RF7-III upgrade

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oldman74

RF7-III upgrade
« on: 20 Jan 2023, 07:45 pm »
Hi Everyone,

Longtime lurker, first time poster.

I am starting with my RF7-III getting upgraded.

Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #1 on: 20 Jan 2023, 09:06 pm »
You've got a big journey ahead of you, but the feedback we've gotten on them after the upgrade has been really positive.

Feel free to ask us anything if you get stuck or need some further direction.  :thumb:

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #2 on: 20 Jan 2023, 09:18 pm »
pulling out the speaker terminals, VERY strong pull from nyodinium magnet



« Last Edit: 20 Jan 2023, 11:08 pm by oldman74 »

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #3 on: 20 Jan 2023, 09:20 pm »
pulling out Tweeter, and these foam blocks


oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #4 on: 20 Jan 2023, 09:24 pm »



there is no glue on any of the foam pads, which is great

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #5 on: 20 Jan 2023, 09:29 pm »
Moving down to the first woofer  three pieces of foam here 1 was turned to a "U" to mask the port, Klipsch port tuning? 


 
« Last Edit: 21 Jan 2023, 02:24 am by oldman74 »

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #6 on: 20 Jan 2023, 11:38 pm »
how can I rotate that last pic?

Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #7 on: 20 Jan 2023, 11:48 pm »
You have to upload them directly to your gallery to be able to rotate them.
They can't be rotated if they are posted directly into a thread.

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #8 on: 21 Jan 2023, 02:36 am »
That third piece of foam in the top woofer,


oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #9 on: 21 Jan 2023, 02:37 am »
1st

 woofer port exposed

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #10 on: 21 Jan 2023, 02:41 am »
Pulling the rest out of the 1st woofer, you will notice bottom right of 1woofer space hole where wires were held and sealed with what feels like plug\duct seal compound






oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #11 on: 21 Jan 2023, 03:04 am »
2nd woofer, foam amount are the same, crossover located, and the raceway for the wiring and the duct compound used to seal it.




oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #12 on: 21 Jan 2023, 03:13 am »
pulling foam and crossover






oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #13 on: 21 Jan 2023, 03:29 am »
closer look at the binding posts, crossover, all part's pulled except 2 pieces of foam in the very bottom adjacent to the speaker terminals








E-Zee

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #14 on: 21 Jan 2023, 08:50 pm »
This speaker has some great potential, but certainly has flaws in its original form.   I think this particular upgrade from Danny is going to be of great benefit to those that go this route. 

I'm not going to take any time to pick it apart,  but this is the stock crossover from klipsch, to aid in understanding the starting point for this speaker.



The accomplishments of the replacement GR-Research crossover in taming and balancing the tweeter, and converting to a 2.5 way by crossing the two woofers separately is significant.

A couple things intrigue me about the cabinet.  It appears the cabinet is sealed between the two woofers. Both woofers are being fed the same signal but appear to have different internal volumes.  It's interesting. There could be some benefit in the concept of feeding two woofers same signal but in different cabinet volumes, if done right. I just can't help but think the negatives might outweigh any benefit. It may not even be a relevant factor with this speaker, just a thought.

For anyone already into the cabinet to upgrade,  adding a few more braces wouldn't be hard. It seems inadequately braced.
« Last Edit: 21 Jan 2023, 10:23 pm by E-Zee »

Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #15 on: 21 Jan 2023, 09:44 pm »
We've gotten a lot of great feedback from the customers who have built out this kit so far.

The original customer who sent us the speaker also recommends to return at least one sheet of the original foam back into the speaker. after installing the NoRez.
Without the extra sheet it still sounds hollow and boxy. Most of the time I recommended returning the sheet that surrounds the two ports, as the NoRez already mimics the effects of the rest of the foam.

Some extra corner bracing between the side & rear panels and side/rear/top would definitely help to further control bass resonances.

