Any home theater buffs?

Yeesh, a Yamaha and Klipsch combo has a very bright sound. If you can live with that, you will be fine just using your receiver.



If not, and you still want a power amp, then I'd recommend a B&K or Parasound. Top-shelf internals and build quality and sound quality.:)



Good choice with the SVS PB10 sub, but you probably will want to step up to a 12 with those monster front speakers.



Oh, and don't spend a ton on cables. It really ISN'T necessary. I've worked with electrical physicists and in their LABS they use Radio Shack gold cables. They said most of the high-end cables "high-end features" are just marketing gold. Affordable quality cables usually sound just as good, if not better, than the very expensive brands.



Right now, I'm buying bulk cable from bluejeanscable.com and terminating them myself. Excellent price for the quality you get. Just FYI.
 
You have two bedrooms, that's perfect, you sleep in one, setup a 2-channel rig in the other. If you do, go separates, buy in pieces if necessary. Spend a few grand, your ears will be happy.
 
John Styrnol said:
You have two bedrooms, that's perfect, you sleep in one, setup a 2-channel rig in the other. If you do, go separates, buy in pieces if necessary. Spend a few grand, your ears will be happy.
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Possibly, but those RF-7s would be terrible overkill in either of the small bedrooms. :lol Oh well... I'll add the matching center channel and surrounds and call it good. I probably only watch a movie at home once a month, and even then, I hardly pay attention to it.
 
Well I have been playing around with my current setup today at home just to try to get the best performance out of my sub. I e-mailed Tom at SVS and he replied and gave me some specific suggestions with regards to my specific receiver. I turned all the speakers to SMALL, and set bass to Subwoofer ONLY rather than main and sub. This made a huge difference in how the sub performed. Before, it was hardly "musical" in that it would kind of just sit there and hum very low frequencies without any real hit from a bass drum kick. Now it is much more lively. Tom said it is best to have the subwoofer producing the brunt of the bass for a system, so that the mains and sub don't cancel eachother out in some frequencies. This got me to thinking about what's going to happen when I get my RF-7s. Following Tom's logic, the best thing would be to have some small satellite type speakers for the mains, and let the sub handle all the bass. However, I would THINK that the RF-7s would produce much more bass in the musical register I'll be listening to.



Thoughts? It seems kind of pointless to be getting such sweet mains if I'm going to turn the bass off them. I was also considering adding another PB10-ISD to my system just for kicks. If you can't tell, I do love bass. :) Again, probably credited to my musical background playing the tuba, bass guitar, bari sax, percussion, etc.
 
You should still be ok with the Klipsch, just set the crossover on the sub for anything below what the Klipsch cannot handle.
 
With the RF-7s, don't turn the bass off. You might as well just get small bookshelf speakers if you are going to do that.



Keep the bass on both of them, just switch the phase on the sub to 180*. That way they won't cancel each other out.:)



Two PB10s would be awesome!!!
 
drewski59 said:
.... just switch the phase on the sub to 180*. That way they won't cancel each other out...
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Unless you know for a fact that all your signal paths maintain absolute phase (polarity) including both the receiver's internal amplifiers and the subwoofer's internal amp you can't be sure. You'll have to try it both ways and see what works.



Does the receiver have any kind of programmability for crossing over the subwoofer?





PC.
 
the other pc said:
Does the receiver have any kind of programmability for crossing over the subwoofer?





PC.
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The only control I have over the subwoofer from the receiver is whether bass is directed to only it, to both it and the mains, or just the mains. I can then adjust the level of the sub at 1db increments from -20 to 0. I currently have the bass set to only sub, all other speakers set to "small" and the level at -5 on the receiver, with the gain at about 75% on the sub. All per recommendation from Tom at SVS.



Tom at SVS had also said something about adjusting the crossover on the receiver, but I don't seem to have that option. I would be willing to upgrade if this would help me get the most out of my stuff. I don't want to skimp. If I'm going to be running thousands of dollars worth of speakers, I want the best receiver for them all.
 
If it were me I would get rid of that sub and pick one up that has an crossover, it just might be the cheapest way around for you. You would also have your mains as large to get the most out of them.
 
Well I went in today and auditioned the RF-7s once again, and came away a little confused. They just did NOT have the bass I was expecting from twin 10" drivers. They were hooked up to a 50 watt per channel receiver, which is half of what I have, but the guy said they played around with different receivers and he said I wouldn't get much better sound out of my receiver until higher levels of volumes.



He let me listen to a set of Monitor RS-8s (I believe) and they sounded great, and actually had more bass than the RF-7s, but they were also connected to a 150watt per channel receiver.



I need to find a store that carries Klipsch, Paradigm, B&W, Monitor, Def. Tech., and any other speaker in the $1000 (each) range.
 
Are you talking about Monitor Audio speakers. I had a whole HT setup with them, silver 5i, silver 3, silver 10i very nice speaker for the price and size. I liked these over my Klipsch's.
 
