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Klipsch RP-260F semi-harsh


CptPrice

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Hey, I have had my Klipsch RP-260F with r112sw for around 3 months now. I really like the sound image but at "higher" volumes I do actually find them a bit too bright, especially listening to something like metallica where the cymbal sometimes can be ear piercing. I really do like the dynamic of the speakers but I can't listen to them for too long at high volumes ( which I prefer ). 

My question is am I doing something wrong?
Is my room too small? Am I sitting too close? Is it a bad amp match?

Stereo amp; Yamaha AS-501
Speaker distance; 1.65m (5.5ft )
Listening position distance; 1.5m ( 5 ft )

It's the absolute maximum distances I can use in my room.

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6 hours ago, CptPrice said:

My question is am I doing something wrong?
Is my room too small? Am I sitting too close? Is it a bad amp match?

 

4 hours ago, YK Thom said:

Turn the treble down a notch. 

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Alternatives to turning down the treble are:

  1.  Turn up the bass a bit
  2.  Add a good subwoofer, and turn it up a little.

One reason these tend to work, without cutting treble detail, as with a treble control that rolls off the treble starting at the top, is that when you set the main volume to your preferred volume level, you probably take your cue mostly from the bass -- when the bass is powerful, the music is "loud," even though the midrange and treble will be lower in comparison with the bass, since you haven't turned the Main Volume up as far, yet haven't sloped the midrange/treble down the way a tone control would.  The goal is to deal with the imbalance and harshness without vacating the highest frequencies that provide the "air" and "shimmer."

 

You might try putting the speakers in the corner, which should increase the bass by up to 6 dB.   If you do, put some absorbent material on the side walls, where the sound from the tweeter would first hit the side wall (carefully place a yardstick or piece of board flat across/against the front surface of the tweeter, then determine where it would first hit each sidewall.  Place the absorbers there, having them extend 2 feet farther into the room.  You only need pads about 2 feet wide, and 4 feet high, centered on the height of the tweeter.  No need for the pad to go all the way to the floor.  Don't put in too much absorption.

 

image.jpeg.23712ff17283a74b6b67b35f52f42250.jpeg

 

Thanks to Chris A for these ideas.  He wrote them with corner horns in mind, but if you put your speakers deep into corners (what I'm suggesting) you have a situation similar to corner horns.   See Chris A's Corner Horn Imaging on this forum.  Try it with some folded over blankets first, to see if it helps.

 

Do you have carpeting?  Some throw rugs (area rugs) especially at the points the tweeter sound would bounce off the floor, might help.  Again, don't over absorb, or at least make one kind of change at a time.

 

Your room may be a little small, which could mean you are getting a higher proportion of early reflections than later, complex, reverberation that usually sounds good.  Sometimes small rooms sound bright.  I had a room once with L = 12 feet, W= 9 feet, and a sloped ceiling with the lowest point 8.5 feet high and the highest point about 14 feet, for a volume of 1,215 cubic feet.  I put Klipschorns in there.  People thought I was crazy.  But with carefully placed absorption and diffusion it sounded good.  Later, it sounded even better when I added a Lexicon CP1 environmental processor that provided a little more reverberation time, and was fed only through two Hersey IIs I placed to the rear, near the ceiling.  The Klipschorns got the pure, unadulterated signal.  When we moved to a new house, with a room about 4 times as large, I no longer needed the Lexicon, but it died on its last day in service.  Perfect timing.  Used Lexicons are online at very low prices (original retail was $1,000), but I'm chary about buying such a complicated device used and online.  Your ears would probably be your only testing devices. 

 

Good Luck!

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Your amp just might be clipping a fair amount.  Some of that stuff is terribly compressed which raises the average power level considerably.  Your amp might just be running out of steam and clipping makes the highs harsh.  Turning up the bass could make things worse if so.  How much is it rated for?

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8 hours ago, willland said:

@CptPrice,

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Give us a description of your room, length x width x height, hard/soft surfaces(floors, walls, drapes, rugs, carpet, etc)

Are speakers toed in/out?

 

Bill

Sorry for the late reply.
My room dimensions are; Length 4.5m ( 14.7 ft ) Width 3.4m ( 11.15 ft ) Height 2.35m ( 7.70 ft )
I unfortunately sit on the width and not length since I have a bed and a desk in the way. Tried to move the furniture around but it's not possible.
I do have a carpet, some stuff on the walls, drapes, a bed, desk and a small table. Basically a "normal" room.
Speakers are facing straight, tried both toed in and out.

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2 hours ago, garyrc said:

 

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Alternatives to turning down the treble are:

  1.  Turn up the bass a bit
  2.  Add a good subwoofer, and turn it up a little.

One reason these tend to work, without cutting treble detail, as with a treble control that rolls off the treble starting at the top, is that when you set the main volume to your preferred volume level, you probably take your cue mostly from the bass -- when the bass is powerful, the music is "loud," even though the midrange and treble will be lower in comparison with the bass, since you haven't turned the Main Volume up as far, yet haven't sloped the midrange/treble down the way a tone control would.  The goal is to deal with the imbalance and harshness without vacating the highest frequencies that provide the "air" and "shimmer."

