What speakers did you own before becoming Klipschheads?

[Paladin]

The first speakers I owned were a little tiny pair of Pinnacle bookshelf units these were paired with a simple 2ch Sony Reciever...this was my first stereo system and was a christmas present. (circa 1994)

I then bought a pair of B&W DM-302's and a couple of Target stands when I was in high school to replace the Pinnacles. (circa 1996).

I happened upon a pair of A/D/S L-710's at a local Goodwill store for very little money...the speakers are in very good (albeit second hand) condition. I have been using these regularly as their dual 6" drivers and B&W-like soft mid and high sound works well for either music or movies. (circa 2000).

Dad built a new home theatre and I inherited his pair of vintage 1972 ESS AMT-3a Heil Rock Monitors. I grew up with these speakers and always thought they were cool. However they're twin 10" drivers have been re-coned and the Heil AMT is a little screechy... They're great theatre speakers since the 10's can pump the explosions and stuff that movie soundtracks demand...but the L-710's or even the B&W's can beat them in musicality. I also at this point inherited a Phase Linear A-4000 Preamp and a Phase Linear AC-400 Power Amp (were bought with the Heils in the 70's) to replace my reciever. Also got a Boston Vr-12 Center and Boston Vr-12 Di-Pole surrond speakers. (Circa 2002)

2003 I again inhereted equipment, I got an Aragon 4004 Mk-II Power Amp and an Aragon 18k Pre-Amp.

2005 I started working for Klipsch. I am thouroughly impressed by the Klipsch sound. I don't have loads of cash so I've started simply. I bought a Synergy line B-2 Surround system. I've also gotten some Reference Series RSX-5 Bookshelf monitors and a pair of RW-8 subs.

As far as accuracy, detail, transience, and relative musicality the RSX-5 is currently my favorite speaker to set listen to.

Of course I've also looked into hearing the heratige line...we have the examples that were at CES in the Engineering listening rooms...I've probably bugged the guys downstairs too much. I did happen into a chance to hear the LaScala-II's with a Cayin tube integrated and a Cayin SACD player. They were awesome speakers, I can't wait to hear them again...plus get a chance at the K-horns, Cornwall-III and Heresy-III...all of which are down there.

Someone asked about the B&W speakers...and if they're any good. Well it depends on your taste. I think most of you accustomed to the horn sound wouldn't like them. They're very reserved, soft, midrange-oriented speakers...besides I'm sure they aren't designed for nor able to be as effecient as any Klipsch or horn loaded speaker. Compared to the accuracy, transience, and detail of the horn-loaded sound...I find them (B&W's) now lacking...at least my DM-302's. The abilites of the just the RSX-5 in the mids and highs at the price-point are astounding in my book. I've heard such sound from much, much more expensive speakers and equipment. Hearing the LaScala's, the only time I've heard that level of detail and transience is on Electrostatic speakers...but never with the dynamics or subtle clarity (as the Engineer I met pointed out Electrostats are ineffecient by design). I don't dislike my B&W's nor my Dad's Soundlab Millenium-1 'stats...but the horn sound...the Klipsch sound is extremely pleasing and I've enjoyed the speakers I've bought and heard sinch joining the company very much...and they've taken precedence over all my other speakers when I listen to music on my system.

[ScorpsFan]

I'm ashamed to say it, but at the time I thought I was "cutting-edge" with my Lear Jet 8-track player and it's two tiny speakers playing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.....

Then my father, an early audiophile (in the best sense of the word) showed my brother (Silversport) and I his tube mono gear, followed by many "educational" visits to audio stores where we were treated to the sounds of stereo via Klipsch and we have been hooked ever since.

[Cleve]

The very first speakers I owned came with my first stereo - a Zenith

Allegro system with Allegro 3000 speakers - my Christmas present when I

was 14 or 15.

I had those until I graduated HS - then for graduation I was given a

pair of Cerwin Vega HED speakers with 10" woofers.

Those got trashed in a couple years via hard clipping. LOL.

Then I had some Realistic Optimus 10 (I think that's the model number)

speakers - 8" woofer - 10" passive. Ended up

replacing the drivers many times in those.

Then my last speakers (pre-Klipsch) were Pinnacle PN8+ speakers, with a matching Pinnacle passive subwoofer.

