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Several years ago, I picked up a pair of RF-7's thinking I will never part with. Well, in short, goodbye my ol' friends. Hello! La Scala!!! After getting them settled in (had to paint the wall behind cause they clashed with the yellow). Replaced a diaphragm on one HF horn (I'll do the other next week). It was time for a test drive! Three words, OMG!!! -the delicacy of sound from these is amazing. The warmth is attractive and the look, well, look at them! Gorgeous! I was a little worried they would be too much. Those worries went quickly out the door with the twist of the throttle. Oh dear Lord, I had no idea what I have been missing. Now to smooth over the neighbors. I think some fresh baked cookies are in order

Very nice. I think the la scala is a great looking speaker with or without the grills. I started with rf-3's then went to rf-7's. They are very good. Then one day my brother gave me his 1980 heresies that he didn't use. Although the bass was of course not as deep, I couldn't believe how much more lifelike the music sounded. Been a heritage guy ever since and my journey stopped with khorns. I'll have khorns for as long as I possibly can.

Man, I type to slow. No, you don't have to spend $3800.00 to get what you're looking for, and you don't need a horn the size of Rhode Island. I'm getting ready to do some LaScalas, and I'm on a pretty tight budget. I can get 95% of the performance for half that amount. I'm a former Klipschorn and Jubilee owner and I've been down this road before - it'll be much more fun this time around without the mania and 50,000 forum opinions calling the shots.

First, congrats!! Second, just toss a doily over them...she'll never notice! As for the top, I've always thought that one could build a Khorn style top (to match the shape of the Jubilee bass bin) and place the K510 inside it to give a more finished presentation. That said, I've also thought about doing the same thing with the K402 like several others have. Then I think...nah... I kind of like the look of intimidation that it presents. Not trying to hijack this thread or anything. Just wanted to show what I did with mine. The 402 would obviously require a slightly different approach but you get the idea. Hope this helps.

McIntosh MC275

Sorry for the long post, but I've got a lot to say to you Klipsch-o-philes. I've been eyeing Klipsch products for many years and have finally decided that this is the year(spring) to dive in. I can't even recall when I first heard of Klipsch audio, but I do remember stumbling across the little Pro-media 2.1 system at Best Buy on display and bought it on the spot. Those little satellites sounded fantastic. Santana's trademark sustains were effortless and silky. I then picked up a pair of the S1 in ear buds and have never looked back to my old Sonys. Now I'm ready to go for a nice 2.0 setup and need some guidance. Currently, I have an Onkyo receiver(110w/ch) which I LOVE. This receiver has done everything I've ever asked of it and done it well. It's connected to an older pair of Pioneer CS-K835 floor standers(4-way, 12", 8", 5", 2"). They sound nice and powerful but they are housing aging paper cones and are a bit too warm. I've remedied this by "bi-amping"(i guess you could say) a pair of Sony floor standers(3-way, 8", 3", 1") with the receiver's Speaker B terminals and stacked them on top of the Pios. I'm very happy with the power I'm getting from this set-up and the 1" tweeters on the Sonys really helped out the top end. The response is decent, bass roll-off begins at around 45hz and there is a spike at around 8khz, but it is simply the best audio set-up I've ever owned and has actually initiated a widening of my musical tastes. From skimming the forums, I'm assuming I'm slightly younger than the average member(just turned 30), so you can imagine, I'm just barely breaking out of my limited rock-centric interests. I'm spreading out into indie-rock, jazz and orchestral. The more I listen to more "demanding" music, the more apparent it's becoming that I'm missing that special sparkle I remember from those tiny little Klipsch pro media satellites. It doesn't MOVE me and I know I'm ready to upgrade. I still love to rock, so I think I'm going to need a versatile pair of speakers. So, now that you know a bit about me, here's what I'm looking for. I have a small budget to work with, but it looks like I can find a decent pair of floor standing Klipschs for around $500. The models I'm interested in so far are: -Forte II (or I) -KLF-30 or KLF-20 -RF-35 or RF-3 What do you guys think? I'm interested in the Forte for the raw size and power, but I have a feeling I may be missing out on the sleek, modern sparkle that the RF-35s may offer? The KLFs seem like they would match my power need, but may be a bit harsh? I don't know. It's difficult for me to find a place to audition them around here so I'm just trying to get some suggestions here on how these models differ. Also, any other model suggestions are very welcome. I'm not interested in ditching my Onkyo just yet and have no interest in a subwoofer. I want strong, full-range floor standers with good bass extension. I can't shake the feeling that the RF series has the sparkle I am seeking, while the Fortes may sound a bit too "vintage" to me. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumptions. For the record, I'm pretty sure that that P-39f would be my dream speaker and the RF-83 would be my ideal speaker if I had $1000 to spend. ANYWAY, I really hope some of you read this and some who read will help me out. I look forward to spending many long nights in your company.

