DFW Klipsch Retailers?

[JJkizak]

Geez, while I was in Greenland in 1965 I just sent an order (and check) to Hope,Ark. direct to Klipsch and had my K-horns and Cornwall drop shipped to my parents bar in Ohio. There were six huge cartons. I still dream about it. My parents don't.

JJK

[Zen Traveler]

[:^)]

[TommyC]

I may have just caught them on bad days, but both times I went to Starpower it was a thoroughly frustrating experience! Noone I spoke to seemed to care anything about the products they sold. The last time I went to the one over off the Tollway a friend was trying to order a set of LaScala IIs and the sales droid made it so difficult he finally gave up and ended up ordering a pair from someplace in Chicago where his parents live! He said "it is just easier to drive up and get them than to get this idiot to understand that I know what I want and I don't care if it is 'old technology" or not!"

[Zen Traveler]

Two of the three times I was in Star Power I had the same experience. The third time the salesperson was nice enough--just didn't want to talk about Klipsch speakers. [:|]

Am I the only one that would like to see Klipsch go back into Tweeter? [*-)]

[Zen Traveler]

Bump [:^)]

I stopped in StarPower today along the Toll way. The good news is that after I explained to the salesman what The "Klipsch Heritage" Line was he did some research and said that he could order them for me.

The bad news is that they only had a pair of RF-62 hooked up to a receiver and 2 Klipsch bookshelf speakers that weren't hooked up to anything {edit: in the Reference Line}. This beautiful Home Theater store has not had a Klipsch Reference HT setup (much less ANY Heritage speakers) the last year I have been stopping in there.

I have been by there twice to hear the Klipsch THX line, both times the system wasn't up and running. This time I found their THX set up and asked if it was working. To my surprise it was. I put in my demo disk (Burning Down the House from the "Speaking in Tongues" dual disk) and came to realize that only the front 3 speakers and the 2 subs were Klipsch. The surrounds were another brand that in no way kept up with the mains and center. []

The salesperson was impressed with the song and wanted to play it on their premier system which was a Krell 5.1 system. It sounded great, but the bottom line is that I preferred the sound from the THX -650's over the Krell monitors and the sub wasn't even in the same league, imho.

The search goes on...

[Zen Traveler]

I have REALLY enjoyed Home Theater and it has been more than a Hobby for me over the last 7+ years. []

That being said it was sort of melancholy in a mild way, that I paid my final visit to the last Store/Chain open that I purchased any of my Klipsch speakers or other HT components from. Dana Snyder was the personnel manager at Tweeter in Dallas and was the first guy that I ever really talked Home Theater. All I can say is if the HT industry is not keeping jobs locally for people like him--There is no stopping the Internet. [co]

Imo, you must audition speakers before purchase, but with everything else a person with knowledge or google skills can be comfortable in buying from reputable sources on the Internet, although I have ever done it. I think now we live in a market where Component Makers need to keep good relations with their loyal following. I understand they want to keep good relations with their B & M retailers but I contend they are dropping (i.e., closing and losing sales) as their Name Brand Internet potential rises--at some point these Component Makers will want to cut out the middle man.

I think a good strategy would be to have concept stores in major market areas where synergetic companies link up (My favorite would be Klipsch/Denon [:-*]) to showcase thier product with sales from the internet not really effecting their bottom line. My 2 cents.

BTW, and to stay on topic--It's a new year...How are things in the DFW market for us Klipschters? [^o)]

[falcon20x]

Things are going great!! right? 

Tweeters is closing most of there stores, ultimate electronics is long gone, CC is probably not far behind, you can now found klipsch reference speakers (but not the top of line) at Best buy, wow !!

I think there are only one or 2 places where you find the top of line Klipsch speakers( one the tollway and beltline) and beleive me they are not to overly excited about selling them.

Overall, there just about no places left where you can have an educated conversations about HT, don't even ask about Klipsch speakers to most of the sale people or you will get the blank look.

 

[el jopez]

I honestly cannot beleive you guys are serious. Not one authorized retailer in DFW? Wow. I should be fortunate to have up to four in the Oklahoma City metro area excluding Best Buy. None carry or display Heritage or THX, but that could change.

[Seadog]

Starpower in Dallas (and recently Southlake also) carries the Klipsch Reference line. I was there on Saturday a couple of weeks ago and ask a sales guy if they had a Klipsch HT room set up. He said they did not, and said that the only Klipsch speakers were in the two channel room.

He took me to the two channel room where (sure enough) there was a pair of RF-7s (BTW, there was no display label with the model number or price). I ask for an audition, and then I ask him for the model and price info. He didn't know, so he looked on his computerized speaker selection console and said "They are Model 5s and are $750 for the pair". Of course I knew they were RF-7s so I said "I'll take 'em". He came back a few minutes later and said there was a mistake and that they were actually $2000 for the pair (he never corrected the model number - just the price). I didn't buy them.

So I decided to look around, and behold - I found an HT room with RF-83s for the mains, with center and rears also Klipsch - the sub was not Klipsch. The salesman was clueless.

Long story short - IMO this retailer (which is the only DFW area Klipsch Reference dealer, and the same dealer where my wife had purchased my AW-650s from back in December) is doing a very poor job representing Klipsch in the DFW area.

[falcon20x]

Was the HT room the one with the jungle look?

I was there 3 months ago and they had RF 83's in a HT

room, the speakers were enclosed in a HT center with no room between them and

the wall.

I would like to believe that any one who would know

about rear ported speaker would not dare to do something  like that, but

yet here is a high end electronic store and sure enough they did it.

