Crossover quality, cabinet quality. Super mids and Highs. Tight clean bass when it worked.

My 12" original woofers fell apart on me.

I have a pair of 1986's that I've been running off and on since 1989 when I picked them up a pawn shop in Biloxi Ms. when I was in the Airforce. I've always run them on an Onkyo M-504 170 WPC @ 4 Ohm power amp and a Carver 4000t pre-am with sonic haligraphy. The speakers were just awsome from day one. Like others have said, if you elevate them 4-6" and keep them within 10" of a corner, they shine. If your bass addicted, you'll benefit from a sub.

Eventually, by 1995, the woofers started to crack like others have stated. I did not want to trash them, so I improvised. I dropped a 4 Ohm pair of Kicker Competition 12" woofers in their place. To be honest, they sound great! The bass is real heavy now, and a touch muddy, as if they were ported, but they are not. They have the bass of Vegas and the mids and highs of Heresy II's. I cannot reccomend you do this because Kicker competitions may have changed the formula. You need to look for a 12" woofer that is designed for a 2 cu/ft sealed cabinet and handles 400 or so watts. I would look for better quality if I could do it over, like BA or Polk or Infinity woofers. Crutchfield would be a good resource. If you are looking at a cheap pair of Heresy II's and the mids and highs sound good, but the woofer is cracked this may be an option for you. I'm happy, but would be happier if my speakers had never broke.

Similar Products Used:

Tons of speakers.

Bass, volume, small size, clarity.

none

Ok this is my first "real" pair of home speakers, although I had been in the car audio install lbusiness for many years, and a musician, so I know what good sound is. Many reviewers here are complaining about the lack of bass. Im sure the speakers are not the only contributing factor to any lack of bass. My system pounds the bass in my medium sized living room. I use a Fisher "studio standard" RS 2003 tuner/amp. Not the greatest gear by any means, but it was cheap and I needed something to drive my newfound speakers.
Auditioning anything from Madonas "the immaculate collection" or anything from Rush's "Moving Pictures" (the first CD ever recorded in true all digital format), shows that the Heresy II's are far from lacking in the bass department.
The guy I got the speakers from had a different amp of course, I cant remember what it was, but it really threw the mids, I mean it screamed! Therefore I have come to the conclusion that the amplifier has alot to do with how much bass your going to get, as well as many other characteristics.
My particular pair of Heresy II's are not the greatest looking, one has a good ding in the side and a spot on top where the finish is worn off, and the woofers dont have exactly the same color. But when it comes to performance, I have yet to hear a home system that delivers as good as this setup does. I shudder to think what a macintosh amp would sound like with these speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Fisher amp.

Klipsch quality, they are made like nice furniture and sound as good as they look.

Mids can get a bit punchy, but then you could just listen to better music.....

I bought these speakers in 1990, and have never regretted it. At the time I wondered about spending as much on the speakers as the rest of the gear, but I got a deal on a new pair, and they are wonderful. I had a set of 15degree angled stands made for them in 1993 and was really amazed at the difference---if you have these, get them off of the floor! The bigger the room the better too.

Similar Products Used:

none

Very Loud,solid build, sounds great!

Needs alot of power, very heavy, you may need a sub

The speaker are great. I can't beleive I scored them for only 23 bucks

Efficient, very musical, flat frequency response down to about 45hz

Low bass, older Heresy speakers need some TLC but are worth it

I bought a pair of Heresy IIs from a private party about six months ago. The beech cabinets were in excellent shape but the tweeters were blown. Fourty bucks for a new set of diaphrams, only available through a Klipsch dealer, and they were good to go. About a month ago I noticed some distortion coming from one of the woofers. Upon inspection, I noticed that the surround had come loose from the frame in two spots. I checked the other speaker and noticed a small part of that surround had come loose also. I thought about trying to fix them but they are over twenty years old so I tried to find some replacements. I found Layne Audio in Nashville TN, http://www.speakersupply.com. I spoke with I'm assuming Layne who was very helpful, knowledgable and a very nice guy. He has drop-in replacement woofers for the Heresy I and IIs for $79 bucks each. They are made by the same company as the originals using the same frame and cone but with a longer voice coil. I put them in last night and they work great. May need some break-in time but right out of the box they sound very good. If you need woofers for your Heresy I or IIs, these are the ticket. You just need a phillips screwdriver.

