After 4 years of building my man cave which includes full bar, dedicated theater, pool-poker-foosball room, workshop, and a whole side dedicated to my daughters toys, after countless questions and post both here and in other forums, after hours of research and auditioning, after contemplating on which package/brand/line to go with, I finally bought my first set of Studio 60's v5. NExt is the center. Does anyone want to start off with differences between 490-590-690 or have any suggestions? I am running a Marantz SR6003 but have a 90% chance of getting an XPA-3 for the front stage. The room is 14x26 or pretty close.
On another note here are some of my impressions of the final 3 speakers I listened to. I listen to all kinds of music, but mostly rock. I auditioned using a compressed MP-3 format which drove the dealers crazy...but hey...this is what a majority of my music will be so I would rather hear how the speakers play it back to me and when I can afford to SACD hardware then all the better. Music ranged from Symphony pieces, Staind, Breaking Benjamin, Pink Floyd, Peter Frampton, Tim McGraw, etc
1st up was the Klipsch RF-63 -Powered through a Rotel 2x100 amp. I liked the simple lines of of the RF series. They look much better with the grills off though. Rather large in size so it would look good in any man cave. Sonically I was very impressed in how well the speaker reproduced live music. One of my tracks was "Do you feel.." off Frampton comes alive. I immediately fast forwarded to about 6 minutes in to the solos. This was the first time I had a real big smile on my face. Then it dawned on me, I had been listening to 5 or 6 other songs prior to this one and had not so much as grinned. I did notice that off axis listening was dulled probably due to the horn design. Bass was present but lacking when the volume was turned up. I mentioned ot to the salesman and chalked it up to poor room design. The ports on the rear of the speaker were basically firing into a 45 degree wall which fell away from the listening position. This may or may not have caused the commonly referred to brightness of Klipsch speakers. The louder I turned it up it seemed like the highs were on a different gain than the lows. I think the size of the speaker threw me off vs the amount of bass that came out. THE VERDICT - If live music is your thing then this speaker is for you. Although there were a few things that bothered me about the RF-63 (imaging and bass the later which I suspected had something to do with room design and acoustics) it was still my number #1 choice.
Next up Studio 60's - I have to admit when I first heard these 1 year ago I was NOT impressed. They sounded too thin. I figured I would give them one more shot. The dealer had problems with their media server so they disconnected the studios and moved them to the 2 channel room. They had them running through a McIntosh 2x200 although I never git them loud enough to draw more than 50 watts according to the readouts on the Mac. So they sounded awesome and I bought them. Once I get them home, I hook up the 6003 and start putting these babies through their paces. Visually - smaller than the RF-63 and smaller than I remembered. Beautiful lines. It sounds stupid, but they look like 2 victoria's secret models in black evening dresses sitting in my wife's formal sitting room. First song was Frampton's do you feel. I was skeptical about how loud I should turn these up without external amplification, but I did so cautiously. I got it up to about -7 Db on the 6003 in Pure direct and it ade me feel like I was front row. You can actually hear someone clapping next to the mic for the recording of the cd. On GNR's Sweet Child, the into sounded crystal clear. I was expecting A-Rose's voice to overpower once he started to sing but it never happened. Everything about these speakers is seamless. Synergy is what I would use to describe the high and lows. THE VERDICT - I am much happier that I spent more money on these. I even got my wife's cousin who was home from college to sit and listen with me. She said she could sit there all day and listen to them.
Anyway those are my thoughts and they are subjective. Now can someone give me their thoughts on a matching center? The surrounds I plan to use will be Atoms. I will more than likely get the XPA 3 so those of you who have had any matching systems feel free to chime in.
Thanks
