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RF-7 vs. RF-83


Bonzo

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Hi all,

I'm going to resurrect this thread one more time just to comment on my RF-7's. In a word, HAPPINESS! Great overall balance of sound and little to no edginess on the high end. The compression driver in them is first rate and blends very nicely with the woofers! I will say they are certainly in the top three of the speakers I have owned. For what it's worth, this is my list of the top ten speakers I have personally owned. My criteria is overall sound, ease of placement, compatability with a variety of sources and aesthetics. The latter weighed less than the rest but, you married guys know how important that is!

1. Cornwall II

2. Chorus

3. RF-7

4. JBL 4430

5. JBL 250ti

6. LaScala

7. Forte II

8. Altec Valencia

9. RF-5

10. Heresy I

I have had countless others but, these have been my favorites. I plan on keeping the RF-7's for a while! They work perfectly in my living room and just plain sound great! I just got a Velodyne HGS-12 sub that really rounds out my system. Crossover set at approx. 50hz at a low volume.

Cheers!!!

I have the 83's in my house right now,playin'.Let me tell you,after you have the 7's for a while they may be hard to part with.I've put speakers side by side w/7's for several years,some at twice the price,the 7's remain.I've never experienced the high's/crossover issues,they just jam with endless authority.Maybe I got a perfect pair,found the right position,maybe my rooms good,maybe I got the right combo of gear for me,all I know is nothin' yet compares in overall presentation.

I'm gonna work on the 83's,break em' in just a bit and work on position before I make a firm judgement.There's for sure nothin' bad about em' they look stunning and sound very nice but its no hands down deal by a looong shot.Maybe I could have Jacksonbart build me a set using the best of both.The one thing I do notice is a little more bass than the 7's,but the 7's superb horn is a tough act to follow in my opinion.More later but if you have 7's you should be happy,they may be better than you think.

I would like to build you a set of speakers that use the Tangent name based on the body of a Belle, a rear horn of a Cornwall (that had a rear horn right?, sure it did.), the top of a RF5 and mated to an KLF30. Is that sexy or what, I will call it Tangent 2.758.

Hell I couldn't build a house out of Lincoln Logs and a set of step by step directions.

post-16829-13819301653346_thumb.gif

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I just don't have the power to do them justice

they want a rock solid 500+ WPC

Duke,

I just bought a QSC 3002 to drive a pair of B&W N801's. It has similar specs to the K2 and has a dampening factor of >500. I just read that the K2 has a damening factor of 3000 up to 400 hz. I keep reading that many like Rotel amps for the B&W's because they have high dampening factors (1000). My bass seems controlled and tight. Any comments?

Thanks,

Chris

Bonso - I don't mean to try to hijack the thread.

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I just don't have the power to do them justice

they want a rock solid 500+ WPC

Duke,

I just bought a QSC 3002 to drive a pair of B&W N801's. It has similar specs to the K2 and has a dampening factor of >500. I just read that the K2 has a damening factor of 3000 up to 400 hz. I keep reading that many like Rotel amps for the B&W's because they have high dampening factors (1000). My bass seems controlled and tight. Any comments?

Thanks,

Chris

Bonso - I don't mean to try to hijack the thread.

Chris,

The QSC states > 500 but that is up to 1khz. Bob Lee is quoted as stating that if you rate it as crown up to 400hz it is 3000 as well.

QSC offers some awefully tight bass. Now i dont know if there is a difference between the larger class H models compared to the AB models as far as bass slam. Maybe you could shed some light on that aspect?

I feel QSC is one smooth slammin amp. And instead of getting tired of the sound it is growing more and more on me. I am kind of a middle aged head banger though so like a little slam from time to time.

Sorry for the hi-jack as well.

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I just wanted to chime in on the PA amp thing. The same dialog whirls around over at www.talkbass.com forums. A few amp guys (Bob Lee) is one, also post there. I am no tech, and don't know squat about the perticulars on amps, but a lot of bass guys prefer a transformer amp for bass guts. The Crest CA9 comes to mind.