 

You might try putting the speakers in the corner, which should increase the bass by up to 6 dB.   If you do, put some absorbent material on the side walls, where the sound from the tweeter would first hit the side wall (carefully place a yardstick or piece of board flat across/against the front surface of the tweeter, then determine where it would first hit each sidewall.  Place the absorbers there, having them extend 2 feet farther into the room.  You only need pads about 2 feet wide, and 4 feet high, centered on the height of the tweeter.  No need for the pad to go all the way to the floor.  Don't put in too much absorption.

 

image.jpeg.23712ff17283a74b6b67b35f52f42250.jpeg

 

Thanks to Chris A for these ideas.  He wrote them with corner horns in mind, but if you put your speakers deep into corners (what I'm suggesting) you have a situation similar to corner horns.   See Chris A's Corner Horn Imaging on this forum.  Try it with some folded over blankets first, to see if it helps.

 

Do you have carpeting?  Some throw rugs (area rugs) especially at the points the tweeter sound would bounce off the floor, might help.  Again, don't over absorb, or at least make one kind of change at a time.

 

Your room may be a little small, which could mean you are getting a higher proportion of early reflections than later, complex, reverberation that usually sounds good.  Sometimes small rooms sound bright.  I had a room once with L = 12 feet, W= 9 feet, and a sloped ceiling with the lowest point 8.5 feet high and the highest point about 14 feet, for a volume of 1,215 cubic feet.  I put Klipschorns in there.  People thought I was crazy.  But with carefully placed absorption and diffusion it sounded good.  Later, it sounded even better when I added a Lexicon CP1 environmental processor that provided a little more reverberation time, and was fed only through two Hersey IIs I placed to the rear, near the ceiling.  The Klipschorns got the pure, unadulterated signal.  When we moved to a new house, with a room about 4 times as large, I no longer needed the Lexicon, but it died on its last day in service.  Perfect timing.  Used Lexicons are online at very low prices (original retail was $1,000), but I'm chary about buying such a complicated device used and online.  Your ears would probably be your only testing devices. 

 

Good Luck!

Thanks for the great tips, really appreciate it. I do have a carpet in front of the speakers all the way to the listening position. I have done the tweeter "trick" were you have someone walk around with a mirror and on the angle you the tweeter in the mirror from the listening position is were it bounces of the wall. I did put a pillows there just to see if it made a difference and it sure did. I also use regular toilet paper in front of the horns with the speaker covers.
I will try the bass thing you said. I used a XTZ 10.16 sub prior to getting the r-112sw which sounded better on lower volumes than the klipsch so you might be onto something there!

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18 minutes ago, glens said:

Your amp just might be clipping a fair amount.  Some of that stuff is terribly compressed which raises the average power level considerably.  Your amp might just be running out of steam and clipping makes the highs harsh.  Turning up the bass could make things worse if so.  How much is it rated for?

Sorry English is not my native language. If you mean Watts by rating it is 85 per channel. I don't think the amp is clipping since metallica even sounds harsh on lower volumes.

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4 hours ago, CptPrice said:

metallica even sounds harsh on lower volumes.

 

With an in-room sensitivity of 97 dB/1w/1m, (the Klipsch rated sensitivity of your speakers in a typical room) you would get about 112 dB continuous average, in your small room at 13 feet listening distance (and, as I understand it, you will be sitting closer) from a mere 64 watts per channel.  If your Yamaha puts out a real 85 watts per channel, 2 channels operating, at a decent THD and IM distortion level (below .09 % at rated power) then I don't see much chance of it clipping, even with compressed material --- unless the Yamaha is not working correctly.  Please don't subject yourself to 112 dB continuous average; 112 dB is very very loud.   In fact Paul Klipsch characterized it (for an average level) as "too damn loud."  It is O.K. for very brief peaks (milleseconds), but as a continuous level it is ear damaging.  OSHA (the United States workplace standards department) says that people should not be exposed to sound at 112 dB for any more than of 22 minutes in a 24 hour day.   Other agencies (e.g. Australia) are more stringent.

 

Back in the 1980s, Yamaha had a reputation of being somewhat bright.  I don't know about now.

 

High quality speakers with horn loaded midrange and treble (like Klipsch) can be very revealing.  Some other speakers veil the sound.  Any distortion Metallica or other bands produce will probably be audible on Klipsch, warts and all.

 

 

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5 hours ago, CptPrice said:

Sorry English is not my native language. If you mean Watts by rating it is 85 per channel. I don't think the amp is clipping since metallica even sounds harsh on lower volumes.

Hi Cpt

 

You've got to remember that even though its rated to 85W, you're probably not even getting half that... Its all about true wattage or the RMS. Sadly, no spec sheet will give us this information. 

