Are Klipsch still sold in retail stores ?

[Zorachus]

I am looking to upgrade my speakers and like the Klipsch 5.1 Promedia's, but they seem hard to find in retail stores ? What happened to WorstBuy, CompUSSR, CircuitShity, and Fried selling them ? How about Tweeter ?
Thank's

 

[Shorehn]

To the best of my knowledge, the Promedia 5.1 are no longer sold in retail stores. However, the Klipsch Promedia 2.1 are sold in Best Buy and the Klipsch iFi, which I cannot recommend highly enough, are sold in Costco (store only, they're not even listed on the website.

 

[cfull]

Really? The 5.1s are not sold in stores anymore? Wow, what happened. I remember when they were all over the place.

 

[quadrinary]

order online... amazon or J & R.

just an fyi - i'm testing my old promedia 5.1 standard set side-by-side with a logitech z5500 set... there's no comparison. if you want true audio quality (i'm not talking about which set of speakers pushes the most bass... that's a crap comparison) the klipsch speakers win hands down. i'm actually kind of sorry, i really thought i might buy into logitech to get their controls and s/pdif inputs and whatnot. sorry logitech, i'm sticking with klipsch.

 

[factory81]

I got the original Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400's in....this was back before the year 2000.....many customers with larger budgets appreciated them.
We started a reseller account with Klipsch up....bought $25,000 worth of Klipsch every 4 months atleast.

We had a more then significant number of problems with the units. Static in the control pod, Control pod volume / subwoofer / etc knobs feeling weird. The BASH amp in the back would either die and not output to the subwoofer, or midrange output connections would start to fail.
The midranges never died, but the subwoofer box.......we've had people blow the subs, kill the amp........myself I have been through 3 ProMedia V.2-400 systems (I owned 2 of them......killed them both three times each, and gave up)......My friend has been through 2 ProMedia 4.1's......he gave up on the second repair.


Also we would send Klipsch units back to Indy for repair (not that far away from Michigan), it would take 1 month+ many times. You have no idea how many times we had units come back half repaired. A VERY common issue was they would fix the subwoofer, but the midrange outputs or the static in the control pods would have issues still.....

Klipsch just had many design flaws............

Logitech came in.......priced themselves in the market Klipsch aimed for.......Klipsch is not even worth comparing to Logitech, but Logitech has a model or two worth comparing to Klipsch.

Since then I suggest studio speakers to customers. A high end set of pro-audio 2-way 5.25 / 6.5 inch computer shielded speakers, if they look for 5.1 find them a center channel in their budget, a 12" subwoofer (Velodyne), and make sure you find them a good 6.1 or 7.1 receiver.....the sound card or receiver has to have hardware decoding.....

I just got a SUB-10 for a dorm room friend of mine, he killed it within 2 weeks, and this is Klipsch home audio.

 

[g1xx3r]

I think on the Klipsch web site you can buy them on a payment plan..Not sure if its till available..BTW..The 5.1's are still sweet despite all the Logitech hype going on..

 

[kent]

Klipsch does have problems with amps, but I don't care. I'll pay $60 every 18 months to keep mine running.

I've had an amp die on the v2-400 and on my 5.1 Ultra. Klipsch's repair was not timely, but it worked.

 

[factory81]

I don't buy computer audio anymore though period.

Auzentech sound cards will do DTS encoding, run to my receiver with optical out, nothing is analog....
It sounds way better....I choose each speaker (sub, front center, left, right, rear left, rear right).....blah blah you get the point. I don't even use the computer EQ's and stuff.
I consider computer audio a "phase", you go through your logitech crap, then you realize Sennheiser or Shure for instance makes a better headphone....then you realize Velodyne is king of home theater subs, Klipsch makes some great tower speakers and centers.....and if you get rich....Your buying HD595's, B&W Audio, etc......

But honestly, partsexpress.com you can build phat custom home audio stuff for low low cost....its just like custom building computers.....

 

[Zorachus]

I don't buy computer audio anymore though period.