Which brings me to the present - with all Klipsch for my home theater

[ssh]

Jenson 6x9's in a '66 Mustang convertible

8 track tape player/radio W/ speakers included '68- through college

Bose 901- series II

Bose 901- series IV

[DRBILL]

Home made Rebels with University/Wolverine 15" woofer, mid-horn, and tweeter. They were very respectable although inclined to unload. This is why Paul considered them a failure and pulled them. This was c. 1963.

Oddly, they are still in service. C. 1970 I gave them to a friend in Hope, Arkansas. He used them until he bought Fortes. He gave them to the son of my old boss of my high school days. Sort of all in the family.

Before that, (1957) I had a 15" Jenson Bass Reflex studio monitor, retired from a radio station in Baton Rouge. This was before stereo.

DRBILL

[BiggerIsBetter]

Not including all of the homemade stuff in college, some strange combos but I always had the loudest room, except for the guy that had LaScalas with a 200watt amp in a 10x10 dorm room......

1990 - Ohm Walsh FRS15 (rear speakers in HT setup)

1991 - Paradigm 3Se (in bedroom)

1992 - Bertagni (sp?) (largest model and a smaller one, don't recall numbers) (sold)

1994 - BG RD75 Ribbons, home implemented baffle with 4 NHT1259 woofers (sold)

1997 - Platinum Audio trios (sitting around)

2000 - Platinum audio quattros (thought they would be better than the trios, not so...sold)

2001 - Pioneer Elite fronts and center (HT system)

2003 - Magnepan MMG (In closet)

2004 - Platinum audio solo (in closet)

2005 - Cornwalls (rule the rooste)

[wstrickland1]

1. Zenith(came with the all in one "system") handed down from someone

2. Emerson(came with the all in one "system") bought new from Sam Soloman

3. Panasonic Thrusters(came with the all in one "system") bought new from K-Mart

4. Realistic Nova 7(or 6 or 8) form Rodeo Shack

5. JBL L19 (very nice actually) from SCCS and J-2060(barf) from CC

6. Scott 188T from Electronic Showcase (also pretty nice before I sacrificed one to build a KLF 20 center)

7. KLF 30s/KV 4 from Audio Warehouse

8. KLF C7 from mpmiller

9. KLF 20s from mpmiller

10. Homemede KLF 20 center

11. RB 35s from audio warehouse

12. RS 7s from Play

13. RC 7 from Audio Warehouse

14. RF 7 from Frawley's

At some point there were some Fisher center channel and surround speakers from Lowes. Also a KSW 150 sub and a Martin Logan Depth sub. Oh yeah, and some Realistic Minumus 7s which in the day rocked for what they were. Plus the variety of car stuff, Jensen Dual Cones, Coax, Triax and Quadrax, various Pioneer 3 way, TS something or other with the white woofers and silver mid/tweets (loved them things), Concept triaxials, the surface mount Pioneers with the passive radiator(had them sittin on the rear deck of the Celica), the three way seperate crap I bought from some shady dude who lived in Hub Village(Willy, I know you know where that is/was), the 6 x 9 dual cone factory speakers that came out of a Mercury Marquis that my mom rented when I was 14 and one of my friends had the bright idea to yank them out and put some junky(ier) speakers back in their place..........ooooh, ooh, ooh and a pait of Sansui I don't know what that my sister gave me for CHristmas one year that she bought from CC for like 15 bucks because the cabinets were beat all to hell and rattled...........I bet there's more but I gotta get some work done.

Billy

[vindeville]

my first speakers were home made useing a becker polypropelene 8" woofer and a cone tweeter with radio shack 2-way crossovers in a ported box,and several other home made experiments here and there . i've owned soundynamics, mb quart, ohm L's(one of my favorites), paradigm, kef q's(also an excellent loudspeaker... some similaritiy to klipsh imho ), and paradigm studio's(lifeless sounding to me..but accurate i suppose?).....home made is very educational, but very hard to do successfully....nothing holds a candle to klipsch heritage to me at this point, can't see ever needing anything else...but who knows. would love to hear an advantguarde system .

[Aggie Klipsch]

First started out with an old RCA reciever and speakers.

KLH.

Technics pursched at AFFES over at Lajes Field Azores. Sansui 7070, Thorens TD145MKll, Pioneer cassette deck. The Technics were like 3 different section stacked on top of each other. Really good sounding.

Klipsch Heresy purchased in 79 at Denver's Listen Up. Heard a buddies Cornwalls and had to have Klipsch after that.