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Many times I find Klipsch speakers a touch high in the treble.  Most speakers, for a balanced sound usually tail off a couple of db in the high frequency but Klipsch Reference series does not.  It helps with dialog and movies.  Typically up a db or so.  For louder listening, particularly up close where the bass, mid, and treble have not been able to form together, this slight pronounced treble will be quite screechy.  For louder listening, a lowered treble is preferred.  I put a resistor instead of a strap on a set of RF-82IIs I had to drop the horn down a bit.  Also I have found many later Yamaha receivers mated with Klipsch Reference to be somewhat bright.  Older higher end Yamahas not as bad.

 

Tilt down the treble in one fashion or another for louder listening or get a darker front end would be of great help.  Also deadening the room wouldn't hurt if possible.

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15 hours ago, HenrikTJ said:

Hi Cpt

 

You've got to remember that even though its rated to 85W, you're probably not even getting half that... Its all about true wattage or the RMS. Sadly, no spec sheet will give us this information. 

 

Actually, some spec sheets do.  Integrated amps, and separate power amps tend to be better and be more honest in their ratings than AVRs which tend to use power supplies that are too small for the number of channels involved

 

The Yamaha AS-501 is only a 2 channel amp.  On Yamaha's spec sheet it lists 85 watts, 8 ohms, 2 channels operating, 20 to 20,000 Hz.  On Superfi the spec sheet for the Yamaha AS-501 lists:

 
Amplifier power (watts) 2 x 85 (8 ohms, RMS)
2 x 120 (4 ohms)
 

So, either the Yamaha provides around 85 watts RMS, or somebody is not being candid.

 

True, AVR specs (rather than integrated amp specs) are full of all sorts of misleading :pwk_bs:, usually ridiculous specs like my favorite :pwk_bs: filled spec: Power: 100 watts, 1K Hz, at 10% distortion, 1 channel

operating.  In other words, the amp is truly horrible at 100 watts!  The idea is to mislead beginners.  The point is these are merely misleading.  If they were absolute lies, and the FTC got wind of the fraud, the company would be in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Regardless, if the treble seems to hot for you it is. Turn it down problem solved. This is not rocket science, you are already stuffing the horn with tissue. I turn mine down one, bass up one, and in this room...perfection. Perhaps in your room the solution will be similar. I know of no one who lives in the same sound environment as the design studio or test facility. That is what tone controls are for, control.

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  • Klipsch Employees
On 2/3/2019 at 2:05 PM, CptPrice said:

Hey, I have had my Klipsch RP-260F with r112sw for around 3 months now. I really like the sound image but at "higher" volumes I do actually find them a bit too bright, especially listening to something like metallica where the cymbal sometimes can be ear piercing. I really do like the dynamic of the speakers but I can't listen to them for too long at high volumes ( which I prefer ). 

My question is am I doing something wrong?
Is my room too small? Am I sitting too close? Is it a bad amp match?

Stereo amp; Yamaha AS-501
Speaker distance; 1.65m (5.5ft )
Listening position distance; 1.5m ( 5 ft )

It's the absolute maximum distances I can use in my room.

Dude. It’s the source material. 

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What solved the upper midrange harshness of my Heresies was to upgrade from an inexpensive Best Buy 100W Sony A/V receiver to a 50W NAD 326BEE integrated amp. While I can't do a blind A/B, to me the harshness has greatly reduced, and I also get more bass even with Tone Defeat on the NAD than I did with the bass turned 3/4 up on the Sony. 

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I have the same speakers and had the same issue. In my situation the room was just too small. These speakers need a little space to breathe. Moved them to my larger beach condo and problem solved. Lovely warm sound and no harshness. Onkyo TX-RZ810 and 820. 

Otherwise many good tips already mentioned in previous posts. Especially placing them in corners (like mine now) and turning the treble down a notch.

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On 2/4/2019 at 8:43 PM, garyrc said:

 

Actually, some spec sheets do.  Integrated amps, and separate power amps tend to be better and be more honest in their ratings than AVRs which tend to use power supplies that are too small for the number of channels involved

 

The Yamaha AS-501 is only a 2 channel amp.  On Yamaha's spec sheet it lists 85 watts, 8 ohms, 2 channels operating, 20 to 20,000 Hz.  On Superfi the spec sheet for the Yamaha AS-501 lists:

 
Amplifier power (watts) 2 x 85 (8 ohms, RMS)
2 x 120 (4 ohms)
 

So, either the Yamaha provides around 85 watts RMS, or somebody is not being candid.

 

True, AVR specs (rather than integrated amp specs) are full of all sorts of misleading :pwk_bs:, usually ridiculous specs like my favorite :pwk_bs: filled spec: Power: 100 watts, 1K Hz, at 10% distortion, 1 channel

operating.  In other words, the amp is truly horrible at 100 watts!  The idea is to mislead beginners.  The point is these are merely misleading.  If they were absolute lies, and the FTC got wind of the fraud, the company would be in trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They allowed relaxed specifications for AVRs because their PS and architecture would not allow them to match the quality of a good 2 channel amplifier.  If the AVR does match a 2 Channel amp, it is likely very heavy and very expensive (unless using quality class d).

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