Klipsch RP-5000F II, RP-6000F II and RP-8000F II reviewed by Erin

[Pareto Pragmatic]

I don't care much about AV, other than I like 5.1 for zoom crash boom. Still, I've been thinking about replacing my ancient AV speakers, and while I would have rather NOT gone Klipsch, the numbers are the numbers and the room is the room. Cost is also numbers, which was $750 usd for the RP 5000f ii. This was for a 33'x13'x8.5' room, connected in the back through 4 doors into 2x the volume in other parts of the house... with windows open at the back. Speakers one foot off the wall behind them.

After setting them up today for my low level 5.1 system (Denon 540 bt), I shot a sweep through my reference system of just the speakers, no sub. Quick report, even in my room with insane levels of gain from my 100 year old floor bouncing like a huge passive radiator, they do drop at 50hz, just at measured by Erin. They are bright, and so the speaker tilt up/distance needs to be correct to keep me under the tweeter. Still bright, just not as bright that way. Shoulder toe to the listening position (speakers are asymmetrical to the room and the couch/mic, for reasons).

Given my room, they did just what I thought they would. Here's a 1/12 sweep and a 1/3 REW EQ Wizard solution with 10 PEQs (starting at 50 since these speakers cross over pretty well with my floor at 30). I have not tested/tuned the EQ yet, just simulated. There is a -2db hs for the brightness at 3kHz.

The drop as it approaches 20k, that's my floor, not the speaker, 100%.

They sound good, better than I thought they would. I am once again reminded of why people like Klipsch.

They are no competition for my Sierra LX set 5' into the room, nor should they be, but good. They do the trick quite well for AV, and for background/working music I like them . My wife appreciates the vocal clarity upgrade from what went before.

I have a feeling that even with EQ, they won't play as loud as comfortably as the LXs in stereo. Loud meaning 80db/12' or 90db/1m levels, loud for me. But they won't have to play in stereo, they have a sub.

So if you are thinking about any of these, trust the roll off frequency for extension, but consider your room gain for levels. I did, and it worked out well for me.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

That is probably the case, although I wonder why they would shelve down the midbass and bass.

Because most people will shove them up against a wall next to a TV. And if we do look at the numbers, like I did, we will set them close to a wall.

My 5000iis are back in their permanent AV spot. I did some tests over a couple of days with two channel, and 12" was too close to the wall (congested but punchy bass), however 20" was fine. The ports seem to peak at 50 and 65hz, and want to be crossed over with drivers at 80hz. The drivers seem to fall off under 90 in room, btw. So I found a spot where 80 (no room modes for me) was at my target, that gave me a bit of boost at 65 and 50, but pretty clean bass in stereo. A touch closer to the wall and 80 would be boosted, and IMO peaks at 50, 65, and 80 with a touch more bass can sound like there is more bass than there actually is to many. It's a nice tuning, that can be EQ'd pretty easily, at a proper distance from the wall at least..

Tuning the high end, yeah, more work for me, and I expect it would be harder with the larger speakers. Off tweeter axis is a given for most, and a high shelf, necessary in my case no matter how I set them up..

Overall, I find that tuning them where the "Klipsch sound" overall is a light seasoning can be done, but trying to get them neutral is a fool's errand. That very much works for me in a 2.1 system in my room. With rare music play, I get more breathy breath, brassier brass, crashier cymbals, etc. Other than the occasional "CH", things are not too far out of line from my neutral speakers overall, just colored and emphasized. It's a nice break, and makes me appreciate my main system a lot more.

These are good close to wall speakers, not good out from the wall speakers, to summarize.

Two minor observations.

First, the hand hold under the front is nice! They were far easier to move than I expected.

Second, I inadvertently hit the wrong arrow and switched from Dolby PL-Movie to Dolby PL-Music instead of stereo, and the first track on Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" not only got HUGE (and weird), but it seemed to "de-Klipschify" the sound a lot as well. More than any EQ I applied, that's for sure. It was fun for 10 minutes!

 

[Sjboothead]

I have the xb2 , amongst dozens of other bookshelf and monitor speakers , mostly paradigm and polk ......and I found the xb2 has a lot of bass but is extremely picky on which amp it needs to sound right to me. Out of all my higher end amps, none were a match to the emotivas . I hated the sound, then one day for shits and giggles I hooked them up to yamahas bottom of the line rs202 and a cheap old technics sh-8017 eq and a fosi audio p3 for the Bluetooth and wow! That seems to be the match for them. I can't stop listening to them now. No sub needed, although I have a few, I just don't need one with these. I do have them on 4 foot stands and found i prefer the sound with the speakers upside down , like mission bookshelf do. Got the idea from my missions and had to try it.