[sonitus mirus]

Klipsch speakers are horn loaded, so they tend to be a little louder and more midrange heavy. That's actually fine by me. I have Klipsch center speaker, and it's perfect for my purposes.

Yes, that is what I had read about them. I'm enjoying them. The delivery guy said that it was the 6th pair he had on his truck that day. Must be a good deal somewhere. I got mine through Amazon. I know Klipsch had a promotion going on where they were giving away a 12" sub with the purchase of 2 RP-280F speakers. It was only for the black color when I last checked. I don't need a subwoofer in the office where I use these new speakers. Plenty of air moving in the low frequency range.

Edit: I forget about the new amp as the speakers look gorgeous and are more prominent. The amp cost nearly are much as the speakers combined. When I pause my music, I can crank up the volume quite a bit and still not hear a hum or any noise at all.

 

[Niouke]

Klipsch speakers are horn loaded, so they tend to be a little louder and more midrange heavy. That's actually fine by me. I have Klipsch center speaker, and it's perfect for my purposes.

I have been told that the horn system is specific to certain models like the AK5, the RP-280 and other floor standing tower just have a "tracktrix horn". Still, their sound is characteristic of the Klipsch lineup. What I have found out about the tracktrix horn is that it helps a lot with the off axis performance, making the speakers less dependent on position than other designs.

I am myself considering adding a sub to fill the 20Hz-35Hz range that the floor standers don't reach, but good subs that go that low are more expensive than both speakers combined !!! Klipsch subs don't have a good reputation.

 

[71 dB]

Still buying CDs where possible, especially used ones. Best deal on earth, IMO, pennies on the dollar, and uncompressed, permanent copies.

Finally something we agree about!

 

[71 dB]

I buy tons of CDs. The price on them has dropped, especially in classical box sets where you can get 50 CDs for $75.

That's nothing. Mozart 170 CD box on Brilliant Classics: Bought it for 100 euros delivered!

 

[analogsurviver]

That's nothing. Mozart 170 CD box on Brilliant Classics: Bought it for 100 euros delivered!

Well, THAT was the dillema back in my CD retail days; ordering for the shop either the full price CDs by top class musicians - or "tons" of CDs by less well known musicians and orchestras for the same amount of money. I can remember particularly well the case of a relatively quite rarely performed and consequently even rarely recorded Schubert lieder; either full price CD from Universal Classics( DGG, DECCA, Philips ? ) - or the whole Schubert lieder cycle (IIRC some 10-15 CDs) on Brilliant for about the price of two "Universals". Well, after selling the Brilliant set to any but the most discerning customer, who insists on certain performer disregarding the cost, NO ONE is going to buy single "Universals" at full price.

That appears to be good for the customer - but, there is a catch. Brilliant and similar labes drew from the vast catalogues of various labels from the past - no need to cover the new recording expenses, in certain cases not even performing rights. And after 75 years have passed after composer's death, there are no royalties to be paid for composers either - voila, the recipe how it is possible to offer 170 CDs for 100 Euros delivered. Further cost cutting is in the artwork and accompanying texts, sometimes reduced to the bare minimum.

If this was modus operandi for all labels, we would never hear any new music - or even any new musicians, even if they are playing medieval music. There simply is no room for any gain under this scheme for anything involving new music or young(er) musicians. In the long run, such a scheme only would kill any further music - resulting, eventually, in a loss to music lovers at large.

 

[bigshot]

Brilliant Classics consists largely of modern recordings, not legacy titles. They have deals with regional orchestras- a lot of them in the Scandinavian countries. I've got tons of their box sets. There are amazing deals at Amazon's download store too. The "Big Box/Vox Box" "Supreme Classical Library" and "99 Most Essential" series all have tons of amazing performances for a dollar or two. Great sound too. Some of the tracks in the "Supreme" series derive from full price BIS CDs.

 

[analogsurviver]

Brilliant Classics consists largely of modern recordings, not legacy titles. They have deals with regional orchestras- a lot of them in the Scandinavian countries. I've got tons of their box sets. There are amazing deals at Amazon's download store too. The "Big Box/Vox Box" "Supreme Classical Library" and "99 Most Essential" series all have tons of amazing performances for a dollar or two. Great sound too. Some of the tracks in the "Supreme" series derive from full price BIS CDs.

Great that they have expanded also in this direction supporting present music and musicians - but my comment was true up to about 2004, when I exited from CD retail.

