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Disappointed w/ Klipsch Heresy III. Now what?

I'd be very grateful for some help with a quandary.

I recently replaced my Ohm Walsh 1000 speakers with Heresy III speakers, running two-channel from a Rega Brio. I was pretty excited about the Heresy IIIs based on reviews — they were efficient, so my 35-watt amp would get the job done; they were supposed to have real punch in the low mid-range, so I could hear the upright bass clearly; they reportedly had excellent imaging; and best of all, they were supposed to sound great at low volumes. They are also indisputably beautiful, which was an important factor for my wife. (The Ohms are elegant, but you have to be an audio lover to see their beauty.)

I set them up, and . . . not so bad, pretty good. Especially loud. In fact the louder the better. Crank them up and they sing. But loud is not really an option with a new baby. So how do they sound quiet? They sound like the band is trapped in shoe box. Really in two shoe boxes because the L and R don't merge that well. The sound stage is tiny. All the detail is gone, the joy is gone. They are no fun at all. Music just seems like a bunch of noise.

But I want to believe! I want to make these speakers work. So I am faced with a quandary. I could:

1. Buy stands, a subwoofer and a tube amp, all of which people in various forums have recommended to improve the various failings I hear now.

2. Replace the Rega with something much more powerful and pull the Ohms out of the closet. (Suboptimal because it will make my wife sad because of the aforementioned perceived ugliness.)

3. Just start all over again. Different amp, different speakers.

I'd kind of prefer number 1. But I don't want to end up with a bunch of stuff designed to solve a problem and then not have that problem solved! (And I'd also just as soon avoid getting a subwoofer.)

Final note. Positioning is an intractable nightmare. It is the one thing that I can't really change, because of how our living room is layed out. It is obviously a big problem though. The living room is a big rectangle, 18 x 40 feet, and the speakers are near the corners of the 18-foot ends, on either side of a couch. I can move them around — closer or further from the couch, closer or further from the wall. But I can't raise them above the height of the couch or move them out in front or over to another wall. That discussion went nowhere!

What should I do?

 



brooklynluke
wolf_garcia
6,628 posts
 
Who said this is fun? It's serious business man...
handymann
380 posts
 
Brioklynluke:  Horn speakers by design, tend to be very bright. I own a set of Khorns as well as Cornwalls. At one time, I installed a rheostat on my midrange horns on my Khorns, to turn the midrange down. It worked well. I guess a good EQ, could possibly do the same thing. IMO, horn drivers perform best with tube amps. Due to their efficiency, u wouldn't need an amp with a lot of power. With conventional drivers, a good tube preamp, bolstered by a mosfet SS amp will prevail, but not necessarily with horns. Try a good quality rheostat, to turn down your midrange. They're relatively inexpensive as far as experimenting goes. Having said this, placement is critical. Make some make shift stands at ear level and try to bring them closer together. U can put painters tape on the floor to mark their spot and bring them out, when doing a serious listening session. 
philharmonicpete
25 posts
 
Horn speakers are not, by design, very bright.  The Avantgarde and Klipsch horns I have used have no brightness at all.  Horns are very revealing of system flaws.  As the saying goes "garbage in garbage out".  And remember horns magnify everything good or bad in front of them due to their high efficiency.
wolf_garcia
6,628 posts
 
I've used various horn speakers for decades and maybe they do sound bright if you use crap to drive them, but otherwise that's simply not true. I dragged Altec A7s around years ago and those things are anything but bright…the horn in those is basically a mid-high thing. Something like the Clair Brothers JBL boxes that were around years ago could peel paint with brightness, but I think that was the sound mixer's (or a Phase Linear amp's) fault, as is excessive brightness from phased array systems  these days. I currently use PA speakers with titanium driven horns (both small-ish Mackies in my home recording rig and generally larger self powered stuff when mixing live shows) that sound like whatever I want them to, and Heresy IIIs, especially once broken-in, aren't overly bright but actually clear sounding when paired with high quality gear…I use a single ended 12 watt per side tube power amp and a tube preamp with the Heresy IIIs (and 2 REL subs…you kinda need a sub with Heresy IIIs) and they sound clean as a whistle, and if I put my Schiit Loki EQ in the mix (rare, but it works swimmingly when needed) you can see exactly how they work. Although it seems like a lame cliche', the Heresy IIIs sound kind of like live music, which is the highest compliment I can pay to a speaker design.
handymann
380 posts
 
Brooklynluke. I realize you have to consider the family opinion and optimize your space, but nothing will make up for proper placement. Place them where they sound the best, mark that place and position them there when u want to do serious listening. Some have said they will sound good with a good quality amp, be it SS or tube, but my experience with horn speakers is they need a quality tune amp or preamp, to offset the horns. As I mentioned before, you can put a rheostat on the midrange, if that's the offender, to reduce that frequency. 
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