Similar Products Used:

Paragigm reference speakers

Volume, flat response, non ported box

Horns can be a bit harsh and may want a Sub to fill in

These are the best speakers Ive owned, and the cheapest (65 bucks!) They have a flat well balanced sound best suited for a large room. The horns can be a bit "in your face", these are definately meant for a large room, and mounted angled up 30 deg, or on a speaker stand. I suspect one could achieve better dispersion if the tweeters and mids were mounted from the front of the speaker, rather than from behind. If you decide to replace the screw terminals, make sure you have enough clearance. I almost shot myself in the foot, my banana terminals barely cleared the long midrange driver. The speakers also have a built in cross over. They may not go lower (frequency) than speakers on the market today, but listen to these for about an hour and switch back to another set of speakers. You will notice other speakers may go lower, but these have a flatter response especially in the mid range area. Bass is easy to achieve with a sub, speakers with lots of bass and treble may sound better short term but the flat response of these speakers is hard to match. These also have a tighter bass as compared with ported speakers. These speakers typically sell for 500 USD /pair on ebay

Similar Products Used:

JBL S38II studio series. Atlantic Technology

can make a 100 watt amp sound like a 500 they do not distort until you are deaf

light and the bass but very tight and accurate

Ive had these speakers since about 1985 and after 17 years they still sound great even after i blew one of the tweeters recently. I purchased them at the navy exchange and as I did not have a life i lived in the audio department. I remember waffling for weeks maybe longer between these speakers and the jbl 4312 studio monitors. I decided on the heresy because they had a greater range and unmatched clarity

Clarity, efficiency, price.

None worth mentioning.

Awesome speakers for the price. Very tigh bass, though only goes down to about 50 hz. Took care of that by hooking a Velodyne 1012 subwoofer. Use a fairly modest amplifier, a Yamaha 700XU integrated pushing about 105 Watts RMS/Ch. at 8 ohms. Works for me in my small house. Anyway, clean sound at all volumes. Loud volumes are especially pleasing with these speakers, as they really do not distort at all!!! They can take licking and keep on kicking. Have used them at parties, etc. pushing a couple hundre watts thru each and let them sing for hours and hours at a time nonstop, and they still sound as good as new. Have owned them for fifteen yrs now. If I had a larger home I''d probably get some Cornwalls or K Horns, but these little babies can still stand up to anything in their price range, and many beyond, for that matter!

Price, sound quality

None really

For the money some of the best darn speakers you can buy. Have had mine 15 years now and they sound as good as the day I bouth ''em. I have a modest system, powering them with a Yamaha RX700U integrated amp which puts out something like 105 WRMS/ch @ 8 ohms. Any lightness in the bass is more than taken care of with a Velodyne 1012 subwoofer.

Nearly everything

lowest octave missing

I use the Heresy II's as my second pair in another room, in my main room I have some Klipsch Chorus II. These two together with the Cornwall II and the Klipschorn are the absolutely best speakers ever made by Klipsch and the ones which also work perfectly with Classical and Jazz. There are very few other speakers with that perfect midrange tonality and impact and even fewer with that ultra fast transient response. Listen to drums, wooodwinds, voices, piano (!), cello and so on and you'll hear. The only thing missing is the lowest octave because of their size and the closed design instead of a ported one, a design decision for bass quality instead of quantity. Properly placed you will never hear an overboosted bass or midbass which most ported speakers have. In terms of colouration the series II was and is a big improovement over the series I which I owned years before.
If you're looking for a natural sounding speaker give them a try, you'll be pleased. They must be placed near a wall (!), preferably on the original riser base, and they must be toed in quiet a bit! Use a good, warm sounding amp.
The newest and actual version (1997???) has a new tweeter-diaphragm whith a little bit better resolution.

All in all the Heresy II is a highly engeneered classic without sound-degrading modern cosmetics and other comercially limitations. Perfect Paul!