Auzentech sound cards will do DTS encoding, run to my receiver with optical out, nothing is analog....
It sounds way better....I choose each speaker (sub, front center, left, right, rear left, rear right).....blah blah you get the point. I don't even use the computer EQ's and stuff.
I consider computer audio a "phase", you go through your logitech crap, then you realize Sennheiser or Shure for instance makes a better headphone....then you realize Velodyne is king of home theater subs, Klipsch makes some great tower speakers and centers.....and if you get rich....Your buying HD595's, B&W Audio, etc......

But honestly, partsexpress.com you can build phat custom home audio stuff for low low cost....its just like custom building computers.....

Thank's for the reply, please give me some pointers
So I need an Receiver ? what brand and type, also how do I connect it to my X-Fi card ? Then I aslo need a seperate subwoofer to connect to the receiver, and I think my old Klipsch 5.1 speakers are still good beside's the blown amp

 

[hardc0re]

to the OP -- Klipsch are still sold in retail stores, although they are not as famous as they use to be when they were offered as upgrades to computer system bundles.

factory81 you make very good points. Recently I've been looking for a decent set of speakers to replace my aging Antec Lansings, looked at the Klipsh 2.1 and 5.1 series and thought these are way overpriced for computer audio units, same goes for the logitech computer speaker series. I'm now looking to get bookshelf speakers since space is a huge issue in a condo. Is there anything you could recommend? Or anyone else that is knowledgable in small scale audio setups?

 

[hardc0re]

delete

 

[factory81]

Thank's for the reply, please give me some pointers
So I need an Receiver ? what brand and type, also how do I connect it to my X-Fi card ? Then I aslo need a seperate subwoofer to connect to the receiver, and I think my old Klipsch 5.1 speakers are still good beside's the blown amp

You need a 5.1 or better (6.1, 7.1) receiver. This alone will cost you $150-200 minimum unless you find an extreme deal. Like any hobby, the more you spend, the better the hardware is.

You go and buy your 2-way/3-way front right and front left speakers. Consider spending a good amount on these, but a $600 pair of speakers with a $200 receiver wouldn't be wisely spent money.

You have a 2.0 setup at this point, a subwoofer, which for home audio can cost as little as $100 to $1000+.......Velodyne rules the pre-built subwoofer world in home audio.
Now its 2.1......buy some right rear, left rear's.........and your at 4.1.....buy the center channel speaker for up front...and your at 5.1.......buy the center rear and you have 6.1


Home audio obviously costs more money then your $250 or $300 Klipsch ProMedia's but NOW you realize why the Klipsch cost what they do...and break as often as they do.
Look at your setup.....you spent $250 on the Klipsch 4.1's or $300 for 5.1's......
You have a control pod.....you have a subwoofer(s), a wooden box stained for the sub w/ a port, then the 5 channel amp. You have each satellite with 2 speakers in each satellite.

Just add things up for the 4.1's........
4 x 2 = 8 + 2 subwoofers = 10 speakers + amp + enclosures.
250 dollars divided by 10 speakers = you do not have money (Klipsch doesn't) have room...to spend money on decent amps without raising the cost of your units.

I would spend $200-250 for the receiver atleast.......$300+ for a pair of front speakers, $100-150 for the center channel.......$300-400 for the subwoofer.......$150-200 for the rears.


It's not cheap....but now you have a 5.1 system that you can hook Ipod's, home audio, xbox 360's, ps3's, ps2's, T.V., computer, everything you want up to. Your "done" purchasing audio until you upgrade......also the sound you get.......fills a room with no problem. Home audio is designed just for that......if you purchase a $1200-1400 home audio setup for a bedroom...not only will that room be full of speakers and wire ran everywhere.......but that room will be mighty pimp
Getting out of computer audio is the best choice anyone can make......you will notice in home audio that there are tweeters almost as large as Klipsch's midrange drivers.........Midrange drivers bigger then Klipsch's subwoofer........


Just go look at receivers and all the inputs they have.......


Oh and you hook it up using an optical cable......you finally get to not use analog cables.

 

[kent]

I can't complain about how my setup fills my living room:

Klipsch Ultra 5.1
Creative Labs DDTS-100 (mini-receiver)
Dayton Labs 100w powered subwoofer


Granted, the grand total is about $600, but I doubt there's anything better you could spend $600 on. Not an HT-in-a-box anyways.