New Quartets in the House

[fredgarvin]

I picked up some nice Quartets this afternoon on CL and have been running them all night. What a revelation (to me). Now I understand the dynamics, immediacy and the 'live in the room sound'. I'm not hearing any horn honk, harshness or all of the negatives I've read and expected. As soon as I lit them up my wife said "these are the best you have".

The vocals sound very natural, the bass is very solid, strong output. The top end is not as extended or airy as the EMIT ribbons in my VMPS speakers. The soundstage is not out in front of the speakers as much as the planar mids, slightly less 3d imaging. But everything else is better. It just sounds live. The dynamics of horns, guitars, drums, much better. Vocals more natural sounding. I played in bands for 40 odd years and this is the real deal.

I have them out 20" from the wall, it's a big room. they fill it. I don't hear the boxiness some complained of, in smaller rooms with the speakers too close to the back wall. I hear no reason to damp the horns or mess with the mid horn. I'm guessing the titanium diaphragms will give me the extension I want in the tweeters. I'm very happy with these.

I should mention I am using a big high current CODA amp 200 watts per channel at 8ohms 400 at 4ohms. But, The IRL preamp I have is very neutral sounding with variable gain settings. I'm on the lowest setting. I think I'm a Klipsch man now.

 

[lifer70]

Had a set and loved them. Unfortunately I had the "too many speakers" affliction an sold them to a vinyl nut friend. He is very happy.
Enjoy!

 

[fredgarvin]

Had a set and loved them. Unfortunately I had the "too many speakers" affliction an sold them to a vinyl nut friend. He is very happy.
Enjoy!

My wife is suggesting i sell something. I have a hard time letting go of stuff I like, especially speakers. I doubt I'll sell these unless I move up the model line. I probably won't sell my VMPS either. Such decisions.

 

[fredgarvin]

I put them on 4 " blocks, which improved everything. They really thump, which I didn't expect. Toeing them in created a good soundstage and improved imaging. I don't hear anything that needs improved except the titanium diaphragms will be coming soon. These don't have the sweet top end of the EMIT ribbons, but everything else is better.

 

[fredgarvin]

No wonder they sound so good, after inspection I see they already have the Ti diaphragms. Awesome!

 

[moray james]

raise them up so that the centre of the mid horn about 16 inches or so with the risers removed you will get much better stage and image.

 

[rxonmymind]

Congrats. Love me the horns and have the Bell's. The honkyness I've found is song dependent and volume. Just as some complain of lack of bass from 15" woofers. We'll I tested them out with some not to my liking edm house music and was satisfied that the bass was there as it literally vibrates the entire house. The volume wasn't very high either. So I put that myth to sleep.
But the honk is there just only on some songs. But on others it's EVERYTHING you mentioned being so good. Light, airy, open and a touch off the top (Listen to a song by Four80east titled Dirty stack. Beautiful imaging and highs) but a pleasure to listen to for endless hours.
Again, congrats!

 

[fredgarvin]

I checked out the crossovers, and they are not Crites, no sonicaps. The caps look like the same on a stock xo but the transformers look brand new and the inductors are not stock. Still iron core, but a different winding over big plastic spools and a zip tie.

 

[fredgarvin]

raise them up so that the centre of the mid horn about 16 inches or so with the risers removed you will get much better stage and image.

I do intend on raising them. I sat them up on a couple plastic milk crates, 10", and they sounded even better. I'm looking for something, but I don't want a four legged stand. I may build something.

 

[moray james]

I do intend on raising them. I sat them up on a couple plastic milk crates, 10", and they sounded even better. I'm looking for something, but I don't want a four legged stand. I may build something.

They do look very good on a four post stand here is a similar size speaker on a stand of the height I am suggesting. Worth considering.

 

[Jirachi]

They do look very good on a four post stand here is a similar size speaker on a stand of the height I am suggesting. Worth considering.

What is with those cables?

 

[JDub]

I have mine about 15" from the wall, on 14" (home-made) stands. I have some top-end hearing loss and the Ti tweeter diaphragms didn't really do anything for me. The Ti mids from Simply Speakers made a significant improvement though.

 

[moray james]

What is with those cables?

looks like two fat sets he has the speakers biamped. I have no idea what they sound like, but they look great.

 

[fernarias]

looks like two fat sets he has the speakers biamped. I have no idea what they sound like, but they look great.

They sound the same as lamp cord.

 

[moray james]

not to go down the rabbit hole with anyone on this but if you think that all cables sound the same as lamp cord then you have not had much experience with cables. Power cords interconnects digital cables and speaker cables can bring significant differences to your system. I don't intend to get into one of the "they are not worth it discussions" I simply want to say that they can and do make differences and that those differences can be all over the map.
With speaker cables you are essentially connecting antenna on to your output stage when you hook up speakers cables so the shorter the better. Twisted pairs will always pick up less noise and twisted quads less again. That is not an opinion that is a verifiable fact. Cables do contribute in a combined fashion to the load your electronics see so that has to be factored in and explains much of the confusion folks often discover when they get into cables expecting improvements but don't find them. You will have to make compromises when working with systems nothing new there. There is no magic just a lot of subtle things that engineers have not learned how to measure yet. Audio/(video) is a very small field and it has limited payback so don't expect to see significant R&D going on to solve all these issues for you because these issues don't have significant impact anywhere else and the work is simply not considered justified. That's my twenty cents o the issue and that is as much as I am willing to invest. moray james.

 

[twiiii]

A Quartet is a Hersey with a sub woofer it seems. A great choice when built. The only problem is like port or a reflex opening the cone acts like a spring. So I'll give up some efficiency and stay with damped woofers and bass systems with lower distortion. That said for hell of lot more money JBL has a ported system that has less than 2 % distortion that is only 1.5 db less efficient. Celstion was making systems with Phillips woofers and Celestion drivers that were 5 db less efficient with less than 2% distortion in the 70's, too. I wonder how the new Forte III really performs. I would hope it has a lot of answers for potential Klipsch owners. Imagine a great dynamic speaker with low distortion for an affordable price. The idea of having to use a 1000 watt amp to produce over 122 db at 4 ft at 20 hz with less than 2% distortion just rubs me the wrong way. There has to be an answer.

 

[fredgarvin]

I was looking for shorter speaker cables for the Quartets to reduce clutter and settled on some Belden 9497 wire terminated with bananas. The upgrade in sound was impressive, I've never heard that level of improvement in wire hitherto. That wire is used a lot as speaker hookup wire, particularly with high efficiency speakers, such as Klipsch. The lamp cord can go back where it belongs, on lamps.

Actually, I was using 12 ga. stranded ofc copper in the usual configuration, but I do now recommend the belden 9497.