me with my RF-7's that I finally hooked up after 8 years! They sat in a temperature controlled room and there is no dry rot or anything but my God do they sound harsh and to high. The center channel speaker (RC-52II) that is made in China sounds better then them I am very new to this and did some research, I have noticed I am not the only one complaining about how harsh they are. I have read up on the crossover mod by a man named Dean Wescott but I cannot find his website or contact info??? The speakers are hooked up to a Denon POA-8300 amp and I use a Marantz SR5011 as a preamp. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I tried messing with the receiver settings but cannot get rid of harshness. Please ignore the wiring mess Was trying all sorts of things thinking it was me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtr20 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 He is in the forum @Deang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzannucci Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 If they were new and sitting for a long time, you might want to run them a while. They will need to be broken in or re-broken in and played semi hard for a while. Connections/phase, positioning is key also. Your right speaker will likely be quite bass deficient. With that, there are some crossover mods that Deang came up with to tame some harshness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbphoto Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 I wouldn't spend any money on them until I did some troubleshooting first. Make sure the marantz doesn't have them set to "small" or some kind of room correction enabled. Try running them in pure-direct mode, or better yet, bypass the marantz temporarily as a test. they're efficient enough to connect a source directly to the amp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honeybadger Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 As previously stated make sure the Phase is correct and the receiver is in Direct mode. Just to be clear on phase, make sure one of the speaker isn't wired backwards, not taking about the phase control on the receiver. Furthermore one of my RF-7 had one of the woofers disconnected, this had me scratching my head for a while. HB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 The cones ring. The more complex the material, or the louder you listen - the worse it gets. Toe those in, and get a nice throw rug. The glass table isn't helping either. You can reach me at dgwescott@gmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twk123 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 What is the source of your music? Highly compressed digital or digital with a poor digital audio converter (DAC) sounds horrible on high sensitivity Klipsch speakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 Edit: Misread post 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnfanatic Posted November 11, 2016 Author Share Posted November 11, 2016 Thanka for the replies. Tonight I will check what you guys mentioned. Please keep in mind the marantz is not poweribg them, the denon is. Did I understand one of the replies that the wiring might be wrong from the fac inside the speaker?? I do not have a glass table. This is listening from Pandora. I do not have any other music source at the moment. Will check marantz settings. I do know that the speakers are labeled large and center channel is small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 5 hours ago, Gnfanatic said: Did I understand one of the replies that the wiring might be wrong from the fac inside the speaker?? Edit: I misread the post #1. The factory crossovers are probably OK. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twk123 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 27 minutes ago, Gnfanatic said: Thanka for the replies. Tonight I will check what you guys mentioned. Please keep in mind the marantz is not poweribg them, the denon is. Did I understand one of the replies that the wiring might be wrong from the fac inside the speaker?? I do not have a glass table. This is listening from Pandora. I do not have any other music source at the moment. Will check marantz settings. I do know that the speakers are labeled large and center channel is small. This may be your problem. Pandora has notoriously bad sound, especially if you do not have a paid subscription. What device are you running it off? If it has a poor DAC then it will further make the music sound harsh. When I first got my KG 5.5s I actually could only listen to records until I got a good standalone DAC and the difference was night and day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 5 hours ago, twk123 said: This may be your problem. Pandora has notoriously bad sound, especially if you do not have a paid subscription. I didn't know that. In terms of troubleshooting I would do the easiest thing first, get a good source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 1 hour ago, wvu80 said: You said you had DeanG crossovers ... No he didn't - he said he was looking for contact information because he had heard that I can help with the issue. It's a common complaint, and it's been around long before streaming became popular - but sure - crappy source material will exacerbate the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 Just now, Deang said: No he didn't - heard the said he was looking for contact information because he had hat I can fix the problem. Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I completely mis-read that. Thanks for the clarification. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickdj1 Posted November 11, 2016 Share Posted November 11, 2016 The center speaker being made in China has no relationship to the problem. I would let the speakers run for a few days to see if the sound gets better. Checking the wiring is always a good point. Cut the high frequencies similar to an X curve. I use Pandora all the time and it is not necessarily bad. Play around with speaker setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnfanatic Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Hello everyone. I did some invesitgation and took pics, so here it goes... 1-) What is a good audio source? I cannot afford high end unless used. I suppose I am looking for a cd player?? Or vinyl? 2-) Direct is on AUTO Audio/Dialog level adj ON/Level 0DB Audio/M-DAX , Mode LOW I do not what in Gods name I am doing with this EQ!! I did not know about Pandora, I know it was compressed and "like" cd quality. please look at the pics and I know the wiring needs work. Thank you again everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvu80 Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 I see a couple of things. Reset that EQ back to FLAT or 0 db. The low bass is currently boosted. That will not help the HF but I would start with Flat. What is the story with that Denon POA-8300? It is a triple mono amp and I couldn't find much information on it. The RF-7 looks like it is bi-wired or bi-amped. I'd like more detail on how the wiring goes from the Denon POA-8300 to the speaker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnfanatic Posted November 12, 2016 Author Share Posted November 12, 2016 Wvu80. I got the amps from my brother for free and I know they are of good quality. Problem is I dont know much about them either took a more detailed pic for you. I will reset EQ to 0db I bi-wired the rf-7's, please look at the amp wiring. Literally I did post to post. BUT reading in back of the amp it looks like I am running at 4 ohms now, not 8 . SO L goes to left RF7, R goes to Right RF7 and C goes to Center channel BTW, I have 2 of these amps and first time I have ever owned home audio amps, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dkfan9 Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Any blu ray/DVD/CD player (or a PC) will be sufficiently high quality to test with and see if the issue is the source or the speakers/room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dkfan9 Posted November 12, 2016 Share Posted November 12, 2016 Oh, and turn Dialog Level Adjust off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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