Athena vs Klipsch

[Whir1077]

Hi all, just signed up on this forum and wanted to throw out a question out there.
I had an Athena Point 5 theatre speaker system for about 13 years. Absolutely loved the speakers for what they were. I ran and old Yamaha 5.1 HT reciever which powered them but wasn't quite adequate. I upgraded that Yamaha reliever to a Yamaha adventage a-1000 reciever and it proved a little to much for them and blew 2 of the speakers. I replaced those two speakers with Polk Rtia1 speakers. The polks are louder and have a more full sound but the highs are not anywhere close to where the Athena's were. Not sure if u had the experience of instantly loving a speaker as soon as you hear them. That was my experience with the Athenas. The Polks were a bit of a mixed feelings response to first hearing them. I very much like the bright highs in a speaker and liked that in the Athenas

Where my question comes into play is I was originally thinking the klipsch rp 160 and was wondering if anybody out there has heard both speakers (Athena Point 5 and Klipsch rp160) to see if the speakers are close in sound? I know that Athena is no longer making speakers due to being bought out by lone behold ... klipsch.

Thanks Ed

 

[yepimonfire]

I haven't heard any of the Athenas. Considering you found the highs in the polks to be too subdued in comparison (the majority of polks are bright) you may want to find some used klipsch reference II series. Those are extremely bright and forward sounding. Their new reference and reference premier series is much more tonally accurate. I would say they are less bright than the polks even.

Could you describe the characteristics of the sound from the Athenas you like and what you didn't like in the polks? Klipsch speakers, even with their new less bright series have a very distinct sound that makes even their smallest speakers such as the R 14m sound very large with a huge, highly focused sound stage due to their horns.