RF-7 vs. Klipschorn

[bkrop]

ignore that but how does the LaScala compare to the RF-7? I have a few days to make up my mind...

[prodj101]

while I've only heard the RF-7's, from what I've read it seems like the lascala's take the "horn" sound to an extreme, and that if you like that, you'll love them. I think the RF-7's would sound a bit more neutral (as far as klipsch goes) and less colored, but the lascala's would be more dynamic, yet more harsh sounding due to the fact they are vary lacking in bass (only rated down to 54 hz I think).

[Deang]

Well said.

The hair trigger transients and somewhat limited but slamming horn loaded bass of the LaScala to the exceptionally well balanced, smooth, wide open, and superior imaging of the RF-7's.

I think any harshness is due more to the harmonic distortion induced by the small throat of the squawker than the lack of bass response. Rope caulk and good tubes do much to minimize it.

I don't see how you can wrong with either choice.

Flip a coin.

[Audio Flynn]

It is kind of like coffe ice cream.

Never met a bad tasting scoop; but they are all different.

RF-7 is a 2 way

La Scala is a classic folded horn 3 way.

Intensive listening is needed to understand the difference.

Neither is a poor choice.

[lynnm]

What do you have now ??

I upgraded from the KLF30 to the Khorn and was a little perplexed at first as the overall sound of the Khorn seemed "airier " than the 30 but overall the 30's seemed to offer more bass.

I was then facing a dilemma because while I loved the airiness and utterly seamless integration of the Khorn - I missed the "slam" of my 30's ( which also were very open and airy ). After listening for a few days the answer came to be a No-Brainer.

The 30's will deliver more upper bass slam than the Khorn on average.

The 30's will definitely deliver as much LOW end as the Khorn on average.

All in all Khorns are more "open" in their range from the absolute bottom through to the limits of my hearing aids ( Yep I be a Biamped Audiofool !! ) .

That said I can honestly say that my Khorns are the most "Integrated - ie naturalistic" speakers I have ever experienced ). In other words I lose any sense of what sounds are coming from woofer/mid/tweeter/right/left/centre etc.

This is not to suggest that the soundstage is narrow or shallow. Quite the contrary ! I simply find that the speakers and the room disappear and the musicians settle in and do their thing.

I have very limited experience with the RF7 speaker. I A/B'd them against the 30's and bought the 30's based partially on the sense the 30's had a nicer bottom end. In retrospect it may well be that the 7's are a little closer to the heritage sound than the 30's.

In any event the only thing that could have replaced my 30's was the Mighty Khorn and for me there is no looking back.

The RF7's will thrill. The Khorns will blow the 7's into the next county!

[bkrop]

aaaargh! I need to waait to get Klipschorns, I can't even get a resounding response to LaS vs. RF-7, even though the LaS are second fiddle to the Khorn!

[lynnm]

Don't be too quick to snub the Lascasla's. They are essentially a Khorn with a cabinet that is somewhat less dependent on placement. In real terms the Khorn goes only 10 hz. further into low end and therefore many would be hard put to ever hear the difference.

I love my horns but realistically a good pair of Lascala's would likely sound as good in my listening room given that my room is not really ideally proportioned for the horns ( 16 X 26 X 9 ) - not bad but not nearly perfect.

If you have an opportunity to pick up a pair of Lascalas at a good price I would say - Do It!

[greg928gts]

I would say the same, if you can get a good working pair of La Scalas for $1000 or under, you won't be disapointed.

Make sure the cabinets are tight at the bottom of the bass bin, and make sure they have original type components. It's worth it to take the bottom off and check the woofers. Many La Scala owners are surprised to learn that someone changed the woofers at some point along the line.

Greg

[Deang]

Big Heritage will definitely blow the RF-7 into the next county -- you can't fight physics. But there is something to be said for the smoothness and coherency that only comes with a two-way (or a single driver). As far as micro-dynamic retrieval goes, Big Heritage doesn't have anything on the RF-7. Push them into a corner with a good amp -- and they creep up very close to the K-horn in macro-dynamics.

You really shouldn't be buying any speaker that you haven't heard. However, buy the Scala -- if you don't like them, you won't have a problem unloading them.

[AndyKubicki]

Ummm, can I ask a dumb question? I don't read a lot of reviews and am not, therefore, up to par with some of these terms...can someone 'splain these?

Open

Airy

micro-dynamic retrieval

macro-dynamics

That said I can honestly say that my Khorns are the most "Integrated - ie naturalistic" speakers I have ever experienced ). In other words I lose any sense of what sounds are coming from woofer/mid/tweeter/right/left/centre etc.