 

[cel4145]

I'm sure it is mostly because of the more pronounce trebles and mids, since these frequencies tend to seem louder, equal-loudness contours and all.

Brent Butterworth's quasi-anechoic measurements indicate them to have slight rise in treble over the mids:
https://hometheaterreview.com/klipsch-rp-280fa-tower-speaker-reviewed/?page=2

Differences in treble from your KRKs could also be due to differences in tweeter dispersement and slight differences in placement, resulting in changes in room interaction.

 

[bigshot]

Brilliant Classics is a much bigger label now than it was back then. They've largely supplanted Naxos and they pretty much own the baroque music market.

Dispersement patterns can have a huge difference in the way speakers sound and how their frequency response is perceived. I have horn loaded speakers up front in my system and wide dispersing KEF in the back. The horn loaded ones are more directional, which focuses the energy in the range where ears are most sensitive, while the KEF sound considerably softer in that range. I would bet that if you put a mike right up to the speakers, they wouldn't be that different, but in the room they sound quite different.

 

[SilverEars]

Brilliant Classics consists largely of modern recordings, not legacy titles. They have deals with regional orchestras- a lot of them in the Scandinavian countries. I've got tons of their box sets. There are amazing deals at Amazon's download store too. The "Big Box/Vox Box" "Supreme Classical Library" and "99 Most Essential" series all have tons of amazing performances for a dollar or two. Great sound too. Some of the tracks in the "Supreme" series derive from full price BIS CDs.

One of my all time favorite classical recording is "The Nordic Sound." And my favorite jazz recording is "Jazz at the Pawnshop." Both excellent sound quality, one of the best, and Scandinavian.

Love listening to jazz at the pawnshop with good speakers. Just pure bliss and never get tired of it. Just wow!

Jazz at the Pawnshop used a special type of microphone.

 

[71 dB]

Naxos, Brilliant Classics or any other "budget label" didn't kill "further" music. If anything, their business models have done classical music a service. The old giants rely on their archives of old dusty recordings which they re-release all the time milking the old cows and only occationally recording something new. Newer labels don't have such archives, so they need to licence stuff from other labels (to release giant dirt cheap boxes) or make their own recordings.

Why do you need to pay royalties to someone who has been dead for 75 years? What did the inheritors do to "earn" those royalties? Isn't it much more sensible and fair that old compositions become the common property benefitting all humanity? Normal hard working people don't see any royalties of their work, just a tiny montly salary.

Dispersement patterns can have a huge difference in the way speakers sound and how their frequency response is perceived. I have horn loaded speakers up front in my system and wide dispersing KEF in the back. The horn loaded ones are more directional, which focuses the energy in the range where ears are most sensitive, while the KEF sound considerably softer in that range. I would bet that if you put a mike right up to the speakers, they wouldn't be that different, but in the room they sound quite different.

Controlled directivity is important. The directivity of a speakers should increase smoothly with frequency without sudden rapid changes. The classic problem with directive tweeters is that the directivity of the bass/midrange driver is much larger, so the overall radiated sound energy jumps over the crossover frequency when the frequency responce at radiation axis is flat. The result is that it's impossible to get good power response and frequency response at the same time. No matter what you do, something is wrong. When you have smoothly increasing frequency response and smoothly decreasing power response, the speaker will sound balanced in optimal situations (reverberation time and speaker/listener placement corresponds the directivity of the speaker).

 

[SilverEars]

One of my all time favorite classical recording is "The Nordic Sound." And my favorite jazz recording is "Jazz at the Pawnshop." Both excellent sound quality, one of the best, and Scandinavian.

Love listening to jazz at the pawnshop with good speakers. Just pure bliss and never get tired of it. Just wow!

Jazz at the Pawnshop used a special type of microphone.

This gives me eargasms!



They used microphone hand built by Didrik de Geer.

 

[SilverEars]

My favorite Jazz artist, Dave. Pure bliss!!

 

[Niouke]

Jazz at the pawnshop is binaural IIRC, it's awesome to listen at on IEMs!

 

[71 dB]

Jazz at the pawnshop is binaural IIRC, it's awesome to listen at on IEMs!

They used ORTF setup as main mic pair + some additional mics here and there. It's near-binaural. ITD information is "binaural", but ILD is not (cardioid mics are too directive for that, subcardioids in ORTF setup would create very binaural sound) and I need to use crossfeed to correct that. On speakers this recording sounds quite phenomenal and with headphones (crossfed) also very good, lively and vivid in spatial sense imo.