justin_tx_16 Posted November 5, 2002 Share Posted November 5, 2002 Ok. Today is the first day for me to listen to my newly aquired Heresy's. They sound terrible. Harsher than a peacocks mating cry. The midrange peirces my ears like Kutco knives through a Amanita pachycolea. The bass is as powerful as a Daihatsu Charade. The tweeter is as tinny as an Oklahoma horse stable. The overall sound quality is as high as the Great Barrier Reef. The loudness is equivalent to Aretha Franklin ON the Great Barrier Reef. The dynamics are as vast as the seconds it takes my car to go from 0-60. The sound is as life like as anime cartoon animals. The efficiency is that of a 1992 Range Rover Land Rover LWB on regular unleaded. The overall first impression tastes as good as rotten avacodoes, smells as bad as the orange fungus that killed two of our Hickory trees, emotionally moves me as much as a frog moves the earth as he jumps from pod to pod. All and all, I am as depressed as the space bar in a 13,000 word doctoral on the differences in two species of Lytorhynchus Ridgewayi and Oligodon Taeniolatus of the Colubridae family and the Squamata order. Ok. Now that that is out, and is all true, let me tell you why. I do not have an amp for them yet. I am using my Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 amplifier. 60 watts at 4 ohms. Going tomorrow (if my bank ever recognized my deposits and movements of money from account to account (come on bank of america, it has been 5 days!) to get a receiver. Not going to spend more than $200 on this since I am bringing it to college and just want it to sound decent (well sound great, but not tubes yet) and need some serious inputs (dvd, cd, tv, computer and it needs a tuner). Thinking of getting the Pioneer VSX-510D again. Maybe with these better speakers it will not go into clipping, those Yamaha's, quite the inefficient ba$tard$ they are! So, what do you think? I can ont wait to hear Hounds of Spring tomorrow on them. I have a solo, or two, in that song. If you want a download of me playing, it sounds terrific if I may say so myself, just let me know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluless Posted November 5, 2002 Share Posted November 5, 2002 Dont get your SSSSssscales in a wad (yet), Can you SSSSSssslither over to a friendSSSSssss place and hook thoSSSesssss Hereseys up to a real receiver? I've never heard the HereSSSSssssys, and other than them miSSSSssssing some baSSSssss I cant imagine them SSSSSssssounding SSSSsssooo bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edster00 Posted November 5, 2002 Share Posted November 5, 2002 Justin, I must have told you an hundred million thousand times not to exaggerate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted November 5, 2002 Author Share Posted November 5, 2002 Oh it's no exaggeration. That is what happens when you put 60 watts of solid state 4 ohm power through 22 guage speaker wire from a $400 multimedia system into a Heresy. Now, when I get a real power source... a total 360! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 OK Justin, Welcome to the world of high efficiency speakers that are not nearly as easy to drive as you might think. When I originally bought mine I hooked them up to a Yamaha Receiver (the 595 is memory serves - about 90 wpc SUPPOSEDLY!!) and it sucked - bigtime. It just wouldnt drive them properly. I first added a Rotel 1080 2 channel power amp (200 WPC) and it drove them fine using the Yamaha as a pre but it was still harder than diamond studded underwear. After a short while (5 weeks) I replaced the whole thing with the Accuphase E211 (I sold yesterday) and it was much much better. The piercing highs were controlled, a soundstage appeared and even a little bass poked its head around the corner. Of course there was another leap forwards with the introduction of tubes but that was an evolution in sound rather than a revolution. Do not lose heart. It is a struggle but the results are remarkable once you achieve them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kain Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Aren't the Klipsch Heresys 8 ohms speakers? If so, won't you damage them by playing them with a 4 ohms amp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 No they will play quite happily with 4 ohms - I have tried it, but you may damage them with low power amps whether running at 4 or 8 ohms. I forgot to mention this to Justin. My advice would be to disconnect the speakers from the current amp immediately. Good point Kain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike82 Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Actually, it not the speakers that sound terrible, it's the AMP that sounds terrible. The entire Heritage line s very transparent and will certainly let you hear the "warts" of the upstream components. My advice: forget the megawatt s-s gear and find yourself a mid to low powered tube integrated. Then you'll hear how wonderful the Heresys are. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Not surprised at your initial impressions, though I am overwhelmed by your glaring carnival like mix of analogies, metaphors and similes. What you are experiencing is the sometimes wonderful, and sometimes painful, musical truth as revealed by super-sensitive loudspeakers. Dont forget, young grasshopper, that the super-efficiency of the big old horns completely changes the musical requirements of front-end equipment. You are now out of the league of the typical off-the-shelf stereo system. Your loudspeakers do longer match the typical 84 to 86-dB/w/m requirements of most conventional loudspeakers. You are in the horn zone. It is not the wattage of the receiver that matters. It is the quietness and cleanliness of the first few microwatts. That is why HORNS LOVE TUBES. I have heard a cheap Sony boom box drive my big old horns. Within normal volume levels, it was quite nice. The midrange soundstage, realism, dynamics, clarity, smoothness and tone and the treble sharpness and metallic ringing was preferable to moderate price cone loudspeakers and receivers. My own Khorns sounded so bad in the dealership, that I was embarrassed to even play them and literally had to take a big breath before saying OK, Ill take them. I assumed that they had something wrong with them (Monster wire on the crossovers) and that I would soon be buying the ALK custom crossovers. Yet, when hooked up to my Bottlehead 2A3 Paramours, they gelled together like jello and whipped cream. Take a look at the remarkable ASL integrated amplifiers or the new nOrth SE9 integrated amplifier, if your ears are moving up to the purist crowd. If you have pre-amplifier outs on your receiver, Mr. mad poster, I would look at the $99 ASL Wave 8 tube monoblocks. I heard these up against a superb Pass X250 amplifier on a pair of beloved Cornwall 1s and I can honestly say they kept up quite well. Remember, that tube watts aint SS watts (the actual sine wave output is about five times higher than the square wave ratings). So ten tube watts easily competes with 50 SS watts, or more. Although I have only heard new solid state receivers on cone loudspeakers and old ones on horns, nothing I have heard in the $500 SS range has impressed me with its long-term musical enjoyment abilities. Dont think that what you get has to be inadequate, merely because it is going into a hard, square and crowded dorm room. Heritage loudspeakers are keepers, the potential foundation of a great music and HT system. So too with tube equipment. The sound can be so right in the long run, that you are not likely to want to make many changes only additions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Justin - Mixed analogies, metaphors, and similies aside, I was ROTFL at your descriptions. Reminds me of the experience we enjoyed in Hope, AR when Ross Taylor hooked the venerable Emerson clock radio in the hotel room to his brand-new-fresh-picked-up-at-the-factory Heresy IIs. But it sure was fun! Colin has some great advice - heed it well, grasshopper. With tubes, you'll be the coolest dude on the floor (or in da house) and the chicks will groove on that ("Have you seen the size of Justin's tubes???"). If you can't swing/handle the tube thing, I'd for sure check some used options for a higher-quality receiver for the same flow you'd blow on a new one. You'll be glad you did when it gets down to stereo-wars time. DD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCturboT Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Justin, I agree with Colin and the others here-when I picked up my K-horns I listened to them through a Sony AV receiver and I too thought something was wrong with them.They simply sounded horrible which I think is the case with others that have heard Klipsch horns with bad equiptment and disliked them.You really have to be careful when matching up Klipsch with amplification. Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobile homeless Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 10,000 posts (sentence long king) and ole Justin is asking this question in perplexed fashion? Stop posting for a brief second and READ my little pro-media friend! heh... While not totally in sync with Colin's amp suggestions, his points are RIGHT ON THE MONEY, and something that has been said, at least in the 2 channel area, time and time again, almots like beating a gong. Hell, a little Jolida 102B EL-84 integrated will sweep the slate clean... Do some fun under the sun mods and you will be dancing like a Hippy at Haight Ashbury (33 yrs ago)..... kh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Fear not Justin, My Heresies just came a few minutes ago and they sound nice. I would think that the ProMedia amp is going to sound rather odd on anything other than the PM satellites, thats what it was made to drive, not "real" speakers. The Heresies are certainly real speakers, on my three hundred dollar Yamaha reciever they sound (to my ears)Fantastic. I can only imagine what they will sound like once I get some tubes for my turntable. btw, wouldn't running them off the ProMedia amp mean that they were only getting mid and high frequency signals due to the crossover in the amp-sub unit?? Just be patient and wait for a good amp to come along Peace, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpg Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 I powered my KG-2.5's with my PM amp for a while... it sounds ok... but not really. There are no lows, well, what lows there are sound bad. Highs are really shrill. If you are looking for a good stereo amp, the Onkyo TX-SR8211 sounds really nice for the money. Well, it sounded nice to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Cornell Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Justin KG4s? LOL Welcome to the world of high$ audio, so much for pro media LOL! Yea just for now go with a 2 channel reciever, to get you thru college! LOL Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eq_shadimar Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Justin - If you can swing it the HK 2 channel and 5.1 receivers sound really good on Klipsch speakers. I have an older HK 20MKII and a newer HK 510 that I have used with the Klipsch Cornwalls and Heresy's. I would recommend the HK stuff over most of the stuff in the same price range. If you drive on up to Dallas (only a nice 6 hour drive or so) you could hear for yourself Laters, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted November 6, 2002 Author Share Posted November 6, 2002 I have this feeling that you guys really thought I would expect even DECENT sound from a 4 ohm, 60 watt amp with a crossover at 150Hz. I in NO way expect great things from an amp as BASH as this . I was just trying to put a comical post about what happens when you mix low a fidelity amp with a dash high fidelity speakers, bake at 350*F for 15 minutes and let cool on rack. i FULLY intend to get a nice solid state (but not expensive, college+beer+frat_house=CRAP!) or a nice tube. If i go with tubes i need a preamp as well though. BTW, the heresy's went off the amp after listening to 3 songs, ~15 minutes of play time. I am not >>stupid<< enough (hehe) to try and do that as a primary or for even extended periods. I would experience more clipping than the New York Times classifieds section. That reminds me (talk about monster cable inside for crossovers etc etc), would i benefit from putting in say 14 guage say Monster XP cable inplace of the internal wires (from crossover to speaker)? so cheap and easy, it is tempting. i plan to use this to connect the speakers to the amp as well. Please Advise hehe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Justin - The Jolida that Kelly mentions above is an integrated amp, so you may not need the preamp. http://www.jolida.com/catalogue/jd102b.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted November 6, 2002 Author Share Posted November 6, 2002 everything about it is inticing, except its price! Yeouch! I am not going to spend a bundle on this if i don't have to. I have about 20 other $300+ things I need before school starts in the fall, give or take 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krustyoldsarge Posted November 6, 2002 Share Posted November 6, 2002 Thanks to a federal law that gives the lion's share of my military retirement to my ex-wife, I understand budget limitations. Here's krusty's two cents: Tubes is best. See if you can score a good Fisher 400, 500 or 800. Hard to upgrade from one of these. A receiver with Al Pugliese's update mods (fisherdoc) is a good find. Scott also has its fans. These are sweet units that should make your Heresies sing. They might put you over budget, though. Got mine at a yard sale for $35 years ago. Marantz 2270 or above. Be advised some early senior Marantz receiver models had an underbuilt tone section. The fixes are simple and out on the web. The 2220b I retired drove my kg4s well enough for the neighbors to complain, the 2385 I'm using now is magic! You may not have enough jacks for your gear, so you might want to consider a stand-alone switchbox for the low-fi stuff. But hey, we're on a budget, so we can't have everything! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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