Lynn, this is an accurate description! Even in my "L" shaped room I can close my eyes and not realize where the music is coming from.

You really have hearing aides??? What, if I may ask, is the frequency response of those things? I have been curious because my dad, now 84, has lost a lot of his hearing in recent years and has been wearing a hearing aid himself. This may mean that should I live so long, I may be in for the same thing, yet you can hear all this detail in music...that's great!

[marksdad]

lascallas win hands down, both are excellent speaks, cant go wrong, but lascallas are in an entirely different class. the 7's have more overall output, and never sound bad, but the lascallas sound so natural-sweet-smooth-refined..........

[Deang]

Open: The speakers vanish. There is no sense that the sound is eminating from drivers. The sound just comes from the open space in front of them. Side to side, top to bottom. The center space has as much output as the sides - from where the sound is coming from.

Airy: Probably somewhat related to a speakers ability to properly recreate decay. For example; cymbal crashes don't splash, and you can hear the sound of them fade into the backround. The sounds of rain and crowd applause don't sound like fying bacon. The sound of the squawker sounds "tight" and "dry" by comparison.

micro-dynamic retrieval: The sounds in recordings are layered. Things buried in the recording are brought forward without being trampled on by the sounds in the foreground. At higher SPL's, and when the music "gets busy", these sounds stay coherent within the soundfield. The RF-7 keeps it's character and signature at all SPL's. The character and signature do not change as the SPL goes up. There is less compression, so there is better retrieval of the low level information at all SPLs.

macro-dynamics: We all know what this is. Big Heritage does this extremely well. Life size soundfield, the instruments sound "real". The space is filled much in the same way the instrument would do it if it were in front of you. I can "mimic" this effect with my RF-7's by pushing them into the corners. This makes use of the back wall as a baffle, and the bass is loaded up. The soundfield becomes expansive, and the pressure waves of the bass become more intense -- this at the expense of pinpoint imaging and the three-dimensional effect of having them out into the room some.

[j-malotky]

bkrop

I love the LAS. For all you Khorn someday dreamers, unless you have a nicely proportioned room listening room, I would chose a LAS and a nice subwoofer.

The LAS sounds great wherever you put it. Very versatile.

JM

[lynnm]

Re: Hearing:

"You really have hearing aides??? What, if I may ask, is the frequency response of those things?"

As far as I am aware most hearing aids are designed to provide amplification and correction in the range from approximately 200 hz. to 8Khz. I mention correction as a component as most users do not display an even slope in their hearing loss so for example the drop off is frequently far more severe in some parts of the frequency range than others. Normal hearing is not precisely linear in nature and impaired hearing tends to be even less so.

In my case I have a moderately severe hearing loss in my left ear and a somewhat less severe loss in my right ear. My audiologist and otolaryngologist (try saying that one when your half p1ssed ) have told me that my hearing deficit is likely due to two factors - Meniere's Syndrome ( a very mild case fortunately as that one can be a major bummer ) and a head injury that occurred when I was a kid.

My ability to "hear" the detail in music and easily distinguish the major differences between speakers is the happy result of my having enjoyed relatively normal hearing well into my forties. Research has shown that the brain compensates for various types of information loss by (to a degree) - filling in the blanks. Therefore so long as one has had the ability to experience the full audio spectrum in the past and the hearing loss is not too severe - hearing aids will frequently enable the user to "hear" what sounds to the user to be the full audio range while using the aids - even though audiometric measurements would show a deficit beyond the 8 Khz. point.

Re: Khorn vs RF7

Weasel Word Section:

My comment that the Khorn will blow an RF 7 into the next county is based on the Khorn being used in an appropriate room. I could easily imagine a pair of RF 7's or KLF 30's with their placement flexibility sounding better than a Klipschorn in a room that is acoustically ill suited to the Khorn.

[Colin]

Qualification questions

Since your Klipsch profile still does not allow you to list what equipment you have, what use you make of your music and movie reproduction system or your room dimensions, we need to ask:

1. What source do you prefer? MP3, CD, vinyl, cable, VHS or DVD?

2. What amplification do you have now? Watts? Class A? Solid-state? Multichannel?

3. How many channels do you have now or do you want to have?

4. Do you have room for 4 or 5 big old horns?

5. Do you have a sub-woofer - is it quite deep or more typical HT style?

6. How big is the listening room how much space do you have?

7. Can you play your loudspeakers away from the walls?

8. How loud do you play movies or music intimate studio, small folk group, jazz club or rock concert?

9. What really grabs you: clear vocal mid-range, solid bass, deep bass, accurate bass, tingling treble, dynamic snap, details, linear accuracy, tonal definition, separation between instruments, wide sound stage or huge 3D imaging?

