heresy or kg4

[crazytubepower]

My birthday is the 27th of June and my parents already are getting me a hk 430 plus speakers. I have the opp. to buy kg4's for $200 or heresy's, havent found any yet but...which is better. Kg4 or heresy I or II. I mostly listen to classic rock with turntable and cd player sharing equal time as sources. I dont want to have a speaker that has no bass at all. Tight and fast but still feelable.

Thanks

James Eland

[cueman]

Why don't you have daddy buy both for you. Then you can compare them side by side.

[crazytubepower]

haha, yeah but "daddy said, " no son, your too spoiled one is enough, now go clean your room." So suriously guys could i have a comparison. I know it is mostly personal but what are the pro's and con's of each. Anyone owned both?

[crazytubepower]

haha, yeah but "daddy said, " no son, your too spoiled one is enough, now go clean your room." So suriously guys could i have a comparison. I know it is mostly personal but what are the pro's and con's of each. Anyone owned both?

[Frzninvt]

It depends on your listening habits, the KG4 is a 2-way design and the Heresy a 3-way.

The low end bass extension will be greater with the KG4's due to the dual 8's and passive on the back, they have a single horn for the top end.

The Heresy will have a more prominent top end (horn midrange & tweeter), with less low end bass response. The bass will be tight and articulate though due to the sealed design but don't too expect much below 55Hz.

[Flason]

Ditto on what Frzninvt said. Classic rock really shines with a little more bottom end. I would choose the KG's for this reason. If you had a sub then the Herseys would be the way to go.

[ricktate]

I vote for Heresys ,,,,,Rick

[sputnik]

The KG4 is a wild man. Think Tazmanian Devil. Great speaker for rock. You will rule your dorm floor when you go to college.

[jeffgeorge]

I vote Heresy, mainly because they are more detailed sounding throughout the frequency spectrum. Sure they lack a little on the low end, but you could always add a sub later.

[Jay L]

heresy

[rplace]

KG4 was my first Klipsch speaker and they do rock. Heresies are tough to beat. Both sound great. I think you might get a little better bass from the KG4 but they won't be quite as in your face as the Heresy will. When I say in your face I mean it in a good way. Heresy is totally the approprate name for that speaker.

In a perfect world I would throw in a couple hundred of my own dollars and get a set of Forte II.

Great gift no matter what you end up with, thanks your parents and don't take them for granted!

Let us know what you end up with.

BTW, Happy Birthday!

[Rdmarsiii]

Hey James! When I was your age (two years ago ) I had the same problem. Heresy's, KG4's, or other misc. KG series speaks. I went with the Heresys. Dont regret it either. At first I thought the low end was a little weak, but placement and the bass knob on the amp fixed that. The KG4's will dig down deeper, but they wont be as loud, or sound as good, imo. Hope this helps, David.

[wheelman]

heresy's are a great speaker. If you have real good amplification I don't think bottom end will be an issue. Plus you can always put them on stands of Your choice, or floor em. Oh and they look better, and have a better name.

[heresy2guy]

I have both speakers, in addition to 2 pairs of la scalas. I'm running them off an HK430. Here's my take:

The KG4s have excellent bass with excellent highs. The highs are "sharper" then the Heresy II highs. This makes the Heresy II highs seems more laid-back. There's no real midrange to speak of (when compared to Heresy II).

The Heresy II has excellent midrange and good highs, but no real bass to speak of (when compared to KG4).

When I play either speakers alone, the music feels like it as an audible "hole" in it. With the KG4, the hole is in the midrange. With the Heresy II, the hole is in the bass.

With respect to my personal tastes in sound reproduction, I favor the Heresy midrange with KG4 bass and KG4 highs. My solution was to run both of them together, at the same time. The music now sounds all-of-a-piece with great lows, mids, and highs.

You really need to run both of them off the same amp in an a/b comparison to fully appreciate what I'm saying here.

In short, the Heresy II makes the music seem like it's actually in the room. It sounds more "live," more "there." It sounds more realistic then the KG4s, which sound, to me, more "closed-in," "less real," and more like a speaker rather then a live performance. The KG4s sound more synthetic while the Heresy IIs sound more live.

The midrange horn on the Heresy II (or lack of one on the KG4) is what's responsible for this in my opinion.

