A Big Hello From South Darenth in Kent

Hello Everyone,

Been into a few things in my adult years but hifi has always remained no matter what other hobbies have come and gone.

Went through a home cinema only stage for a good while with an Optoma hd65 projector and 80" screen at the business end in a 2 bed flat :) but have recently re-found my love of music and the quest for 2 channel greatness.

I've been plugging in all sorts of queries into my search engine over the past few months and Art of Sound has continually come up with the excellent advice I've been looking for so here I am as fully fledged member rather than a seedy lurker.

Current system:
Marantz NR1605, Amptastic mini-1 as a power amp run off a motorbike battery, Klipsch KG4.5 with titanium diaphragm. B&W M-1 rears, B&W CM Centre (soon to be moved on in favour of a 4.0 system and some cohesion across the front)

Hi Paul. Welcome to AOS.

Two channel is the way to go for most I guess. You'll certainly find many members stick with it.

Take a look around the site and feel free to join in the chat and ask any questions you may have.


Enjoy the forum,
Geoff.

Thanks Geoff,

I've got a couple of more specific questions which I'll direct to the appropriate rooms. Good to be on board.

Welcome Paul. I have some KG3's. Do the KG4.5's have one or 2 bass drivers and a passive radiator?

Hi Rob, The 4.5's just have the one 20cm driver. Not sure on the passive radiator tbh I'll look into that. What amp(s) do you use yours with? Are your horn diaphragms and crossovers standard? From what the guys here seems like these speakers work particularly well with a valve amp but have no experience of valves at all.

After I posted i looked at some pics of the 4.5's. Mine have a horn tweeter, but not as large as in the 4.5. There is a roughly 7" (maybe 8") mid/bass and below that a passive bass radiator. Unless you have any internal units or it is on the rear I would say that your's do not have a passive radiator. I have a valve amp (3.5w per channel) that seems laughably powerful nonetheless, but I have not tried it with the Klipsch. My current flavour of the last 6 months are some Heybrook HB3's that were about to be dumped which I rescued and refurbished.

Like the Heybrooks. Almost bought a pair of HB1 replicas from Audio Note but wasn't absolutely convinced they would sound identical, or as close as, to the real things, so decided against it. Don't tell me you was down the tip and someone was about to chuck them over the side unawares :)

Funny how low powered valves or ss amps get laughed at by those who think w.p.c. is everything even when those figures are overblown beyond belief.


If you want to tame the top end on your Klipsch I recommend Bob Crites titanium diaghragm upgrade.....this makes a significant improvement imo. I will also be purchasing his replacement capacitor bundle too in due course which isn't cheap at 60 odd USD plus shipping but again hearing v good things about the improvements this brings in the older Klipsch speakers, even as a standalone upgrade.

Welcome to AoS Paul,

Enjoy the Forum

Barry

Thanks Barry.