As you may have guessed, the answers to these questions steer you in the direction you should go. Are there differences between one model, say a Reference line loudspeaker and the big old horns? Why, certainly! But it doesn't take much to see that the sound of two speakers alone doesn't amount to a hill of beans in your audio/visual world. Lots of other things are important too.

Course, it goes without saying, though I am about to anyway, but you really should listen to both loudspeakers as much as possible, with as wide a selection of music as possible.

[bkrop]

Qualification answers

1)CD,FM,vinyl,VHS for now till DVD-R DVD-A SACD settles out

2)Yamaha RXV-800, Scott 299-C rebuilt by Craig

3)KG 4, KG 3, RC3II. The KG 4's have remained hooked up to the Scott since it got here. The Lascala/RF 7 would be for stereo with the kg 4's going back to HT.

5)Yamaha sws-150 (stays with HT)

6)20X24w/ 8 ft ceiling

7)sure

8)depends if the missus is home

9)yes

So for 2 channel audio bliss with a vintage tube, considering I am used to the bass of the KG 4's flip a coin?

[Deang]

You could easily go either way. Man, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now.

You have KG-4's, and this means you are already dialed in to the phenolic dome/exponential horn sound (The RF-7 uses a tractrix lens and titanium driver).

Think of the LaScala as a KG-4 loaded up on steroids, with a more forward midrange.

On the other hand, you are also dialed in to the sound of a two-way, and depending on how long you have been listening to two-ways -- going to a three-way with a midrange horn is fairly intense.

You really need to find a way to hear Big Heritage before you move on this. Seriously. Where do you live? There might be a chance you live close to someone here that will give you listen.

[AndyKubicki]

Thanks for the mini-glossary Dean! It was clear and easy to understand. It's funny that I experienced the "openness" of my KHorns years ago...it just amazed me to listen to a record and close my eyes and it did seem like the music was everywhere. What's funny to me now is to read the word and not know it related to that particular trait. I posted here in the past that I thought my system lost some of that quality, but as I have been pulling my poor records out of the garage and washing them and listening to them again, I noticed that with the Scott amp and certain record it has never gone away...it's more appaarent in some recordings. I used to be a big fan of Chicago and have the first several LPs. As I played Chicago 7 (there is some awsome jazz on that one, I'm not too fond of their more Pop sound) I noticed the room filled once again. It seems the horns blowing from both channels are just all over the room. Kath's guitar on one side balanced by Lamm's keyboard on the other...nicely recorded...bass level up where you can hear it...but then, it's not an acoustic bass with it's dead spot, but an electric bass that is clean and every note is audible.

Lynn, what you said about the brain filling in missing info (this works in a lot more than just audio) ties in with what I posted in the So Cal Horn group Metting thread...I should have thought of that.

[lynnm]

" Lynn, what you said about the brain filling in missing info (this works in a lot more than just audio) "

Very true . In fact this occurs with virtually every type of information that the brain processes . This behaviour can be problematic and is what makes eyewitness testimony so notoriously unreliable for example. On the other hand it is the brain's ability to fill in the blanks which facilitates conversation and many other human interactions.

Have you ever read an absolutely verbatim transcript of an ordinary conversation between two people intimately familiar with one another ? I have seen a couple of examples and what struck me was what was not said. One and two word sentences were common. Sounds. Sentences without stated subjects - others without verbs. Notwithstanding all of that the speakers obviously fully understood each other.

That disjointed collection of words when combined with facial expression,body language,voice tone and a context clearly was a complete communication. In the one case the speakers were shown the transcript individually and asked to comment. Each complained that the stenographer had not produced an accurate transcript because there was too much left out.

[AndyKubicki]

Yes Lynn, and to flip things around with eyewitness testimony, it can also be problematic as in the case of false memory syndrome where false memories have been fabricated(such as when people claim they have been abuse as a child, yet the rest of the family cannot verify this; though some of these claims may be true, many are not).

Your description of the verbatim conversation is interesting also. We do the reverse here on this forum, in that all our communication is also missing body language, facial expressions etc, and I'm sure that many times our written words have been misinterpreted and even at times have lead to verbal battles.

Did you say you work in menal health?