Klipsch owners, stand up and be counted

Will let you know as soon as I finish the system re-org in my office. Got some new racks, cables and speakers to shuffle in and out, as well as Marantz Reference players to change out, and two PM-11S3 integrateds to swap in and out of racks. I can tell you this much, my forte II’s aren’t leaving this house.

 

I own an older set of Heresy

 

@mr clean , I own similar Klipsch speakers (F2s) and sometimes I have to lower the 1-2-4 khz bands (not all at a time, mind you) but it's always clearly the recording, not the speakers who are at fault IME. Your speakers are tamer than mine, so, maybe it's a room issue ? Is your room treated in any way ? (area carpet, curtains, glass, first reflection points, front wall, etc) Mine is, and have never had the need to tame the 8 khz band, or boost the 500 hz one. Just a thought. Different amps, hearings, sources and rooms of course make a huge difference, mind you.

keep up the K sound !!

 

My room is not very good at all! And I understand that is a lot of my problem. I listen in a room that is about 40 ft long and 15 ft across with a 9 ft ceiling. My speakers are on the long wall on one end where we watch tv about 14ft apart . And I have a fireplace on my end also so I'm not blaming the speakers. I do have carpet down and curtains on the windows. Ive always used eq all the way back to the 70s. I care about how my system sounds to me in my room and don't believe leaving my controls flat gets my system anywhere near how it sounded when it was recorded. How could it being everything is different. Im sure if the recording was made in my room with my gear the eq setting they used would be different also. But there are a lot of crappy rooms, and I do believe overall Klipsch speakers are little hot on the top end, and high mid areas of the spectrum. In a better room it might not be a big deal but I'm sure you have heard others say klipsch are fatiguing and as I got older it was a problem. It did not bother me when I was younger. Just knocking 2 db off 2000hz,and 8000hz is night and day!

 

That's a lot of distance between the speakers, but if you sit that much apart from them, they should be OK. Yeah the room is far from ideal, and yes Klipschs are a tad hotter than other speakers around 4 Khz, by some 2 dbs or so; saw a graph on an article about a test conducted by an audio mag. I think your model is like 2 gens newer so much tamer in that area. I can't hear a hot top end by any means (over 12-16 Khz, am a coupla older than you are, and my ears maybe a little more ¨seasoned¨ than yours. I either leave the 16 Khz band flat or boost it up to 5 dbs, but never substract unless it's a horrid demo.

This said, I don't think any speakers could be gotten to work properly without eq in your room/configuration, so glad they work with any amount of correction at all.

 

I was guessing about how wide they were. They are more like 10 ft after checking. And I sit about 8 ft away. The top band on the loki only 8000 hz, but the way its set up it makes changes higher and lower almost as much. Look at the loki eq owners manual, and it will explain it best. I can only hear up to about 14000 hz myself. I get near a speaker and turn the two higher controls down until the sizzle is gone but the sparkle remains.

 

I bought a pair of the Klipsch RP160m's about a year ago. I have swapped them in and out of my system but keep coming back to them. These are and were my first encounter with Klipsch and they are the opposite of everything I had heard or read about Klipsch speakers.

I consider the 160's to be refined, delicate, a little conservative even, not like a a thug on his best behaviour but gentleman like, a little romantic. Evenly balanced top to bottom perhaps a tad, just a tad thinner in the mid- midrange but not all the time and not with every instrument.

Imaging is not precise, it wanders a little, not much, sometimes you can tell that parts of an arrangement is coming directly from out of the speaker box but the soundstage is mono-like. I listen to classical music primarily and visit concerts often and when I close my eyes in a hall there is no left or right of the orchestra just a solid image of music and that's how the 160's present. I have them on 60cm stands, pointing ever so slightly outwards (toe out so to say) and with the plinths they tilt slightly backward and up and they resolve height very well.