On the same token, the Heresy II sounds "light" because of the lack of bass while the KG4s sound "full" but odd because they have really low bass and sharp highs but have a muted midrange that makes the voices sound like they're buried in the speaker cabinet just trying to get out.

The thing about the two speakers is this: You can "fix" the sound of the Heresy IIs by adding a sub. You cannot "fix" the sound of the KG4 because in order to do that, you'd need to by midrange compression drivers and build new networks, effectively creating a new speaker.

My own personal "fix" is to simply run both of them at the same time. Now I get the best of both worlds.

I can't overstate the impact a compression driven horn midrange has on the music to me. It really "opens" the sound up and makes it seem LIVE. I've yet to listen to a two-way speaker whose midrange is produced by a cone do the same thing.

The newer Klipsch two-ways suffer from, in my opinion here, the same thing the KG4 suffers from - excellent highs and excellent bass but with a laid-back, muted midrange. It reminds me of those old EQs in which people would arrange the sliders so that they created a "V" shaped pattern, with the midrange being at the bottom of the "V."

I guess it's a matter of taste. Perhaps some people like a muted midrange with agressive highs and lows. I don't.

That's my main gripe about two-ways where the mids are produced by cones. In my opinion, no cone can make the critical midrange come alive and disperse it into the room to create that LIVE, RIGHT-THERE sound that a horn can.

That's why, if I was in your shoes and had to choose one speaker, my vote would be for the Heresy II over the KG4. Even with weak bass, the music sounds LIVE as opposed to the KG4 which makes it sound like it's simply coming from the speaker cabinet. It's a night and day difference.

Furthermore, you can always "fix" the Heresy II with a sub while you cannot do the same for the KG4.

Then again, if you can get get used Heresy IIs for around $400 and used KG4s for $200, and run them together, then you wouldn't have an issue.

But at that price level, you can always simply buy a pair of Fortes, which would do the trick better then a Heresy II/KG4 or Heresy II/cheap sub $600 combination.

And if you're at $600, you can always spend another $200-$250 or so and move up to the Cornwalls, which will definitely step on the Fortes in terms of BIG, LOUD, LIVE sound.

That's the problem with audio. You keep moving up the ladder. Probably easier to just buy a pair of Khorns, La Scalas, or Cornwalls right from the start, if you can afford it, and forget about leap-frogging up the product line.

-H2G

[dgb]

I directly compared the Heresey and KG4 back in the late 80s and for my tastes, rock mucic, the KG4 was clearly superior. Much better bass, and I frankly found the Heresey's kind of grating. As noted the KG4s can be had much cheaper too. Forget about the subwoofer, to get a real subwoofer you're talking several hundered dollars used, and close to $1000 new so if you're going to spend that kind of coin, you might as well get Fortes or Cornwalls.

The KG4s also tend to be more forgiving with less expensive sources and bad recordings. Really terrific speakers for building a nice mid priced system. With any Klipsch speaker you will hear clear improvement when you upgrade your sources, a big plus.

[scotbuck]

Greetings,

I've never heard a Heresy but own the kg4. With that caveat in mind I recommend the kg4. It would seem that, especially for rock music which has a heavy beat, you'll want some bass. I've tested the kg4 with the Stereophile test CD and found that the 40hz test signal was strong (this is about where the low E on an electric bass vibrates).

If you want to spend more money, it seems that going the extra mile for a Forte might be the better choice - get the midrange driver (and all of its advantages) without giving up the bass. (If I were tempted to upgrade from my kg4 in my modest sized condo, that's what I'd do.)

Hope this helps...

Take care,

Scott

[Seadog]

I picked the KG4s over Heresys 20 years ago. I now have both and have compared them at length. The reason that I picked the KG4s was that they sounded better to me at the time in the audio store (solid state amplification, probably poor placement of the Heresys).

I thought the Heresys were too bright and had poor base. I remember the SRV album that I used to compare them and I was blown away by the full sound of the KG4s, and while not as forward in the midrange, the bass and overall presentation was incredible for the price (which was about $200 less than the Heresys). I never regretted the decision, however, a few months afterward, the Forte came out and I wish I had waited for that speaker. It has the best of both the Heresy and the KG4.

Given the choice today (Heresy vs. KG4), I would buy Herseys, use tube amplification, and place in corners on 8" high stands.