Hi there fellow Audiophiles (sorry if that sounds a bit crass but this is a first post
)
I have just joined this forum looking for some information on Klipsch upgrades a la GR Research. Any feedback on my questions will be gratefully appreciated
Firstly an an introduction I have recently purchased some RP8000 speakers which I bought here in Oz when they were recently on sale. I have always liked the Klipsch sound with there higher end stuff and I always said if they ever discounted these speakers I would get them. I have a large room here (7m by 13m) and I needed something suitable for the room size and I am no fan of sub woofers so based on the reviews I bit the bullet and bought a pair. They are just past run in and I having done some serious auditioning, getting to know these speakers and working out the best configuration to get the most out of them. I use these for music not movies and have some high end electronics providing the signal source (combination of Naim gear and some home brew amplification). Other speakers in my collection are some (crossover upgraded) late 90's B&W monitors and some (work in progress) home-brew speakers which use twin Mark Audio drivers and a Vifa tweeter.
With that in mind my impressions of the Klipsch's are mixed so far. They are very position sensitive in my setup. I have found they need a pretty good distance between the listening position and the speaker. Here I have 3 metres, anything less and the sound balance goes to pot. They need a decent distance from the wall, here about 50cm with toe in so the they in directly point to the listening position. This gives the best imaging and openness to the sound. Those tin plates on the connector panel also need to go and replaced with copper multi strand wire (I was amazed what difference that made to the openness of the sound).
The negatives for me is some high end harshness which becomes noticeable when you crank up the volume on some recordings. Reducing the toe in tames this a bit at the expense of imaging and airiness. Also on the subject of imaging I feel it could be better, although wide and can extend well beyond the speaker boundaries what's in the middle is not so well delineated (if that makes sense).
Lesser niggles are the bass. The bass is good but I feel it could be a little tighter in some instances when it sometimes overpowers the lower mid range. Mids could have a little more presence at times especially on male vocals
So onto my questions having my expressed my thoughts on this speaker I am looking the GR Research crossover upgrade. I have watched the videos of the Klipsch updates and I am sure these improve Klipsch speakers having done my own speaker build here and update of the crossover on my B&W speakers. I know what a difference good quality parts make to the final sound.
So I'm asking users of the GR research update (and other updates) what changes they experienced after doing their updates?
All feedback will be gratefully appreciated
