08/29/12 What to do when your old Klipsch 4.1 system is damaged, Sybesma’s Electronics to the rescue

I don’t know when I first purchased my Klipsch 4.1 speakers for my PC, but it’s been over 10 years ago.  They have worked perfectly from day one.  After about 8 years I lost both of the woofers in the amp, but you can replace these with replacements from either Klipsch or any local speaker that fits the opening.  I choose to go with replacements from Klipsch.

But what do you do when you lose either the control pod or the amp?  Now you have a problem.  You can’t go to Klipsch since they have not manufactured either the 4.1 or the 5.1 systems since 2003.  Note, this is too bad and there is no anything I have found on the market today that comes close to a good working Klipsch 4.1 system.  I don’t need a home theater, I want my sound to run as mp3, from itunes, off my PC.  I also use a older Create labs sound blaster live card which to me is still one of the best sound cards around.  That goodness you can still find them on the web used and sometimes new ones show up.

Well there is a alternative when that 4.1 or 5.1 amp fails or the control pod goes out.  In my case it was the control pod that was damaged by a local power surge.  I call Klipsch to try and get parts and they gave me the number of a repair center in Michigan.  These folks are great to deal with and they were able to fix my system in about 1 week from the time they received it.  This is their address:

Sybesma’s Electronics
581 Ottawa Avenue
Holland MI 49423
1-800-456-4265

Sybesma’s was able to get everything back into working order and this a important since the Klipsch 4.1 systems are long gone and the 5.1’s are even harder to find.  Every once and a while you will find a 5.1 on the web, but it’s used and you have not idea just how hard it was pushed.  The only alternative is to purchase the Klipsch 2.1 system and that is just not anywhere as good.  While my 4.1 was getting repaired, I tried the 2.1 system and knew immediately that I would have to find something else.  Once you have the surround effect working of the 4.1 speakers it’s hard to go back to 2 way. I would not hesitate to send them any type of sound equipment to work on.

The other half of this equation is a good sound card.  When I first received my 4.1’s back from repair after the power surge, I thought that my old sound blaster was still OK.  As it turned out, one half of the card was also damaged.  It always fascinates me how electronics take damage.  Here I had a PCI card that worked fine as long as I only used the one speaker output (green), however when I hooked up green and black, then there was no sound from the black.  Thinking it would be hard for the sound card to be half damaged, I tried the repaired speakers on my Asus motherboard with a Realtec built in sound system.  That was was a huge disappointment as it turned out that the Realtec card would not drive the speakers with full sound on all 4.

After I borrowed another sound blaster Live card from a good friend, I was able to get everything back in working order.  I guess running good sound from a PC or Mac is not considered the “in” thing anymore, but I still love the sounds and the Klipsch 4.1’s are as good as it gets.

Thanks, Sybesma’s Electronics

PS I put this under photographic equipment as I have to have my music as I work on my images.  The two go hand in hand.