wdrazek Posted January 5, 2005 Share Posted January 5, 2005 Hi Everyone, You really have a great forum here. I never would have expected to see so many folks and with such great attitudes - it must be the horns. Seriously, though I am about to move into a new condo and am in the process of setting up a home theater in a small space. The room is 12x12 and it will house a sofa, 55" or 60" LCD Rear projection TV and 5.1 channels of surround. I currently have Klipsch Quintets but want to upgrade. The other day I was at Barrett's in suburban Chicago and I listened to the RF series and although I loved the body and full range sound of the 25's (somewhat less so the 15's) with matching center and surrounds I am worried that they will overload the room. My other option is to get RSX5's and 4's instead. The difference in cost doesn't matter; I just want what will work best in this small environment. Any thoughts/ advise? I have about 6 weeks until move in and then comes the NCAA Big Dance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted January 5, 2005 Share Posted January 5, 2005 It is impossible to overload a room with a "too large" speaker (unless of course the speakers are so large you can't fit in the room, lol). There is a point where the volume in the room is such that the sound gets muddy due to the natural reverb of the room. This effect will occur at a certain SPL and is irrelevant to the size of the speakers. The RF-25 uses a larger woofer and a larger horn. Even though the specs are nearly identical, the RF-25 is going to have much less distortion than the 15 (less cone excursion from the larger diapgragms means less frequency modulation distortion). If you can squeeze the funds, I would suggest upgrading to at least RF-35's for the mains. Another alternative I might suggest is to keep a pair of quintets for the surrounds and then purchase RF-7 mains (and an RC-7 center if you can afford it). Later down the road when you have more money again, you can then upgrade your quintets to RS-7's and you'll have yourself one of the best HT's out there...you could even move your quintets to do 7.1 duty as well. What are you using for a subwoofer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdrazek Posted January 5, 2005 Author Share Posted January 5, 2005 Thanks for your insight. I definitely liked what I heard from the RF25's better than the RF15's. They were more full bodied, which I attribute to the larger cone and larger cabinet. They were smoother on Sheryl Crow's voice and they had an authority that I just liked better. That's not to say I didn't like the RF15's but the RF25's were better all around and easily worth the $. My issue is that I believe the speaker/room interface plays a large role in how good a system sounds. Put a tiny speaker in a large room and it gets swallowed up. Put a large floor stander in a small room and it doesn't have room to breathe. I just don't know if the RF25's in a 5.1 setup are ideal in a 12x12 room. If not, I'd rather go with RSX's and build out my living room stereo. It is much larger and would easily support RF35's or above. My sub is a Sunfire True. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake Posted January 5, 2005 Share Posted January 5, 2005 Yup, you're asking the wrong crowd here about speaker size/room size matching. We're all way over the top. I had a pair of Chorus speakers with a Forte center (vintage old school speakers weighing 90 and 67 pounds, respectively) in my 10x11 HT room...and was considering getting some LaScala's for in there before I moved! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdrazek Posted January 6, 2005 Author Share Posted January 6, 2005 OMG. Now that is over the top. Hope you like your new room better and ended up with your LaScala's. I did notice a bias here towards the larger RF models but thought the HT forum would be the best place to ask and that the ProMedia forums would lead me in the RSX direction. I'll try there too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doudou Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 if the speaker you want are smaller than your room and if you can let enought space to the port(if there is one) to breath, you can buy the speaker you want. if you really fear about too big speakers you can buy some RB instead of RF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spkrdctr Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 You have asked a good question! I believe you can easily get "too much speaker" into a room.(If you are a radical Klipschophile! ) It does affect the sound in a negative way. When you have too much speaker, I have found that you end up with less bass, a muddy smeared sound and you will never get a "surround" effect unless you are in the exact sweet spot for the set up. It will be much harder to set your system up so it works with a natural surround effect. Whichever cone you are nearest to will dominate your position. With your Sunfire sub, I would get the smaller speakers and you will have a much nicer over all set up. 12X12 is very small and you most likely will never use even 1/2 of the capability of your speakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caveboy Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 I find the room just fine.. If u have the $$, go for the rf-35 setup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted January 6, 2005 Share Posted January 6, 2005 I like the older Heritage horns for small rooms because they sound good in the corners, whereas most box speakers really should be away from the walls... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkot Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 ok...the room is 12x12 how high is the ceiling? tall enough to hang a vertical cornwall above the tv?? if so id go with khorns!! that would still leave enough room for a svs "tube" sub on each side of the tv use hereseys for the rear 4 channels and your in the bigs!! or you could use the new reference stuff, includeing the sub thats one bigger than the one you think you need, and still impress almost everyone that hears the system!! good luck with your system!! (dream big) jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdrazek Posted January 7, 2005 Author Share Posted January 7, 2005 I like your thinking. What if I put K-horns in each of the corners of the room and suspended another 4 of them from the ceilings in each corner, too? Then I could sit in the middle and none of them would fall on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkot Posted January 7, 2005 Share Posted January 7, 2005 ---------------- On 1/7/2005 9:18:02 AM wdrazek wrote: I like your thinking. What if I put K-horns in each of the corners of the room and suspended another 4 of them from the ceilings in each corner, too? Then I could sit in the middle and none of them would fall on me. ---------------- cool... but what are you going to use for a center?? DONT FORGET THE CENTER!!! jay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksdad Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 in a small room the only thing to consider is that the speaks are not rear ported, rear ports need room to breath, and if placed to close to a wall they will sound muffled Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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