To have such a bad representation and ignorance about Klipsch speakers I would have gone to Best Buy not a high end store.

I can

not understand why klipsch is not holding there approved retailers to a minimum

standard, did they choose volume (aka best buy) over quality?

 

[westcott]

Was the HT room the one with the jungle look?<?xml:namespace prefix = o />

I was there 3 months ago and they had RF 83's in a HT room, the speakers were enclosed in a HT center with no room between them and the wall.

I would like to believe that any one who would know about rear ported speaker would not dare to do something like that, but yet here is a high end electronic store and sure enough they did it.

To have such a bad representation and ignorance about Klipsch speakers I would have gone to Best Buy not a high end store.

I can not understand why klipsch is not holding there approved retailers to a minimum standard, did they choose volume (aka best buy) over quality?

Well, Falcon20X, looks like you may have to make another trip to Houston for an audition although I am afraid even in a big city (Houston) like mine, the dealer experience may not be much better. I can tell you that there is no minimum standard although Klipsch has gone to great lengths to provide exclusivity through law suits for the reference carrying dealers. Maybe it is too early yet for the dealers to reap the rewards of this effort on Klipsch's part and maybe we will see an increase in dealer standards, but so far, it has not happened. I have not been to all the dealers here in Houston (I think there are three of them in my area) but it may be worth the effort if you make some phone calls first.

I am almost of the opinion that you are better off trying to find a home owner who has an RF8 series system in place that you can listen to. More often that not, when I demo audio equipment, the set up is haphazard, not calibrated, and speaker placement is less than ideal. The rooms themselves may be a converted warehouse space.

I hope that now Klipsch has started to protect the dealers, they will be able to raise standards and require a minimum effort and space on the dealers part.

[falcon20x]

Alright I went back to Star power yesterday. They did not have the RF 7's, so i asked them if they had been sold and they said they were in the south lake store not at the tollway location, oops.

They also said they were for sale at MSRP, ouch. After telling them that Klipsch was selling them in maple for $ 1000 and I just could not pay MSRP for used speakers just because they were black, I spent sometime there talking to one of the sale guy and for once I was well treated even so when he realized I was not going to buy anything, he did not walked away but spent another 30 minutes talking to me about my system as well as the different options I could chose including some outside of the store. I guess they are still some people out there, who are not just about the money.

 

[ScottDillard]

This looks like an old, dead thread, but I went to StarPower today and ordered a pair of RF-83's since they seem to be only players in town these days. The salespersons (at least the one I dealt with) still didn't have a clue (I spent a LOT of time waiting for him to figure out, then get help, on how to turn on the systems in the various rooms). I ended up ordering a pair of 83's for $1500 which seemed reasonable from the the day or two or research I could do while trying to figure out what to do about my recently deceased Infinity RS II's.

Anyway, down to the real reason I'm writing - Does anyone have anybody (including themselves) that they'd recommend in the DFW area to come out and help me balance my setup? I'm fairly/mostly ignorant in a lot of technical aspects like toe-in, how to set the crossovers or whatever with my SVS 20-39pc for best sound, whether I need to ditch the Infinity center and surrounds to match the Klipsch, etc. I cook a mean steak (Texas dry rub, of course) and know a bit about wines if it's a social visit or we might can deal on used equipment or cash for professional calls.

[Seadog]

Hi Scott. Welcome to the forum - where most of us spend too much time.

I'm sure that there are some Hornheads in the DFW area that can help you. I'm a Klipsch Heritage guy (K-horns, Cornwalls, Heresys) but I can assure you that the Infinity center will get lost between the RF-83s, and eventually you will want a better timbre match for the center and surrounds.

At least one forum member in the DFW area is using SVS subs in his Klipsch HT.

In what part of DFW do you live?

[ScottDillard]

I'm NE of Dallas in a small community named Nevada. I grew up in SW Arkansas - in fact my mother packed ammunition during WWII in the buildings that Paul Klipsch set up shop in after the war. I ran into, and fell in love with, some of the heritage speakers during high school in the late 70's and in about '77 or '78 a high school geek friend and I decided to show up at the factory one day during the summer to see if we could get a tour. We were given a tour by one of the techs and then got to meet Paul at end for a few minutes - I wore one of his Bullshit buttons off and on for years thereafter until it fell apart. In college one of my roommates and I decided to buy a pair of Heresy speakers (it's been too long ago for me to remember which model, but I think they were Heresy II?) and we loved to blast the neighboring campus with a combination of Pink Floyd and Shostakovich (no air conditioning in those days, so the windows were always open). We bought one speaker each and then flipped for who would buy the other person out at the end, and that was the last time I owned any Klipsch speakers. My music-loving father-in-law passed along a pair of Infinity RS II soon after college and they've served me well all these years, but I'm finally in the market again. Anyway, enough babble...

How's the best way to track down or attract the attention of the DFW forum member using SVS subs? I was guessing that I'd need to replace the center and surrounds, but am hoping that the SVS will meld well enough that I can cut several hundred dollars off the next upgrade.

[rcarlton]

Never heard of Nevada, TX until you brought it up. Welcome back to the Klipsch madness!

[USNRET]

Never heard of Nevada, TX until you brought it up

Now we are talking small town TX, I'm originally from Clarksville and lived in Greenville 93-2000. I can't help you way up there but next time you make it to Padre Island stop in. Welcome!

[Seadog]

Scott,

This forum member uses SVS subs. He is in Plano, and both of his rooms sound great.

http://community.klipsch.com/members/eq_5F00_shadimar.aspx