gregis007

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $2200.00 from MAGNOLIA HI-FI

Summary:
I bought these speakers as part of the complete RF-7 line with exception to the rsw-18; I have the rsw-12 instead..a better match in my opinion. These speakers were hard fought since I literally had a budget of 9000.00 for a complete speaker system. I listened to a huge variety of brands and models before narrowing down my choice to either the Klipsch, Sonnus Faber or Definitive Technology. Once I ruled out having to find an electrical outlet for each of the Def. Tech speakers not to mention a voltage stabilizer, the other speakers were very close on home theater alone. Since my gear was going to do double duty, I brought my techno and metal cd's. Although the Sonnus were fantastic at reproducing the human voice as well as symphonic sounds, they could not keep up with the Klipsch with my kind of music. The Sonnus sounded as cheap as a pair of JBL's when techno or metal was played on them. The Klipsch just yawned and stretched their legs a bit more once the volume was increased. Volume was not the Sonnus' forte with music.(at least not my kind of music) These auditions were in the store, in a seperate audition room with only the store manager, myself and my brother, no one else. I was using the Denon 5802 as a head unit and switching between the Pioneer elite 49tx. For the speakers I was auditioning, these two head units were the best suited. For my kind of music, the Klipsch were fantastic. No harshness from the horn tweeter at all. I enjoy very crisp highs and awesome earth shaking lows. These speakers have a mild mid range, which doesn't get muddied up with volume or material with a wide frequency range. Very clear, concise and extremely powerful. With the db per ft at 102 the Klipsch make light work of low power amplifiers. Every 3db increase in sensitivity means 1/2 the power required to make the same amount of sound pressure. Awesome. I use a Harman Kardon AVR 7200 as my home theater rig and have been nothing but "wowed" with every setion. I chose to try the Sonnus and the Klipsch on a home theater run with Gone in Sixty Seconds as my video choice. Pioneer Elite 49tx head unit and matching subs for each pair of speakers. Everything set on reference levels. With those parameters, the Sonnus were very impressive, as long as the sub was powered on. Once I removed the sub, the Sonnus were still powerful but lacked a real "impact" feeling. I put the Klipsch on and was blown away. The amount of sound coming from those speakers was so loud, I couldn't hear myself scream. Loud, but not deafening. I could make out every detail of the movie. I let it play for about 10 min. and much to my surprise my ears were not fatigued! No headache, nothing. Truely impressive. Then we found out that the sub was NOT turned on!!!! All that bass from just the two RF-7's. That sold me right at that moment. We grabbed a bite to eat then returned about 2 hours later and did everything over again. This time we turned the sub on with the Klipsch and I am here to tell you, no movie theater I have ever been inside sounded as good. Please keep in mind that I auditioned about 20 of the most trusted brands before ending up with the Klipsch. Every speaker is great to someone, and the Klipsch are great to me. If you are into techno or heavy metal music, these are the best out there. If you need speakers to do double duty, I would recommend these highly. There are better Home Theater Only speaker sets, but none will work as well at playing music too.

Strengths:
The RF-7 are the best of the Klipsch line since the 70's. That includes the new RF-83's that are made of some different materials but still have the custom high price. The build quality is great, the materials used are all top shelf. The design is classic tower. These speakers have enough weight to make them safe with young kids.(100 lbs ea.) They come with spikes for carpet or rubber feet for tile or wood. The veneers are high quality and wax up nicely. The speaker lugs accomodate any type of wire connection. They are bi-wired speakers, so that adds to their versatility.

Weaknesses:
The grill posts are made out of cheese!!! I remove my grill every 3 weeks to clean the speakers and the first time I removed the grills, one of the mounting posts broke off. I was horrified. Then 3 weeks later, the same thing happened. I called Klipsch and they sent replacements. The exact same posts broke again. This time I left them and did not get replacements. No more have broken off. The two at the top and one on the left side.

Similar Products Used:
Nothing compares to these. I bought the best. The only other speakers I would consider are the Totem Rainmakers.

Nathometheatre

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
3.67 of 5, 3.00 votes

Price Paid:  $2200.00 from Starpower

Summary:
I have owned my RF-7's for nearly two years. I have them as part of my 7.1 channel set up in my home theatre.
They over time have just sounded better and better! Even with new heavily bass encoded DVD's that have come out lately, they can handle just about anything thrown their way.
It is true that the horn loaded tweeters do soften over time.
They are fantastic speakers for the money! I also have the whole family of Reference 7 speakers, including the RC-7, RS-7's and a pair of RB-35's for my rear channel.
I have a SVS PB12-plus2 to handle anything under 40Hz, so I'm not missing anything audible.

Strengths:
Extremely effecient speakers. Basically any amp will power them fine, but with that said, it is true that the RF-7's will expose cheap gear! I'm using a Denon 3805, and they match well!

Weaknesses:
Size if anything. Aside from that, there isn't anything worth mentioning. Grilles could be better designed without using cheap plastic prongs.

Similar Products Used:
Every speaker brand you can possibly think of!

lslasher

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.86 of 5, 7.00 votes

Price Paid:  $1700.00 from Local store in NJ

Summary:
Everything that has been said about those speakers is true. The following review summarizes most of the experience of mine and others with those amazing speakres. Read more carefully than usual ;)
Sorry manfucaturing has stopped due to industrial considerations (and not sound!).
Huge sound, highly sensitive. _very_ spoiled in the sense that they require good components to sound right.

