RF-82 vs RF-7

[Youthman]

Two weeks ago, I went to a local home theater store to demo the 82's. When I got there, they had the RF 7 in the demo room but not the RF-82's. The dealer gave me the following quote on an 82 package.

RF-82, RC-62 and RS-52 for $1650 + tax.

RW-12d would be $529 + tax

He said he was running a special 25% off if I bought a complete 5 piece set.

Few questions for everyone.

He said he got a real good deal on a bunch of RF-7's and they bought them all. He has two pair left. The did sound incredible with the RC-64, RT-10 sub and RS-52 surounds that I demo'd. I was truly blown away at the volume, clarity and beauty of the sound that these speakers created.

He said he was selling the RF-7's for $1600 and the RC-7 for $600. I wanted to get some opinions on the difference between the 82's and the RF7's.

Is the price that he quoted me a good deal or just an ok deal? Do you think I could get them for less from him?

Today I stopped by Best Buy to check out the RF-82's for the first time. The 82's are more in line with my budget. BB had it in a dedicated theater room about 18' x 25'. They were using the RC-52. Surprisingly, they do not carry the RC-62 which is the matching center for the 82's. The rears were the RS-42's. It was setup with the RW-12d. It was hooked up to the Yamaha 2700. I told him I wanted to watch a movie demo and to turn it up pretty loud. I noticed on the sub, it was turned almost all the way up. Frankly, the RC-52 was most dissappointing (which I expected it would be). It could not keep up with the 82's. The sub also was disappointing. There was no WOW factor at all with that particular sub. For $700.00, you would think that you would get a huge amount of clean bass. It was just ok. The 82's sounded nice, but I wasn't as impressed with the overall quality as much as I was the RF-7's. I then asked if he could put in a concert DVD and changed the receiver to 7 channel stereo so that the vocals would be directed to the main speakers instead of the center channel. Again, they were ok, but not a WOW moment.

My next step is to return to the store where I demo'd the RF-7's and have them A/B with the 82's. I guess this will be the only way for sure that I can compare apples to apples. With the RF-7's, they were paired up with the RT-10 sub and the RS-52's. They also were using the same Yammie receiver but they were only using it as a processor and had the speakers being powered by a 200w x 5 amp (do not know the brand of the amp). It was incredible sounding.

Here is my question. In your opinion, are the RF-7's that much more of a speaker in sound quality than the 82's or was it the fact that the one's that I listened to at Best Buy were paired up with less than par speakers for the 82's (RC-52 and RS-42) and they had a weaker sub and no dedicated amp?

The store that had the RF-7's said that he got a sweet deal on a bunch of 7's and bought them all. Said he would sell the RF-7's for $1600/pair and $600.00 for the RC-7. $2200 sounds kind of steep for them. What would be a reasonable offer for the RF-7's? How much for the RC-7? Thanks for your input.

[compaqguy]

I would listen to the speakers again, and in a better room than what was likely had at BB.

However, I personally feel that the older reference series (The one that the RF-7 was part of) has better SQ than the new ref. series. Some will disagree on this with me, but I feel that they were more coherant and smooth.

Also, Klipsch and Yamaha is not a combo that I would recommend. I believe yamaha receivers are on the bright side of neutral. This may also help account for what you heard.

I myself would try to listen to that combo with the RF-82 again, but with a receiver such as Pioneer Elite. There are more that will sound good with those speakers, but this is the one that occurred to me off the top of my head.