Faulty RF - 7

[supapimp]

I've had a pair of RF-7's for the last 1-1/2 years or so and have been very pleased with them. I've been running a 2-channel setup with a Parasound P3 preamp and A23 amplifier and Denon 3910 DVD player. Both speakers are biwired. Recently, the left speaker has dropped significantly in SPL compared to the right speaker. When I use AVIA and a SPL meter, it measures about 10 decibels lower than the other. I've swapped all components and cables to make sure it's the left speaker, and sure enough, it is.

I bought these from Good Guys, which obviously went out of businesss several months ago. According to their website, it says all service plans and warranties will be honored through the product manufacturer only, so I'll have to talk to Klipsch. It says to refer to the product manual for more information. My question is, I spent hundreds of dollars on extended service plans for all of my speakers (in addition to my two RF - 7's, I have five RB - 75's that I'm planning to use in my basement home theater in the coming months). Does this mean I'm just out of luck with Good Guys, and have to send it directly to Klipsch for repair? How long does something like this take to get the speaker back. I may just have to run a pair of RB - 75's in the meantime.

I'm obviously going to contact Klipsch customer service on Monday morning, but here it is, about 1:30 am on a Friday night and I'm upset. Does a consumer have any recourse whatsoever in a situation like this where extended service warranties cannot be honored by a retailer because they've gone out of business, even when that same consumer spent upwards of $500 on those plans? Anyone have any advice?

Any and all help is much appreciated.

[Jay481985]

RF-7 breaking are rare but I bet any authorized dealer will handle the situation being that the store of purchase is bankrupt. Its sorta like when we brought an infiniti, we went to a dealer far away to purchase it alot cheaper but when it comes time for tuneup we send it to the local guys cause they still honor the fact we brought an infiniti. As with the Klipsch any authorized dealer should honor it. As with extended warantee I doubt that has any recourse as Klipsch would not honor after the normal warantee. If you look at the extended warantee it will state that the store of purchase will try and repair it or replace it, not Klipsch. And how old are they? I believe the warantee is 5 years?

[colterphoto1]

My crystal ball isn't working so good, I dont' know about yours. Let's not jump to conclusions about whether you'll even need to use that extended warranty until you talk to Klipsch, okay?

No point in panicing before you know all the facts. Perhaps Klipsch customer service could give you some advice on the extended warranty situation.

Michale

[Kriton]

OK, hold on - lets try to fix the speaker first...

First, I feel your pain - when I first got my RF7's, there was a woofer that was not working on my right, and I was pretty disappointed (to put it MILDLY). We need to try to fix the speaker, because frankly, sendng them back is really not an option - it will be a roll of the dice whether they will get there in one piece, and back again in one piece, it just makes my head hurt to think about it...AND if your RF's were absolutely pristine like mine were, the thought of some ape man handling them makes me even madder..

OK, first, have you been able to isolate which individual driver is not making up for the sound? Are all the drivers putting out sound, just not enough?

These speakers had (have?) a nasty tendency to come loose in their connections - in other words, my problem was that the cable came off one of the woofers in transit, and all it required was taking the driver out, hooking up the wire and putting it back together, carefully. If all of the drivers are making sound - then it sounds like maybe a crossover problem? In that event I would pull the crossover out of the one that is good, swap with the bad speaker, and fire it up using your meter to measure at the same volume the SPL...and determine that way whether it is in the crossover or the actual drivers...If that doesn't reveal something then you are dealing with a blown or substantially altered driver - and that -individual- component is all that has to be replaced or repaired - it may be just a diaphragm in the tweeter...This is really the same work that your authorized dealer would do were you to haul them somewhere, and you will be a lot more careful with them. You will need a star head for your screw driver, the drivers are surprisingly heavy so be careful when you remove them - if you want to avoid that, try to stick your hand in the tuning port and as far up as you can to check the cable terminals on the woofer you can reach.

ALSO, just for giggles, make sure that the foam placed in the bottom fo the cab is not blocking one of the ports thereby muffling sound..

OK, if you know all of this already and have tried all this yourself, then I am sorry for telling you what you already know - I just never knew any of this stuff until my went south, and I wanted to share

NOW as far as the warrantees, nope I think at least through the retailer you are screwed. Go read the fine print on the contract, I bet you they gave themselves an out in case they went under. Those warrantees are one of the biggest money makers they have, and while I have in the far past bought them myself, I would never bother these days. I have heard that Klipsch is good with customer service, but the only experience I really had with the technical service was over a set of Promedia computer speakers that were very expensive, that were notorious for having the amplifiers fry, took me months to get it back, cost me $60.00 bucks to have the thing reworked and was a generally overall BAD situation.

HOWEVER, after being on this forum, I can say that Amy and Trey have gone out of their way to help and secure excellent response to folks with problems, and I would suggest that you send Amy a private message and explain the problem, after doing the torubleshooting.

Hope that helps.

K

[Guest BobG]

Kriton has provided a wealth of useful information. It is extremely unlikely that all 3 drivers are down in output by 10 dB. Probably one woofer has stopped due to a loose connection. If it were the HF driver, you'd notice a total lack of HF from that speaker.

Regarding the extended service you purchased from Good Guys, it is typical that those programs are backed up by a third party. That company, if one exists, would still be responsible for any service. If the extended service contracts were only with Good Guys, then they are not worth anything; their value having gone away with Good Guys in the bankruptcy decision. You would be among a long list of "creditors" who lost money in those precedings.

Klipsch will most certainly stand behind the 5 year warranty on your RF-7s and are happy to help you by phone or email. Just contact our tech support group @ 800-Klipsch.

[Baenwort]

I have a similar situation. I purchased a set of RF7s from GoodGuys ~1.5 year ago and now the Right Horn is no longer working. I was able to salvage my Christmas showing using the RBs from the computer room to replace the HF side of the biamp but after looking through the closets I've been unable to find the receipt from my purchase and calling the store's old number and then looking online I find GoodGuys is no longer around to get a new one from.

Am I still able to get a replacement horn? I've checked all the steps you listed above including the wiring integrity with my multimeter and the fault is somewhere in the Horn unit.

[Baenwort]

Well, using the above directions got me to finding out the Horn was bad. Would anyone happen to have some helpful directions to figure out if it is the motor or the diaphragm?

[DrWho]

Swap the faulty tweeter with the tweeter in the working cabinet and see if the problem follows the tweeter or the cabinet. If the cabinet, then it's a crossover issue (are the binding straps securely fastened?). If it follows the tweeter, then it's the tweeter obviously. Technically, the diaphragm and motor are really the same thing in a compression driver. You can't seperate the diaphragm from the voice coil, and I'm fairly confident your magnet is fine. So all you'd really need is a replacement diaphragm from Klipsch and you can install it yourself (which will be a lot of work because it needs to be precise). Or you can probably have Klipsch send you an entirely new driver.

[colterphoto1]

When you call in, go to option (2) Tech support, we need to check the troubleshooting and set up a case number prior to hooking you up with Parts Dept. The system works pretty well here, it's unbelieveable the number of people we get fixed up in a day's time.

If you charged them on a credit card, you probably have the date of sale on that receipt or could get it from your CC company.

But people, PLEASE hang on to your receipts in a safe place. Your Klipsch speakers are a major investment that carries a 5-year warranty with a company that will be around a long time. We do ask for proof of purchase not only to assure the time period, but to make sure that the speakers were purchase from and AUTHORIZED DEALER, as there are a lot of grey market resellers out there, particularly on the internet. Those goods do not carry our factory warranty.

That is all. Carry on.