John Styrnol said:
Are you talking about Monitor Audio speakers. I had a whole HT setup with them, silver 5i, silver 3, silver 10i very nice speaker for the price and size. I liked these over my Klipsch's.
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Yep, they had a really nice, warm tone to them and were finished better than the Klipsch's. Crazy sound out of two small 6 inch diameter woofers. It's unbelievable how these companies can make these speakers sound so great for no more than is there in the enclosure. They were about $1500 a pair.



http://www.monitoraudio.com/products/silver/rs_series/rs8.htm



They're definitely not as sensitive as the Klipsch's on paper.
 
BlackSunshine said:
Yep, they had a really nice, warm tone to them and were finished better than the Klipsch's. Crazy sound out of two small 6 inch diameter woofers. It's unbelievable how these companies can make these speakers sound so great for no more than is there in the enclosure. They were about $1500 a pair.



http://www.monitoraudio.com/products/silver/rs_series/rs8.htm
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They sure don't appear to be as sensitive as the Klipsch line on paper.
 
I've always loved Monitor Audio's stuff.



Hard to say what was going on there. On paper the RF-7s and RS 8s roll off at almost exactly the same frequency (32Hz for the RF-7, 33Hz for the RS8) but there's so much more to speaker characteristics and sound perception that that's only one part of the larger picture. Were the two sets in close to the same positions in the room?



The difference in sensitivity between the RF-7s and RS 8s (102dB 2.83v/1m vs. 91dB 2.83v/1m) should mean that the RF-7s with a 55W amp would still swamp the RS 8s with a 150W amp as far as getting loud. But bass quality, extension, balance and transient attack aren't things you can put simple numbers on.



If you really like the sound of the Monitor Audio stuff you may want to consider mating up smaller speakers like the RS 1s with your SVS sub.





PC.
 
Nad's receivers sound real nice with Klipsch horns..



I had a yammi running my Klipsch's and it sounded terrible in 'two channel' stereo mode,,,but movies sounded alright...when I switched to the NAD 762, it brought the Klipsh's to life.



wow, RF-7's!!! cool.



I'll get a pic of my "home theatre" up soon..
 
steck said:
Nad's receivers sound real nice with Klipsch horns..



I had a yammi running my Klipsch's and it sounded terrible in 'two channel' stereo mode,,,but movies sounded alright...when I switched to the NAD 762, it brought the Klipsh's to life.



wow, RF-7's!!! cool.



I'll get a pic of my "home theatre" up soon..
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The 150 watt receiver they had running the Monitors at Kief's was an Nad. The salesman was really understanding and said I could bring my receiver in and hook it up to any speaker, no problem. That's a lot of work and lugging around, though. I don't understand how one brand of amplifier can sound so much different than another, assuming they're the same type. I can see where one might not "hiss" as much, but it's intriguing to me that they can sound different.



PC- I am thinking I may do something like that, but I really want to cover all my bases first. Do you think the Klipsch's would sound any better (more bass?) with my 110 watt receiver, or will this difference in power only come into play when more volume is desired? The room the speakers were all in was rectangular, with the longer sides about twice as long as the shorter sides. The RF-7s were along the longer wall, not in a corner. The Monitors were on a shorter side, about three feet from the corner and a foot from the wall behind them, same with the Klipsch's.



This has really sparked my interest, which kind of sucks because now I'm going to be driving hours to listen to different brands :grinno:



What is a good site where all these different speakers are compared? Audioreview didn't have anything on the Monitors I was looking for.
 
Room placement is a big factor in bass reproduction. The two sets being on different length walls and your relative seating position were probably the overwhelming factors in the differences you heard. I'll bet if they were set up more alike you wouldn't hear so dramatic a difference in bass.



Since the shop is willing to let you bring in your own receiver (kudos to them) to try with the speakers you're considering the only way you'll really know is to do it (but if that's a big hassle try the room placement with their equipment first).



Set up the speakers next to each other, trying to get as close to the same position relative to you and the room boundaries as when listening at home. Hook them both up and listen. Use your amp's A/B speaker switching or just plug and unplug the two sets. You'll have to adjust volume every time you swap pairs of speakers (due to the difference in sensitivity) so you won't be able to flip back and forth quickly but you'll be able spend some time listening to each.



A single number like "Watts" can't completely describe amplifier performance any more than "horsepower" can be the entire description of a car's performance. All other things being equal the amp with higher Wattage will simply play that much louder into the same speakers but all other things are rarely equal.



The "cult of Wattage" started in the seventies with the advent of high powered solid state amps (I believe we can thank Bob Carver and Jim Bongiorno for that) and then morphed in the eighties and nineties when autosound started to grow big. Power is one of the few amplifier characteristics that's commonly published and measured using a standardized method but it is only one part of the complex interaction between an amplifier and a speaker.





PC.
 
PrinzII said:
What's the latest news on this?
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I'm going to be checking out some other brands this weekend. There's a shop that carries B&W, another that carries Paradigm, and then I'm going to go back to the shop here in town and hook my receiver up to the Monitor RS-8s and Klipsch RF-7s again and try to make a choice.



Any others in the $2000 price range I should check out? I was thinking about the Paradigm Studio 100s and I'm not sure which B&W (if any) fall in this price range.
 
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