The highs are infinite, I use tone controls on the bass and turn it a couple of notches down in my room. These are not "party speakers" as I have heard them described, nor are they just "fun" they have gravitas and would be a treat at a sophisticated soiree.

One of the better decisions I have made in regards to speakers.

 

Toe OUT ?! Really ? Why ? Curious.

 

Original Forte's with new Crites crossovers, RB-75's

 

It is ever so slight, but from my seating position it consolidates the soundstage between the speakers as not much seems to happen beyond the outer edges of the speakers and I am not sure if that is the normal behaviour of a horn. (This is my first experience with horn speakers).

My other standmount speakers seem to be able to generate action beyond the outer edges of the front baffle, sometimes spookily so throwing images well beyond the speakers outside edge, not all the time but consistently with certain passages on certain discs.

 

Klipsch horn are CD (controlled directivity) so as to keep the sounstage confined to a much smaller listening area, hence less reflections from lateral walls/ceiling.

 

I adore my Heresy III

 

Thanks for the heads up, outside of room characteristics would you recommend toe in or straight ahead into the room? I love it when the music is playing and I look at the speakers and it is if they are not even on they even disappear while they're still standing there.

 

Whatever you like the most. I'd start out with an agressive toe-in, then experiment with less and less toe in till they are parallel to each other and determine what sounds best to your ears. If you still prefer the toe-out, then by all means keep that setting, but it's not conventional by any means; you're either missing a lot of higher frequencies or getting them reflected from the side walls (attenuated) . That would suggest either the speakers are too agressive or you favor a mellower sound.

 

Me too! KG4’s were my first proud audio purchase as a freshman in college 1983. Replaced the crossovers and tweeters with Crises parts last year, and they are better than new. Through college and early family years my wife and I hauled them to at least 10 different houses and apartments. Now with the kids in college all these years later they’re in my basement listening space, old friends on nights when I need some solo time.

Powering them with a Yamaha A-S701, which sounds wonderful. One of these days, tubes.

 

Steve's opinion pretty much sums all up:

 

Heresy IIIs- love em. Plenty of muscle for me and the Quicksilver / Audible Illusions combo make em sing!

 

Never seen that one before.

 

@The Pinhead, have been experimenting with speaker placement of the RP160m's and came across what I call the "Gedde's Cross" a severe toe in bringing the speakers further out into the room and crossing them not directly at the listening spot.

Well that is something else and one is never too old to learn. Lost a little bass but soundstage, depth of field, voice naturalness and instrument spacing is second to none. Quite a bit of info on the interwebs about it including from the man himself.

The idea behind Gedde's cross as I understand it is to get rid of the room. I am playing them fairly quietly this evening and despite my dog snoring in the corner, the music sounds wonderful.

Because of the "reputation" of Klipsch I am sure Guttenberg's response to the RP600m's as "fun" is a predetermined response, I have always heard that the Klipsch is a "party speaker" which immediately makes me think of Animal House fraternity parties, even Klipsch use words or quotations like "kick-ass" . Their marketing must work though considering the success of their brand and product.

But these performance range speakers and I haven't heard the 600's are certainly the result of some serious development and they are truly very delicate and refined and well heeled. I am not sure if this a characteristic of horn speakers or just this particular model but I would say instrument sound decay tends to be truncated would that be a fair statement?

Great speakers, just great speakers.

 

I didn't want to mention that setting because I didn't like it myself, but I know some people use it. Glad you're enjoying yours Ks man !!

 

Consider, that back in the Animal House frat party days, and even before and after, most people had speakers that were direct radiator type, in large shoe boxes.

While this might be OK four someone's living room, the only party they sould service is a cocktail party.

Large, efficient horn speaker's, however can serve quite large parties very well.

 

80's Birch Heresy with tubes. My dream sound. Good on The Doors, AM Gold, Miles, Frank, all the stuff I love. I can die happy.

 

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. ? Why ?! Please people; keep it alive !