I had a QSC 2402 (I think 750 a side at 4 ohms) it was a powerlite?, I think. I did not like the amp and felt it was gutless. I did however have a Crown Powerbase 2 (350 x 2 at 8 Ohms) that had more grunt and guts., BUT, they were at different times with different cabs and basses.

So, what I am getting at is the amps with iron in them are preferred. They weigh more and that matters for shlepping the thing around, but who cares if it weighs 20 or 70 lbs if it sits on a stand or rack at home?

I was hung up on the damping factor for a while, that was a consideration on buying the Rotel 1080, but I read that as long as it's over 100, you can't really tell. 200 is not twice a tight sound as 100. 500 is not 5 times tighter, etc.

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I just don't have the power to do them justice

they want a rock solid 500+ WPC

Duke,

I just bought a QSC 3002 to drive a pair of B&W N801's. It has similar specs to the K2 and has a dampening factor of >500. I just read that the K2 has a damening factor of 3000 up to 400 hz. I keep reading that many like Rotel amps for the B&W's because they have high dampening factors (1000). My bass seems controlled and tight. Any comments?

Thanks,

Chris

Bonso - I don't mean to try to hijack the thread.

Chris,

The QSC states > 500 but that is up to 1khz. Bob Lee is quoted as stating that if you rate it as crown up to 400hz it is 3000 as well.

QSC offers some awefully tight bass. Now i dont know if there is a difference between the larger class H models compared to the AB models as far as bass slam. Maybe you could shed some light on that aspect?

I feel QSC is one smooth slammin amp. And instead of getting tired of the sound it is growing more and more on me. I am kind of a middle aged head banger though so like a little slam from time to time.

Sorry for the hi-jack as well.

The PLX sounds great and I don't think that I am missing something. I read on the B&W forum that everyone likes Krell, Martin Logan and to a lesser extent Rotel amps. I am just wondering how the QSC PLX series amps stack up. My guess is that they can keep up just fine for about 1/10th the price of the thoroughbreads.

Chris

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Well aragon isnt a krell but its known for its bass performance and ability to drive 2 ohm loads stable and this QSC i have, which as Carl stated is pretty much a PLX series amp, just walked all over my aragon 4004mkII.

Aragon doubles down 200@8ohms 400@4ohms and this QSC 2422 i have is 425@8ohms and 750@4ohms and its much smoother and a heck of alot tighter than the aragon. This thing can force my sternum into my backbone. I dont need any tighter bass than this thing puts out in my listening room.

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I had a QSC 2402 (I think 750 a side at 4 ohms) it was a powerlite?, I think. I did not like the amp and felt it was gutless.

Just curious, do you remember what preamp or preamps you used with the QSC? These things have such a low input impedance that most preamps dont have enough gain to even realize what the amp is capable of. I bring that up because i followed your link to bass talk and seen that actually there are alot of fans of the QSC. And it appears the biggest problem is matching the preamps. But not everyone is going to like the same things or same sounds so YMMV.

By the way, listening to your demos on your website, your band rocks Bob!

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Hey, who hi-jacked this thread??? Just kidding!!! I have an old Hafler 255 watt amp that I have used for home periodically. With the exception of the fan noise, it's a great amp and drives most any speaker I have used it with to gut busting levels! I mainly use it to power stage monitors when needed. We have gone to powered JBL EON G-2's, w/subs, for house mains. A simple Mackie board and we are good to go for the stuff we do. I have packed my share of big Crown amps and every year that goes by, the less I miss them! For home, I am almost sold on a moderate main amp/receiver and a quality servo sub. My Velodyne HGS-12 is very tight and very fast. It keeps up nicely with the RF-7's and can be adjusted to however much bass I want! At times, I just turn it off. This is mainly when I'm listening to simple acoustic music. I have had a few subs in the past and have never been happy with them, until now. I shouldn't be too surprised that a $2K sub blows away a sub costing less than $500. I guess you do get what you pay for!

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I just tried to crank Dark Side of the Moon's opening heartbeat with my QSC PLX 3002 and B&W N801's. I could not use all of the power and it was really way too loud (and clear). It definatelty shook the room. I keep hearing that Bi amping is the way to go with these speakers but this sounds like it is getting plenty of power.

