Audiophiles - Stereo question

[bleedingheart]

my hubby picked up a Yamaha receiver...and being that it has been 18 years since he bought a receiver he has been dismayed to find that it can not bring out the bass in his Klipsch KG4 speakers...

He does not have a subwoofer...and everything we do to try and set it does not work....

So do stereos today require a subwoofer?

It seems a shame since those 18 year old Klipsch speakers have kick ass bass abilities...

[TrogL]

1. Take it out and shoot it

Yamaha sucks

[bleedingheart]

4. My hubby's old amp was a Denon

so he thought he would try out the Yamaha...and now he is giving off that vibe like he is about to return it....

I feel bad....

[madrchsod]

7. find someone to fix the denon

prob. better than what you`re going to buy now.

[Billy Burnett]

10. I agree with that.

Get that classic stuff repaired, if possible. Even if you have to drive a distance to do it. They don't make them like they used to (for under $2000).

[ben_thayer]

2. Not familiar with the KG4-

What size woofers and how much power is the Yamaha putting out?

[bleedingheart]

5. it has a 10" passive radiator...it is an old but special speaker..

and I can honestly say that it has the ability to produce a very deep bass tone.

[supernova]

3. I have a 600 wtt Yamaha w/ subwoofer

Sounds great.

[bleedingheart]

6. the thing is that we wanna program it to bypass the subwoofer

and are finding that it is not possible..

[DancingBear]

8. I'm guessing you have a component mismatch

The old Klipsch speakers (and the KG4's have been around for a while) have a high input sensitivity and are quite efficient, and I am sure the Yamaha receiver(!) is not a good match.

I used to work (many moons ago) for Mark Levinson Audio, and we used Klipsch as the reference loudspeaker for a set of of $8000 (in 1977!) monoblock amplifiers. Back then, Klipsch was the benchmark for loudspeaker design - they don't hold that title anymore, sad to say.

If you can, get thee to a dealer who sells high-end audio, and ask him/her for the proper match for those Klipsch boys. You need not spend a lot of money, but I would strongly urge you (if you can) to look at an integrated amp (amp/pre-amp is ideal, but they can get expensive) rather than a receiver. You'll get the expertise you need there, and I'm guessing you'll never miss a sub-woofer if you get the right match, even though sub-woofers are used quite often with low power, highly sensitive systems today.

I run a set of German horn speakers and a pair of 30 watt monoblock amps, and I have sub-woofers integrated into the system, but the sensitivity of the horns is 117 db (in layman's terms, you here EVERYTHING from the source - if it's a bad recording it sounds like it, but if it's good it's glorious....)

[bleedingheart]

12. That is what I think he is going to do...

load the yamaha back in the car for return and bring the KG4's along to find the amp to match..

[Billy Burnett]

9. I told ya. Go check out Adcom power amps

I thought you mentioned last week that your system is a component system, as in - not an integrated tuner/preamp/power amp.

If so, Adcom is a good and reasonably priced Class "a" brand.


If you are looking for an audiophile "all in one" forget about it. There's no such thing.



edit: See post #7. Get the Denon repaired, if you can.

[bleedingheart]

11. I know...I feel so bad

but Mr. B was looking about and wanted something that he could drive surround sound and his stereo with...
He did have an amp, tuner, ..etc...all separate components...but thought that 18 years of development would make a difference...apparently not..

[Billy Burnett]

13. They don't make em like they used to

Nowadays you have to spend many thousands for an audiophile system.

High end surround can be had, but at a substantial cost for discreet components, and adcom.com is a good place to look for new stuff

like,

GFA-7807

The big daddy of our F.A.T. power amplifiers
300 watts x 7 channels into 8 ohms all channels driven
Power rig circuit topology
Balanced and Unbalanced inputs
Gold Plated 5 way binding post speaker terminals
Two huge torriodial transformers
Mono block power supply design for all channels
156,800 micro farads of power supply capacitance
Power bandwidth 10 Hz –100kHz
12 volt trigger on circuit
Dimensions (in inches) including feet and jacks 9.75 x 17 x 20.75
Unit weight: 119 lbs.

Finish – black with silver

Ships in wooden crate!

[Deja Q]

14. Subwoofers, to my knowledge, to carry the lower tones and give that nice

vibration feel along with it. At least for Dolby 5.1 receivers... the standard 2 speaker receivers shouldn't have any problems, but if there's a subwoofer connector then the lower frequencies would likely be channeled exclusively to it... Not sure though.

What model Yamaha is it?

Oops. Did you check the mode the receiver is in? Some modes enhance the bass and others dampen it...

[Kellanved]

15. Just a guess:

I don't know about Yamaha, but most Consumer Class Receivers today are intended to be used for Home Cinema.
As a result they tend to have too much bass, very unlike what you're experiencing.


I had that with a Sony; after quite some time diving (can't call it anything else) into the menus, it turned out that it was pre-set for Five Speaker Surround with Subwoover.

Setting it to two Speakers w/o Subwoofer fixed the problem.