RF-5 vs. B&W nautilus 800 for detail?

[prodj101]

well, anyway, I hiked down to the high end sound place the other day with pomps and pipes in hand, wanting to test a bunch of cd's sense it's one of my reference discs. Anyway, somehow it's gotten pretty scratched up, so much so that it has the slight, but noticeable "pops" and clicking sounds every once in awhile in songs. Now these are very quite (not to the point where it is obvious) but anyway, I can hear them on my system, but not on the B&W speakers. Could it be that the horns in the RF-5's bring out that frequency band just a little more than the B&W's? or that the "harsh" sound of the horns allows it to bring out this small "detail" in the recording? It could also be one of the components in the system, maybe the CD player was just so good it could read through them. but than again I've also used many high end cd players, and you can always hear these small errors in the cd. any insight?

[justin_tx_16]

Yep. Klipsch speakers are detailed to a fault at times. I am archiving all my CD's right now onto Harmony Gold CD's (the DVD/Music forum has a thread about this). This way I don't have to chance damaging the original CD. With HDCD's, I think you are out of luck as far as making an HDCD copy, made a Pomps and Pipes copy last night. I will see if HDCD pops up on a HDCD player next time I get a chance, though I doubt it will work.

[jerohm]

If your equipment is new enough and fast enough, you most certainly CAN copy HDCD and DTS CDs too.

[Fish]

recording dts,that would be sweet.

[justin_tx_16]

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On 3/3/2003 8:02:56 PM jerohm wrote:

If your equipment is new enough and fast enough, you most certainly CAN copy HDCD and DTS CDs too.

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Really?! I have a 52x CD burner, brand new of course, and a Pentium 4 3.06Ghz, 2GB ram, fast enough? . I just thought that HDCD's had two layers, one for CD content (taking up 650-700Mb) and then a higher definition layer below that, like Double Layer DVD's.

[oogins]

It really all depends on the components used in the systems. I've heard RF7's, RB5's, B&W 802's and 805's in many different setups using many different components. Some components really bring out details in recordings, while some others sound a tad muddy at times. There have been a couple times where my scratched CD's made a slight click in playback, but I heard them on both the Klipsch and B&W's.

IMO, I find that B&W Nautilus speakers sound a bit more detailed than Klipsch Reference speakers. They just aren't as forward, in-your-face, if you will, as the Klipsch.

[Jolly Roger]

I'd say the B&W 600 series would be a closer match. The Klipsch seem to have a little more agressive sound with better highs. I think all of the B&W's I have ever heard have a great midrange and the extreme highs and lows just get better as you go up the line in models. The reason the Klipsch bring out the pops more is probably due to the fact that they are more sensitive speakers and just play everything (good and bad) louder.

[prodj101]

I kind prefer the klipsch sound to B&W's. while B&W's may be accurat, they aren't as fun to my ears. To me, it's like going from a ferrari to a ford escort as far as music goes, they just sound boring.

[jerohm]

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I just thought that HDCD's had two layers, one for CD content (taking up 650-700Mb) and then a higher definition layer below that, like Double Layer DVD's.

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Do you mean SACDs?? You are out of luck for them. HDCD are just standard redbook CDs with a special noise shaping alogrithm using the LSBits. I have a 750MHz NT4.0 SCSI system, w/ Yamaha CRW2100S burner and have no trouble copying HDCD or DTS originals. Not all that new or fast!

[justin_tx_16]

that's great!

[cc1091]

Here's my take on this:

I really find that the B&W are quite a bit more detailed in their sound. But they don't push the sound forward like a Klipsch speaker does. A lot of audiophiles find the Klipsch in your face sound to be unattractive. The best analogy I've heard is that listening to B&Ws are like listening to a great orchestra in a very good concert hall; Klipsches are like playing in that orchestra. Taking the analogy further, you may hear all the screw-ups of the players around you with the Klipsch, but in general, the sound is great.

I hear a lot of ambient noises with my Heresy's that I don't hear with my RP-3s. My B&Ws (602s) give me a lot more texture to the sounds I hear than do either my Heresy's or my RP-3s. I also like the tweeter on the B&Ws better than the drivers on the Heresy or the RP-3. Overall, I listen to one or the other Klipsch more often than the B&Ws, but I still want my B&Ws around.

The Nautilus that I heard were a lot dry-er than the 602s. Could have been the setup at the store where I listened to them though. They tend to like a more dry and flat sounding system than I do. The Nautilus (along with Krell Monoblocks, MIT Oracle Cables, and some other high end CD player that I didn't get the name of) did show off the difference between a great recording and a run of the mill recording. I had never heard that difference so well defined before. Recordings that I thought were above average were often shown to be poor in comparison with others that I heard through the same system. But I do recall that the music was in this plane that was in front of me; whereas a klipsch system would place the music to my left, to my right, and in front of me.