Many regard those speakers as "bright", I'm not sure about the right term, but this is true. They are in-your-face speakers and there's nothing wrong with it. Being perfectly balanced, laid back and adequate as with popular british speakers isn't always enjoying. I'd use the analogous between an original scotish wishkey and Jack Daniel's, which the latter is prefered by me due to its irregular sweetness but isn't consensous by others. So it's a matter of taste and not performance.

Now, about "harshness", this is something you would want to make sure you dont run into, as with any horn loaded speakers. To avoid this, you have to take into considerations a lot of parameters, such as quality of amplification, source, acoustics and time to burn in the tweeters, which takes many many hours with those, but in the end - it's rewarding. Out of the box you get harshness, but over the time with the right positioning, room acoustics and source and amplification you get the sweet jack daniel's feeling. Once you get it, you'll know. Sorry for the many who find those speakers harsh/too-bright when they auditioned them at stores, it's simply unfair to the speakers.

Visit forums.klipsch.com to read many many reivews on those, mainly are over enthusaistic at my opinion, because there is a small core of Klipsch fans there that overtake the forums pretty much. For example, DeanG is a known figure there which has a nice crossover upgrade solution for those speakers, that replaces the stock crossover with once that has top notch capicators for some hundreds of bucks.

Regarding amplification, it's a myth with those speakers. Since they are rated ultra sensitive; 102db, which means that you do very well with a few watts. This is due the horn that helps with the high frequencies by directing them better than a regular dome tweeter dispersion. However, impendance tests that were taken in 2002 by Sound & Vision show that the speaker has an impendance dips to about 3 ohms which means that the amplifier must be good in tracking those. So going for a cheap SS amplifier isn't recommended here, unless it's a T-AMP which is a diferent category. Check for damping-factors, and current bursts.

Positioning those speakers is critical as well due the horn. Some prefer straightahead, some toeing in 45 degress some less. Note that all Klipsch speakers take advantage of the corners and those much be places near corners in order to get the bass extended. Once they are - it extends very good, and you get full range. Last issue is with the foam positioning when out of box (due to shipping artifacts) - you have to push it forward otherwise it blocks the rear ports thereby reducing bass extensions.

Strengths:
See above.

Weaknesses:
Hard to fine tune. Randomly, you get an harsh sound. But if you've got the time and nerves to listen carefully and tune - then those are one of the best speakers that you'll listen to, if not the best. Period.

Price Paid:  $1700.00 from Local store in NJ

Summary:
Everything that has been said about those speakers is true. The following review summarizes most of the experience of mine and others with those amazing speakres. Read more carefully than usual ;)
Sorry manfucaturing has stopped due to industrial considerations (and not sound!).
Huge sound, highly sensitive. _very_ spoiled in the sense that they require good components to sound right.

Many regard those speakers as "bright", I'm not sure about the right term, but this is true. They are in-your-face speakers and there's nothing wrong with it. Being perfectly balanced, laid back and adequate as with popular british speakers isn't always enjoying. I'd use the analogous between an original scotish wishkey and Jack Daniel's, which the latter is prefered by me due to its irregular sweetness but isn't consensous by others. So it's a matter of taste and not performance.

Now, about "harshness", this is something you would want to make sure you dont run into, as with any horn loaded speakers. To avoid this, you have to take into considerations a lot of parameters, such as quality of amplification, source, acoustics and time to burn in the tweeters, which takes many many hours with those, but in the end - it's rewarding. Out of the box you get harshness, but over the time with the right positioning, room acoustics and source and amplification you get the sweet jack daniel's feeling. Once you get it, you'll know. Sorry for the many who find those speakers harsh/too-bright when they auditioned them at stores, it's simply unfair to the speakers.

Visit forums.klipsch.com to read many many reivews on those, mainly are over enthusaistic at my opinion, because there is a small core of Klipsch fans there that overtake the forums pretty much. For example, DeanG is a known figure there which has a nice crossover upgrade solution for those speakers, that replaces the stock crossover with once that has top notch capicators for some hundreds of bucks.

Regarding amplification, it's a myth with those speakers. Since they are rated ultra sensitive; 102db, which means that you do very well with a few watts. This is due the horn that helps with the high frequencies by directing them better than a regular dome tweeter dispersion. However, impendance tests that were taken in 2002 by Sound & Vision show that the speaker has an impendance dips to about 3 ohms which means that the amplifier must be good in tracking those. So going for a cheap SS amplifier isn't recommended here, unless it's a T-AMP which is a diferent category. Check for damping-factors, and current bursts.

Positioning those speakers is critical as well due the horn. Some prefer straightahead, some toeing in 45 degress some less. Note that all Klipsch speakers take advantage of the corners and those much be places near corners in order to get the bass extended. Once they are - it extends very good, and you get full range. Last issue is with the foam positioning when out of box (due to shipping artifacts) - you have to push it forward otherwise it blocks the rear ports thereby reducing bass extensions.

Strengths:
See above.

Weaknesses:
Hard to fine tune. Randomly, you get an harsh sound. But if you've got the time and nerves to listen carefully and tune - then those are one of the best speakers that you'll listen to, if not the best. Period.

Price Paid:  $1250.00 from used

Summary:
Just incredible. Buy them, and you won't regret it. If your ears suck and you don't like them, the resale value is great. I have the dean g upgrade and have nothing negative to speak of.

Strengths:
Everything

Weaknesses:
Big if your a wimp

Similar Products Used:
klipsch, jensen