Now have Cornwalls

Another 10 years and I will have the Klipschorns.

[Mighty Favog]

1961 Zenith Console with Turntable only.

Sears all-in-one sys. in the basement w/ the pool table.

Pioneer Centrex (P.O.S.) that I put with a Hitachi all-in-one unit my parents gave me.

Technics R&B Series SB-7's (a BIG upgrade).

Technics R&B Series SB-3's.

Acoustic Research AR-11's (70's version).

JBL L300's (at brothers house because I have no room).

[Ray Garrison]

interesting question. Not sure I can even remember...

First real speakers, as in not built into the cabinet on the Sears record player, were no-name particle board thingies from Two Guys department store. From there, and this is probably out of sequence at some points...

(and reason for upsize - downsize is moves at various points)

Emerson

BIC Ventury

Ohm E

Electrovoice Interface A (now gone)

Ohm D (now gone)

Ohm C2 (now gone)

Infinity Quantum 5 (now gone)

Infinity Quantum 3 (now gone)

Ohm F (now gone)

DCM Time Windows (now gone)

Dalquist DQ10 with SW1 (now gone)

Thiel CS 3.x (?forgot which rev?) (now gone)

B&W 801f (original series) (now gone)

VMPS SuperTower II A/R Special Edition, (now gone) followed by

Acoustic Energy AE-1 (don't ask...) (now gone)

B&W 801 Matrix Monitor III (now gone)

Klipsch KG-4 (2nd system) (still have)

Klipschorns (now gone)

Klipsch Epic CF-4 (still have)

Klipch La Scala (now gone)

[pauln]

I had a Panasonic system with little 2 way 6 inch "woofer" and dome tweeters running off of the main unit which comprised the tuner, amp, and built-in turntable - a little $200 all in one system which served me well in high school. My first college roommate and I decided to get some speakers. He had an AR turntable and Sherwood receiver. We went to the hifi store and brought back 3 pairs of speakers to try out. I wonder how many places would let two college kids drive off with three pairs of speaker to test out now adays...).

This was back in 1974. First up were the big Advents (two ways). These sounded great but they needed all 30 watts to make them sing. I recall they had a nice dry sound and pretty good bass when the watts were there. Next was JBL (forgot the model) but they were a three or four way (I forget) with a big 12 inch woofer that I recall was rather flat in aspect - not real conical. These were the days of records, and the first thing I noticed about the JBLs was that as soon as the stylus entered the leadin groove those woofers started moving back and forth about an inch of excursion, and continued to do so for everything we played. They sounded artificial and synthetic and the bass was real rubbery. At the time a lot of kids would have thought this was great hifi. Then the bare wood Heresy pair. Three seconds into the first record we looked at each other and nodded "yes!", these are the ones. He bought them, then the next year I moved out and I bought a pair for myself driving them with a Yamaha CR600 receiver (still discreet circuit components in the mid 70's). The year after that my new roommate moved out and bought a pair for himself. After that I lost track of how many Heresys got bought from hearing someone elses'. For dorms and micro apartments they were fantastic - portable, musical, amazing entry into the music listening world. I enjoyed mine for almost 30 years 'til I gave then to my parents and got the 2005 AL-4 LaScalas.

Heresys are probably still the best bang for the buck in audio.

Pauln

[jtkinney]

The first were homemade boxes with 8" full range from a console, don't remember which console, but it had tubes.

In High School bought Heathkit 3-ways with 10" woofer, similar to an AR-3 as I recall. The woofer surrounds disintegrated so I gave them away, but still have the Heath separates I built at that time (mid 70's, no tubes).

SF-1's and Quintets were the first Klipsch, and I still have them, the Quintets are in my Suburban.

SF-2, RS-1, RC-1, and KSW-10, all gone.

LaScala's, K-Horns, Heresy's and Belle's that I still have.

Still looking for a pair of Cornwalls.

[pmsummer]

Thirtyseven years of speakers, earliest to most recent acquisition:

Realistic Optimus 1's (the KLH 17 clone)

Electro-Voice single 15" driver theater extension speakers (PARTY!)

EPI 110's

Mission 700's

Mission 763i's

EPI 100W's

Boston Acoustic A150's

Cambridge Newton M50's

Original The Advent Speakers (doubled)

Boston Acoustic A200's

KLH 23's

EPI 150's

.

.

.

.