Oddly enough, I've heard reviewers mention that the speaker has "3 chambers" when it clearly only has two actual chambers as the space above the upper woofer is separated by a hollow brace and some foam, but the tweeter is sealed in its own airspace. so I'm not really sure what they're referring to.

The main benefit in sharing the signal to both woofers is improved efficiency, but they really limited the low end extension of the tweeter, which really makes it impossible to get a good frequency response due to how far away the acoustic centers are. You have to sit on the floor at upper woofer height to get a halfway decent response with the stock crossover.

The upgrade crosses to the tweeter at ~950Hz (~1200Hz Stock) to the upper woofer, bringing the acoustic centers much closer together, allowing for a much more consistent response over a wider area, while also maintaining a lot of the efficiency of the original design.

it's a wonder they charge 4000+ for these things...

E-Zee

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #16 on: 21 Jan 2023, 10:21 pm »
Hobbs, $4k retail is a but crazy for me,  but this
speaker still has a strong appeal to many. Many Klipsch fans and forums treat this as their endgame, lifetime purchase

Looking at used prices or an occasional discount pricing, I'm stuck thinking that for someone on the fence about buying this speaker, having the upgrade available and even after it's cost, could still be a high value option for some. A patient buyer might get into these for not far from $3,500 including the upgrade kit. For plenty of people, having nice looking towers with 10" woofers is going to be very appealing at that price.

 I suppose my only point is that the GR upgrade option might actually cause the RF-7III to get added to some more wish lists and some may buy it exclusively for the purpose of having the end product include this crossover swap.

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #17 on: 24 Jan 2023, 02:07 am »
Hey,

Sorry for the lack of updates, kid down sick.  To go back to what Hobbs, and Elon have mentioned.

 Assumption was correct did not pay retail and had an ok deal at the beginning of 2020 on these new

 On the 2.0 system I was running a pair of KEF 300A powered and they imaged fantastic but did not hit those lower frequencies liked I wanted, so started to watch YouTube. Channels from youthman(reason for RF7-III), then started to get into the analytical side NRD, GR, Erin's Audio, Jay, and Randy from cheap audio man, Tharbamar and Thomas and stereo(again, sold me on the Criton 1tdx).

Ordered a pair of CSS Criton 1tdx with superior crossover, and was floored.(they are that good)

After a month or so listening to the Criton I felt regret purching the RF7-III because I thought I was listening to a good speaker, I cant knock what I didn't know at the time, I was missing and I was racking my brain if get these off loaded or am I  looking at a loss that I was  not comfortable with and  I really am pressed with a lack of any downtime.  So kept them, then I saw the RF7-III upgrade kit coming soon.  I believe that the components can greatly improve the sound and that's what I'm hedging on.

And I'm not going to lie, I am a little more comfortable now learning to solder, and getting the four boards wired up.

I wanted to acknowledge Elon, he built these 4 massive, heavy crossovers, and the consulting, and coaching has helped a lot.

Thank you Elon.

I'll try to get more stuff later this week.

oldman74

Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #18 on: 28 Jan 2023, 06:53 pm »


Yeah quite the journey so far, all I had was a carpet razor so been slowly measuring and cutting.  Just moving along.

           Question 1) for anyone on the tweeter I see Steel nuts and crush washer very close to the tweeter, would there be a need to remove and replace with copper or brass if available?

           Question 2 Should I use Dynamat on the plastic tweeter horn or leave it?  I have used that stuff before with success to remove transformer hum to chassis with pretty good success.

Thank you



















Hobbsmeerkat

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Re: RF7-III upgrade
« Reply #19 on: 28 Jan 2023, 08:01 pm »
1) The nuts & washers mounting the driver to the horn aren't in the signal path so you can leave them.
2) you certainly can, though the rubber face if the horn will do a lot of that naturally. Some of the Heritage models benefit greatly from damping the hard, plastic horns.
I think it might be better served on the ports. I put some on the port of my 600M II, as it rings pretty readily if you tap on it, it's makes no noise now.