Here is one thing that I noticed. with no music playing an dteh amo turned up very loud, I get a buzz through the speakers that sounds like it is from the fan. Any advice on how to get rid of the noise (it has to be really cranked to hear it - can't hear it with music, even soft passages).

Chris

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Here is one thing that I noticed. with no music playing an dteh amo turned up very loud, I get a buzz through the speakers that sounds like it is from the fan. Any advice on how to get rid of the noise (it has to be really cranked to hear it - can't hear it with music, even soft passages).

Chris

Mine stays quiet through the entire volume rotation. I did notice a hum when i changed out one of my cd players but turned out just to be an IC issue. Reinserted and everything was quiet. These amps do seem very sensitive to line noise. Plugged an 18" oscillating fan into same line and got a slight buzz. Unplugged it and the buzz was gone.

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As luck would have it, there is a B&W dealer on the way to the gym near my work. I stopped there today and listened to the new B&W 802D's and some fancy amp. I realize that the room probably was not set up right and they 802's were probably not broken in but they sounded like crap. I though that he had the Martin Logan electrostats on because the treble was piercing and they were just difficult to listen to. I then went into a different room and hear a pir of 805S's (older tweeter and only a few weeks old) and they just sounded wonderful (I though that there must have been a sub woofer somewhere but there was not).

I learned three things. The new diamond tweeter is probably not worth it over the old tweeter, the 805's are awesome little speakers and my QSC PLX is still the champ. You can keep your Krell, Levinson etc, these QSC's have it all for much much less.

Chris

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Chris,

Are you using the peach as your preamp? If so, what kind of travel do you have out of your volume pot? Reason i ask is because actually when using the luxman as a pre i can run full volume with much more the amp is willing to give. Now when i switch in using the marantz 2325 as a pre at 11:00 am this amp is slamming me so hard i feel like i am at a concert. And never does a clip light flicker. Just clean and clear as a bell. Its like the darn thing has endless power with everything holding together.

These amps rock!

Rockbobmel, you must of gotten a lemon is the only thing i can figure.

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I had a QSC 2402 (I think 750 a side at 4 ohms) it was a powerlite?, I think. I did not like the amp and felt it was gutless.

Just curious, do you remember what preamp or preamps you used with the QSC? These things have such a low input impedance that most preamps dont have enough gain to even realize what the amp is capable of. I bring that up because i followed your link to bass talk and seen that actually there are alot of fans of the QSC. And it appears the biggest problem is matching the preamps. But not everyone is going to like the same things or same sounds so YMMV.

By the way, listening to your demos on your website, your band rocks Bob!

Thanks...... Good point on the preamp thing, I had an Eden Navigator preamp, which should have the output for the QSC. You know, sound is so objective.

It is hard getting the sound you want.

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I prefer a transformer amp for bass guts. .

I don't know, Bob..

the K model has kinda turned me inside out on that issue

maximum slam, so tight you can feel the cone get'n sukked back ...

and ...

i used to have a Marshall Major ........n' SVT

It may have been a number of things. Maybe I have not given the switching amps a good enough chance.

My RSW15 has an amp the size of a camera in it and it slams.

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Chris,

Are you using the peach as your preamp? If so, what kind of travel do you have out of your volume pot? Reason i ask is because actually when using the luxman as a pre i can run full volume with much more the amp is willing to give. Now when i switch in using the marantz 2325 as a pre at 11:00 am this amp is slamming me so hard i feel like i am at a concert. And never does a clip light flicker. Just clean and clear as a bell. Its like the darn thing has endless power with everything holding together.

These amps rock!

Rockbobmel, you must of gotten a lemon is the only thing i can figure.

I am using a Sony receiver as a preamp, not the Peach. The Sony (and the Peach) seem to have plenty of juice to run the QSC. I have to admit that I like the remote and no warm up time.

There is plenty of bass but it is not like a deep throw subwofer (it is actually much like a K Horn).

Chris

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