James W. Johnson

I have had my new Klipsch HT set up over a month now and I am overall very happy with the set. I have RF-3IIs for the front, a RC-35 center and some RB-25s for surrounds.

But yesterday I decided to really try and see just how close the RC-35 sounds in comparison to the RF-3IIs as far as dialogue goes by toggling the center on and off I could switch the dialogue from the mains to the center. I also did this by switching between stereo and Dolby Digital. I was pretty surprised just how different they sound. The upper frequencies are similar and there is a certain characteristic that they both share but still these speakers do not sound at all the same for dialogue. I tried some material from actors and actresses that I am pretty familar with as far as how they sound.

The center that is susposed to go with the RF-3IIs is the RC-3II which based on its specs I bet it would sound even less like my RF-3IIs although I have never heard one.

I guess I am not surprised because how could Klipsch possibly make a speaker the size of an RC-35 or RC-3II sound
anything like the huge RF-3IIs?
It makes perfect sence to me now that I have thought about it but it would be nice to have the front 3 speakers the exact same however the only way this could happen is if I went with smaller mains which is something I am not willing to do.

It does seem that they do sound a tad more the same when the speakers are set to small.

My Yamaha receiver has a center channel EQ so I can try and tweak it some to help it sound more like the RF-3IIs ,also moving it and the mains will help as well but in the end I already know they will never sound the same.

I guess I dont really know what the term "voice matching" means...if it refers to dialogue then my speakers are not voiced matched.

The system as a whole works well together and since the mains dont do much dialogue then I should never be
able to hear any of the differences I heard when comparing the speakers directly.

But now I sort of prefer the dialogue sound coming from the mains rather then the center, although I cannot say the center is better or worse, just different.

EarleD

James,

I noticed the same thing. I use a KG 4.2 as my center and 5.2's as my mains. During calibration I noticed that the center speaker sounds different than the mains. They use the same horn and driver.

I figure they sound different because the center is sitting on top of my TV and the mains are on the floor. Besides being up higher than the mains the 4.2 is sitting on basically a big plastic and wood box, while the 5.2's are on a concrete slab.

My home page has some pics if you want to see how I have my front 3 speakers setup.

Earle

James W. Johnson

Just an update: I sold my RC-35 and bought an RC-3II unheard to go with my RF-3IIs , I just could not stand the RC-35 sounding so different I figured there is no way the RC-3II could sound as different as the RC-35 than the RF-3IIs....I was right.

The RC-3II not only sounds better than the RC-35 it also is voice matched perfectly with the RF-3IIs. IMO the RC-35 is almost un-Klipsch like in how it sounds , IMO voices just never sounded right on it.