Are My New Speakers Blown?

[oddly_uneven]

I recently bought some RefIV speakers, including the RF83's, RC64, and RS62's. I've had them hooked up for about a week now, and I love them.

Side note:

Please no questions about how they compare with the 7's, etc. I am novice at best with speakers and wouldn't be able to compare them. I had the money to blow so I splurged. This is the first set of speakers I have ever owned besides bookshelf systems. They do sound UNBELIEVABLE to my ears, though, and that's what matters to me.

Let's continue:

The past 2 days I have noticed that some television programming causes cracking in the tweeters of BOTH RF83's. Sometimes it is more of a "pop, pop, pop" sound, and other times it is pure distortion (ie during shreiky screams). It is fairly noticable. The programs that caused it were American Idol (Tuesday's broadcast) and True Lies on one of the HBO channels. I have digital cable through Cox Communications. I hadn't noticed the cracking before yesterday, but admittedly, I haven't watched much cable since I've hooked them up. I have mostly watched DVD's and listened to music. I haven't noticed it during DVD playback or music playback, and I have spent a lot of time listening to both. These speakers have not been abused at all. I have them hooked up to a Denon 3806 AVR. When I first hooked the speakers up, I cranked it a little[6], but certainly didn't push them to the limit. As a matter of fact, my AVR will go to a volume of +18 dBs (with no preset equalizer settings), and I never pushed it past +1 or +2. And that was for a very short amount of time just to see what I had bought. Just to see if it could be reproduced with other cable programming, I watched the Opera channel for about 15 minutes (all I could handle before I began projectile vomiting) and didn't hear one crack or distorted note. My question is: Do some cable programs have low quality sound that is transferring to my speakers to make them crack? Have my speakers blown? Any comments suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[theplummer]

If your not hearing the same problems with other sources, I'd complain to the cable company. I'll bet they have a line "leaking". I had a similar problem 15 years ago. The cable company wouldn't fix it, so I got satallite. Good luck

[SilverSport]

I would agree...sounds like more a "feed" problem than the speakers...I am unfamiliar with your Denon but if it is a good one I bet it is your source...(cable)...You like to go to the head of the class don't you...nice speakers, are you the first to report owning these???

Bill

[oddly_uneven]

Yeah, they're probably a little louder than I thought they would be. In hindsight, I probably would have been satisfied with a smaller set, but I couldn't talk myself into compromise. I have that problem sometimes. I don't know if anyone else has reported owning them or not, I ordered them in late January when my local dealer said he couldn't get the 7's for me. I had to wait for them for about 6 weeks, it about drove me crazy. I'm a little aggravated with this problem, though. I wish there was a sure-fire way to tell if it was the speakers or the cable. Grrr.

[BobbyT]

If it's not present from other sources it's the cable. Klipsch speakers are very revealing. Anything bad in the signal is going to be heard. Same with music. If you play a bad recording it will be painfully obvious.

[Guest BobG]

As BobbyT says above, this is not a speaker problem. If the speakers were damaged or defective, you would hear the problem on all sources. He is also correct in stating that Klipsch are quite revealing of bad signal input. I find the audio quality of my TV cable to vary from remarkably good to unlistenable. I have also never gotten any help from the cable company as they are only relaying what they receive. There are a lot of links in the transmission chain and it is possible that the problem is with cable company equipment. More than likely though this is just variability in signal quality delivered by the various TV programs.

Use DVD and CD or LP as your references. If those always sound bad, there are problems. In this case, enjoy the good sounding programs and deal with those that are not so good.

[dtel]

Don't sound like the speakers,but if anything would kill them it would be the Opera channel !

[Jay481985]

Just a thought as of late the move to make the source signal as loud as

possible may cause the problem? I mean since every channel is raising

the source volume louder that the actual signal is getting distorted

because it might be supplying more power then the imputs of your

recievers can take?

Although I only for now have the Klipsch iFi and soon either the rf-83

or some cornwalls off ebay, But the iFi was made for the iPod but also

has a line in which a soundcard can supply more watts to the line in

then it was designed for so it can crackle and be staticy if the line

level is too high a volume.

[WMcD]

I'd agree that there is little reason to think the speakers are at fault. If they were damaged the problem would show up on all sources which challenge them the same way.

That is a bit of a caveat. But DVD and CD are cranking out the full spectrum. You are not holding back on power and the system is working well.

I have limited experience at home. I've got analog cable. The biggest problem is that the basic level, and perhaps compression, makes the output acoustic level change from channel to channel, and even between given programs, and commercials. But we all know that.

I suspect the source from the cable is not the problem. If is digital, then probably the digital signal is pretty clean. People may disagree.

I say this because the system owned by a buddy in Dallas has very good audio off digital cable and now Dish.

On the other hand, the HT receiver he has does some very odd things with different sources. I mostly throw this out get others to discuss their experiences.

For example. you may have the HT receiver set up in a way which turns on a sub, and center, and surrounds for DVD and CD inputs. This would sound very good. Maybe that is a classic Dolby 5.1 setting.

But it might be that that the HT receiver goes into a different decoding mode when switched the input from the cable box . . . and this is very bad for reproduction of the same sort of wide range audio material. Some of this is not obvious without a lot of hunting around listening to speaker output and experimentation with settings.

There is a bit of a ghost in the machine of my buddy's system. Sometimes it switches off the L and R but leaves on the sub and center. It is quite amazing that that such is not apparent. Something is wrong, but hard to tell just what it is at first. Some problems can be doped out if you take a close listen and peer at the little cryptic icons on the receiver face at the same time.

Let me step back for a minute. I've found that when a good speaker is hit with a lot of low frequency power outside its range, you don't hear it the bass. Nonetheless the bass driver bottoms out and makes a clank or a pop, or cracling, depending on its size. Or maybe there is problem of the amp being driven to its limits. It sure sound like the souce is breaking up, but it is not. Rather there is another issue in the chain. I suspect you've got that.issue.

So I'd take a close look at your receiver and exactly what "mode" it goes into when the input is switched to the cable input. It may well have a mind of its own which has to be reset. Does it go to 2 channel mode? Can you get to the same setting as where CD and DVD sound good?

Best,

Gil

[DrWho]

Set your remote to adjust the cable box volume and move the dial to

about 2/3 full volume....there will be a spot marked (usually with an

arrow or the word "stereo") to indicate where the opimtimum. And then boost the volume at the reciever to compensate for the reduction in SPL.