Klipsch Cornwalls.

The Cornwalls pushed the BA 200's aside before I got around to doubling them. A second pair of BA 200's is hiding in the shed...but stacking speakers that are 40x23x6" (making a tower two feet wide, six and a half feet tall, and only six inches deep) was troubling me a little.

I still have all of them except the Optimus and the EPI 110's. The rest are currently in use somewhere in the house.

(Bold= Bought new)

[flannj]

Do you mean after my avocado green Zenith alarm clock radio?

I remember listening to the military draft lottery during the Vietnam war late at night on that one.

My first "stereo" was a Panasonic record changer in an enormous wood cabinet with a pair of cheap built in 6 inch speakers. I remember the first thing I listened to was Bill Cosby's "Why is there air?"

First separate speakers would be ESS bookshelves. I managed to melt (no exaggeration) the Heil air motion mid-tweeters within 2 days. A Sansui 9090 and Jeff Beck will do that.

Returned those under warranty and upgraded to the ESS amt series. Kept those for only a month or so until I discovered Altec Lansing VOTT. I can't remember which model #. But it would be 1977, just before they came out with the Tangerine Plugs for the high frequency drivers. Kept those all through college and into the mid-eighties. Did a poor job at refinishing them trying to get them to look little more like home speakers.

The bizarre thing is I believe they are now owned by a member of this forum!

I think Tom Brennan (TBrennan) now owns them, I have tried PMing him but he hasn't been online since November. I would love to hear from him and fill him in with the history of a great pair of Altecs.

Mid-eighties I auditioned my first Klipsch still have every one I have ever purchased.

1988 K-Horns

1988 Chorus

1995 KG 2.5

? year used Academy

and just received 3 weeks ago... a pair of Heresy III

The real question is... what will be next?

[joshnich]

BIC Venturi something or other

Large Advent

Rectilinear 111

Rectilinear 5

(all the above were part of Pacific Stereos speaker trade up program. Pac Stereo. a local chain in the day, used to have a great program where you could turn in speakers and receive full credit towards a speaker of higher cost. )

Cornwalls

Then made the mistake of leaving the klipsch family in an effort to downsize and went to a pair of NHT towers next to Paradigm Sudio 40s and then back to Cornwalls and Belles.I still have a small collection of Warfedales and Dyanco speakers for office, bedroom, and garage.

Josh

[billyjoe72]

Cerwin vega, pioneer not important enough to remember model #'s

[www.records]

Thanks for the replies guys and gals. It looks like most of us made the transition from speaker dysentery to ear candy.

I had spelled dysentery wrong originally, but I found the spellchecker.[]

[126mhz]

No doubt my minty LaScalas are my favorite, period.

But even at the risk of being labeled a traitor Klipsch are not the only speakers in the world to enjoy. For the money they are tops, (In my opinion) but if a fella is willing to keep a eye out and have a little coin in hand when a great deal is found, there are some GREAT speakers out there to be listened to.

Most of my audio gear has been a passing fancy but recently I found a pair of "As New" Audio Physic Yaras, and they are FANTASTIC speakers. When I take into consideration how little I paid for them I MIGHT like them better than my LaScalas!

Bottom line, when one thinks about price, performance, and design, Klipsch is my favorite audio company. (I love the fact that they are American and can compete on a level field with anyone in the world)

Regards,

[blindman]

Before you read my response you need to understand that I ran the sound board and light show for a band from 1969 thru 1972.

Although we were only in high school, a top-40 radio station dj was our manager, and we played a lot of gigs within a 300 mile radius of our home town. So my stereo was what we used whenever the band was trying to learn to cover the popular tunes from those days. So my home rig was also what I used on-the-road.

For my turntable back then, I progressed from a Garrad (model ?) to an AR XB to an Empire 598 Troubadour Mark III.

For the amplifier back then, I progressed from a tubed Bogen PA amp, to a tubed Fender Showman amp head, to a solid state Kustom PA head, to a tubed Dynaco PAS-3X preamp with a tubed Dynaco Mark III amp.

And now for the speakers:

1960 - 1968 Sears all-in-one console

1969 - 1970 VOX Grenadier PA speakers

1971 - 1972 Kustom 795 PA speakers

1973 - 2001 Acoustic Research; AR-3a, AR-8, AR-6 (living room, bedroom, garden shed)

2002 - 2003 La Scalas

2004 - Klipschorns