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RP-280F Discovery (Whew!)


busht4169

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Hello All!!!

So as some of you know, I have the RP-280f series in my living room.  I have posted before about how I love them...and that has not changed.  I have made a discovery that scared me and took a bit of testing to resolve.

 

My wife wanted to watch Invincible with Mark Wahlberg (Don't Judge).  As we were watching, I began hearing DISTORTION from the tweeters from both the left and right channels only.  My current setup is listed in my signature of all posts, so you all know I have many Klipsch speakers.  Anyway...the distortion was coming from the white noise of the crowd cheering during the stadium scenes.  I was mortified to say the least. 

 

Now, as many of the veteran users are likely thinking at this point, the diaphragm in the Reference Premiere line is only 1" for the horn.  And if I had just gotten the RF-7 II's, this wouldn't be happening.  BUT WAIT!  It is just a bad recording and/or bad gain on the source material.  I have several movies with crowd based white noise at even higher levels than this.  Using all Blu-ray copies of the following:  Gladiator, Braveheart, Tron, and even Space Jam just for kicks, I have discovered nothing wrong with the tweeters.  I was not even playing Invincible at reference levels, and it was just an ugly recording.  But the fore mentioned titles played at reference levels sounded crisp and clear.  From all my speakers.  Most of you know Gladiator in particular with the battle cries and crowds at the Colosseum of Rome are very loud and mixed with a rather high gain.  During the sequence with the General's first victory, there was nigh any distortion my delicate :) ears could find.  LOL. 

 

I also did white noise tests on separate channels and multi-channel tests at near reference levels to be sure.

 

So, in closing, the still work GREAT!!!

 

Thanks for listening!

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13 hours ago, derrickdj1 said:
13 hours ago, derrickdj1 said:

In the average size room, I don't think you hear any distortion at reference with a 1 in. tweeter.  Was the movie on Netflix or some other stream?

In the average size room, I don't think you hear any distortion at reference with a 1 in. tweeter.  Was the movie on Netflix or some other stream?

Sorry for the short response was at work doing the hard stuff so I can buy MORE KLIPSCH.  Anyway...For clarification, this is the first time I have heard distortion of any kind from these units.  The above details and actions took place.  I did use Blu-ray copies for all reference level tests before writing the feedback.  The white noise calibration test was done using a custom tone generator from my PC.  All frequencies tested were 1500Hz up to 7500Hz.  It was a white and pink noise based tone and there was NO distortion at near reference levels.  No need to push reference level using the generator. 

In closing, I feel it was just the one movie that was poorly mixed or gained.  The speakers work fine and all is well.

 

 

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18 hours ago, derrickdj1 said:

In the average size room, I don't think you hear any distortion at reference with a 1 in. tweeter.

 

At 105 db from 10-12 feet from the speakers, you don't think you could hear _any_ distortion, ever?  

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36 minutes ago, MetropolisLakeOutfitters said:

 

At 105 db from 10-12 feet from the speakers, you don't think you could hear _any_ distortion, ever?  

Seldom do I listen that loud.  LOL

Distortion exists, I know this, but I am married.  I don't hit reference level as often as I would like.  She must be trying to save my ears...yeah.....that's it.

 

:lol:

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Reference is for the birds.  I watch stuff at like -22 to -26.  If I want to know what a real gunshot sounds like I'll go in the back yard and blast something.  Makes no sense to me to watch a movie so loud in your own house that dialogue is like 20 db higher than what a normal conversation in the same room would be.  Reference was originally made to overcome other people talking, HVAC systems, etc.  Just not an issue with home theater.  Just makes you go deaf faster, even if you can pull it off cleanly.  Most people can't.  

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6 hours ago, MetropolisLakeOutfitters said:

 

At 105 db from 10-12 feet from the speakers, you don't think you could hear _any_ distortion, ever?  

I'm not saying never.  A lot of Klipsch speakers have a 1 inch tweeter like the Chorus, LaScala, RF 82 etc.  Paired with the right avr/amp, these speakers should be able to reach reference without distortion.  These type of horn loaded speaker don't come close to their max power rating at reference. Now if the EQ is jacked up for certain frequencies that may change the distortion profile.  Most people have their speaker calibration in the negative numbers and power is not the issue or over excursion.

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36 minutes ago, derrickdj1 said:

I'm not saying never.  A lot of Klipsch speakers have a 1 inch tweeter like the Chorus, LaScala, RF 82 etc.  Paired with the right avr/amp, these speakers should be able to reach reference without distortion.  These type of horn loaded speaker don't come close to their max power rating at reference. Now if the EQ is jacked up for certain frequencies that may change the distortion profile.  Most people have their speaker calibration in the negative numbers and power is not the issue or over excursion.

The 1 inch drivers in his speakers are not like the 1 inch drivers in Heritage Speakers.

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At 12 feet, pretty much any 15" heritage/extended should get to reference without any issue. ~48 watts for a chorus/Cornwall. ~24 watts for la scala/khorn.

For the 280s, they will be at 96 watts. Certainly this is well under their power handling, but can the 1" dome present 1500-20khz without distortion? I'd bet on yes. What I'm not too sure about is the 8" woofers. At 105db at 12 feet, that's about 117db at 1 meter. Can 8" woofers produce that kind of sound pressure without distortion?

But since the 105db is peak levels and reserved for essentially sound effects, I don't know that any detectable distortion would be an issue.


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On ‎11‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 5:24 PM, MetropolisLakeOutfitters said:

Reference is for the birds.  I watch stuff at like -22 to -26.  If I want to know what a real gunshot sounds like I'll go in the back yard and blast something.  Makes no sense to me to watch a movie so loud in your own house that dialogue is like 20 db higher than what a normal conversation in the same room would be.  Reference was originally made to overcome other people talking, HVAC systems, etc.  Just not an issue with home theater.  Just makes you go deaf faster, even if you can pull it off cleanly.  Most people can't.  

Total agreement. All in all, I am just happy that at the levels I listen...everything is fine.  just poor source material. Or perhaps "poor" is the wrong word. Aggressive mixing may be the better phrase. Who knows...

Thanks to all who offered good ideas and insight.

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On 11/22/2016 at 6:50 AM, Grizzog said:

For the 280s, they will be at 96 watts. Certainly this is well under their power handling, but can the 1" dome present 1500-20khz without distortion? I'd bet on yes. What I'm not too sure about is the 8" woofers. At 105db at 12 feet, that's about 117db at 1 meter. Can 8" woofers produce that kind of sound pressure without distortion?

 

Not really.  If they didn't produce any, there would be no reason to have fully horn loaded solutions.  There's actually multiple types of distortion coming out of raw woofers slamming that hard.  Harmonic, intermodulation, non-linear distortion due to the eddy currents in the voice coil, probably others that I'm not familiar with.  Chris A. knows all about this stuff.  The bigger question is how sensitive are we to it at a given frequency and given distortion type.  At less than 40 hz, it's been proven that music has to have about 100% harmonic distortion before people notices that something doesn't sound right.  That number supposedly goes way down as the frequency goes up.  

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