DanB Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 I too am very pleased with the sound of my RC-35, which is paired with RF-35 mains and RB-3 surrounds and rears. My center lives on top of a 57 " WS Toshiba, has two rubber pads on the front bottom edges and two sonically approved, Home Depot Boutique, brown, rubber door wedges at the rear corners tilting it down at the sweet spot. Crystal clear, dynamic, thunderous Klipsch sound roars outta that thing for movies only as I only listen to music in 2 channel stereo. My tone controls are always "off" also. Even my tin eared signifigant other was moved enough to remark on how much better that speaker sounds (RC-35) than all the other junk you have wasted OUR money on over the years. For me it's a keeper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjgeraci Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 To my ears, the RC-35 colors some audio dialogue with more bass than I would like. I think that is probably due to its front ports, and that mainly comes into play with male dialogue. I never had any real problems with the unit sounding muffled, and for music, it does fine. I just think the RC3II is a better overall sounding center. Again, I am not that displeased with the RC35 because it now anchors my secondary system (in my family room). On the other hand, there have been 2 or 3 threads in the last eight months of comparisons between the RC-35 and RC3II where various people have found their RC35s to be muffled-sounding and not voice-matching their mains (RF35s). My only point is that if it sounds good to you, no worries. If someone thinks it sounds muffled, there are other options. One thing that I failed to mention was I recall a thread sometime ago where a RC-35 owner said that filling the front ports with foam pieces (like a subwoofer plug, etc.) tightened up and improved the sound. I have never tried that, but it seems like plugging those ports would have an effect on the overall sound. SSfull, you may want to try that first to see if that improves the sound of your RC-35 before going through the hassle of selling it and buying another center. Just a thought. Carl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hungmeister Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 I'm one of those that had the experience of "muffled" sound from the RC35 before I found this thread. I'll share a bit more about my experience. Before I SPL calibrated my 7.1 setup, I remember having to bump up the dBs on the center to equalize the dialog with L/R fronts. Watched Return of the King last night, and constantly had to turn up the volume on scenes with mostly dialog, and then had to turn the volume down with the higher action/sounds scenes. This was while setting the receiver to play at "low night" mode (<1 year old baby sleeping upstairs). I'm thinking that I should just bump up the dBs on the center again (now after SPL-calibrating) to avoid changing the volume so much. I should also say that it's just on some movies that the dialog seems muffled. Other movies such as Big Fish and In America that I viewed recently on the HT were fine. So it might be the dynamic volume range of the "action" movies that I'm having problems "equalizing" center to the rest of the front mains. DVD concerts however sound great (Eagles, Josh Groban, Eric Clapton to name a few), but I'm thinking maybe due to mixing the source to play out the L/R as well as center. One thing more I will try is to just configure the receiver with no center channel, and see if the L/R do a superior job filling in for the center. One thing for certain though is that the RC35 is far and above better than the RC25 that I replaced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssfull Posted June 3, 2004 Author Share Posted June 3, 2004 You are right hungmeister . The Return of the King is a real pain. In fact , after watching that movie , that is when I decided to seek some help on the center channel issue. Some movies are fine, but most of the movies I watch ( action, Sci-fi , etc.) The dialog just is not there, the action scenes rock , but I also have a newborn so I find myself in nightmode constantly. I just want to hear the dang center speaker without having to turn it up to stun!! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUTiger Posted June 3, 2004 Share Posted June 3, 2004 ssfull You never answered if you had been using the back leg to tilt the RC-35 down towards the listener. That is a must if your listener's head is 4ft above the ground (seated) and the center of the speaker is over 6ft off of the ground. I have a RC-35 and have been quite happy with it. David FOR SALE: Two new boxed RB-75s for sale or part of a trade for RCW-5s or RCR-5s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whadyasay Posted June 4, 2004 Share Posted June 4, 2004 Also, if you search this forum back several months, you'll find some threads about possible defective RC-35 and RC-25 units. There were quite a few people who experienced a muffled "coffee-can" type tone from the RC-35 (myself included) and had to return units. My current RC-25 works fine. There are quite a few movies out there with a weak center channel mix. DVD mixes are all over the place in general. Even the THX Pixar DVDs can feel a bit weak in the center. I still believe that there was an early run of bad RC-35's when they were introduced last year, and that a lot of this older stock is still being sold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAS Posted June 4, 2004 Share Posted June 4, 2004 I'm also one of those with the defective RC-25 issue. I talked to my dealer and tried several of the RC-25's, then I talked to Klipsch and they weren't aware of any problems with the units. It really does sound muffled/coffee can like in some situations. It doesn't match the rest of the reference line well and I would concur with all of the above statements regarding problems with the 25 and 35 reference series centers. I don't know if they ever fixed it but I just took it as an "I'll live with it for now" type of issue. If anyone ever hears more on this subject please let the rest of us know. Cool? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmilam Posted June 4, 2004 Share Posted June 4, 2004 I am currently in the process of setting up my HT. I have a pair of RB 5 II's for my L/R fronts--which center would best match with them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjgeraci Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 From my recollection, I think those bookshelves use the same horn/woofer as the RF3II. For an exact match, I would look for a RC3II. Carl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Pete Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 ---------------- On 6/4/2004 12:59:59 PM whadyasay wrote: Also, if you search this forum back several months, you'll find some threads about possible defective RC-35 and RC-25 units. There were quite a few people who experienced a muffled "coffee-can" type tone from the RC-35 (myself included) and had to return units. My current RC-25 works fine. There are quite a few movies out there with a weak center channel mix. DVD mixes are all over the place in general. Even the THX Pixar DVDs can feel a bit weak in the center. I still believe that there was an early run of bad RC-35's when they were introduced last year, and that a lot of this older stock is still being sold. ---------------- And that was just a rumor and your going to get going again for nothing...NONE OF THE ABOVE IS TRUE AT ALL IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM!..the RC-25 and RC-35 are the same as when they were first release and nothing is wrong with these. Klipsch representatives have replied to a few of these posts and stated the above. Now ...still... the RC-25 and RC-35 are not the greatest sounding centers if your are as picky as me and some of you guys, to most though they will do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterT Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 Whoah there Pardner, settle down!! It's not a rumour and only part of it is untrue. It wasn't an early run of bad units, all RC-35's SUCK!! I hate mine, and as soon as I get the time to pick up an RC-7 I will release mine from a 10 story building just to have the satisfaction of watching it smash to pieces. I'm not mad at Klipsch though. Of all the great speakers they have made, to begrudge them for releasing this turd would be unfair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jephdood Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Pete Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 ---------------- On 6/5/2004 11:22:27 PM jephdood wrote: http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/files/burn_money.JPG" border="0"> ---------------- The RC-35 would burn quite abit longer than a few hundreds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mario NJ Posted June 9, 2004 Share Posted June 9, 2004 I too was profoundly disappointed in the performance of my RC-35. From the first moment I heard it I thought, "What the heck, why are voices always so boxy sounding?" This set me off on weeks of tweaking. I tried plugging the ports, changing position, orientation, connectors, cables, every possible receiver setting, but nothing really made it acceptable for me. Finally I became so frustrated I was literally going to chuck it out the window. But then I thought I might as well take it apart and maybe I could find some things to tweak inside the speaker. Sure, I would probably end up ruining it, but maybe I could learn a few things in the process too. Since I knew the RC-35 was a 2 1/2 way design, my first idea was to take out that last 1/2, or the woofer that only functions from 300Hz down. So I disconnected the leads to that driver and found that taking out that extra bass really opened the speaker up and made the dialogue sound really clean, just like when running in phantom center mode. I thought my problem was fixed, Hurray! Unfortunately I must have raised the impedance so much by taking out a driver that my receiver would shut itself down at high volumes, Boooo! So instead of just taking out the bass reinforcement driver I thought, let's try to make it a full range driver by feeding it both the other woofer's and the tweeter's input at the same time. Voila, problem solved. The speaker now reproduces dialogue with greater clarity than my stock RB-75's. I'm sure I've introduced at least a couple of negative side effects, like increased comb-filtering, and for sure that 6.5" woofer has a break-up mode in the higher frequencies it is now being asked to produce, but luckily I have yet to experience any of those things, and hopefully will not until my next system upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssfull Posted June 9, 2004 Author Share Posted June 9, 2004 Well , the outcome of this whole deal is .... I sold the RC-35 and bought an RC-3II . I should recieve it today, I will hook it up tonight and see how it sounds. Thanks for all the input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colterphoto1 Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 Hi and welcome to the confusion world of HT. Our dear friend Carl C has it right. In my opinion, buy the BIGGEST, BADDEST center channel speaker you can afford and mount! Reasons: you may upgrade your mains later, best to have a center that can keep up efficiency-wise (My RC-7 ROCKS with my Cornwalls!), The center channel speaker is absolutely CRITICAL with HT as most of the dialog comes from it (the 'tapered array' of RC7 is great here) The best position hint I read on Forum was to tape a LED flashlight to top of center cabinet and use the light beam to positon/tilt the cabinet for optimum (read- DIRECT) angle to primary listening position. I have my RC7 under my Sony 35" and it is angled up substantially, which keeps early reflections (blurring) off of the floor. Also I have a heavy small carpet on the hardwood floor directly in front of the RC7 Good listening! Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjgeraci Posted June 11, 2004 Share Posted June 11, 2004 ---------------- On 6/11/2004 3:20:23 AM colterphoto1 wrote: Our dear friend Carl C has it right. In my opinion, buy the BIGGEST, BADDEST center channel speaker you can afford and mount! ---------------- Thanks for the kind words. Just trying to be as half as helpful as some of great people in this forum. Yep, that is what started me on the upgrade path to Reference Sevens. Purchased the RC-7 and everything else followed... Carl. P.S. The wife is a bit dismayed because some of my Reference 35 stuff is starting to emerge in my secondary system in our family room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmilam Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 The thought of buying an RC 7 has crossed my mind, but my L/R fronts are RB 5 II's. Wouldn't the RC 7 be overkill, or could I turn it down through the receiver a little to compensate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Pete Posted June 14, 2004 Share Posted June 14, 2004 ---------------- On 6/9/2004 4:47:03 PM ssfull wrote: Well , the outcome of this whole deal is .... I sold the RC-35 and bought an RC-3II . I should recieve it today, I will hook it up tonight and see how it sounds. Thanks for all the input. ---------------- Good choice, I am sure you'll like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssfull Posted June 14, 2004 Author Share Posted June 14, 2004 Thanks for all the input everyone. The RC-3II made a world of difference. I can actually hear the dialoge now !! MUCH better than the RC-35 . Thanks again ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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