Thought I'd made a good score on a HDPVR for $8 yesterday, turns out the cable company can't activate it, due to the fact it is still shown as being on the previous owners account...The cable company does this in some sort of attempt to curb theft, apparently it was a real problem, I'm stuck with a nice unit, that can only go to the recycler!! The GOOD NEWS....it came with a Harmony 700 remote that looks like it was never used...

Well what do you know...I did a little research on-line, armed myself with a little more info before calling the cable company again and hey presto! I now have a working HDPVR. Didn't take more than 2 minutes....SCORE!

Congratulations: Reading your story has left a smile on my face. I've lived with mine since 1976 and the enjoyment continues, I wish you many years of enjoyment and listening satisfaction.

Great 2 channel setup Matt! I think you like them over the 7's because you can set pictures and a lamp on them. Proud RF 7 owner, lol.

Definitely a used set of la scala's for the rear is a great investment. I think the mid-range and tweeter are the same as the khorn, so it would be a great timbre match. I ran my la scala's for about two months using RS-62's for the rear/side. When I finally found another pair of LS II's, I was very pleased at how much more life like the surround effect was on multi-channel audio tracks. For example on a good multi-channel recording it's now much easier tell what kind of room the recording was done in. That's not to mention how much better you can hear subtle surround effects, and the fact that the timbre matching makes everything just blend together beautifully.

La Scala's truly a wise choice.

So of you may find this interesting regarding Roger Waters and his father. http://www.italymagazine.com/news/pink-floyds-roger-waters-locates-italian-battlefield-where-father-died-during-world-war-ii

Thanks to craigslist I couldn't afford new ones that's for sure! The LSII's really are gorgeous speakers. I think you can easily get the same or better performance from an older modded pair and save about $700/pair too. I had to drive to FL for one set and to NC for the other, but luckily they came up within a few months of one another. The La Scala mid-range really is that good. So good, the center channel RC-64 in the picture is not even hooked up as the system sounds better with a phantom center channel coming out of the front La Scala's. That's not to mention how life like the bass bin sounds. Drums sound 100% real now. I once listened to the P-39F's on huge mono block amps. I hadn't really heard drums sound like that again until I bought the LS II's. Of course, I'm running two great RT-12d subs that are flat down to 19hz. My subs seem to keep up with the LS II's, but I'm thinking I want to build two 18" subs, each having two passive radiators. I'd like to build a tuba HT instead, but it seems I'd need even more space to run two of those beasts. I was/am a reference fan, but I really feel bad that I listened to the RF-83's all those years thinking they were great speakers. There is no substitute for an all horn loaded speaker unless you plan to spend several thousand/speaker and have the money for huge amps. holy cow... you have four la scala II's?

Percy Harvin could be the X factor in the game. Don't believe me? Just ask any of those "talking heads" on ESPN. I think this game will be close. With the record breaking year that Peyton has had it's hard to pick against the guy.

Yeah baby aint nothing like the big box's. And if your smoothing over the neighbors with cookies then im knocking off the $80 scotch for them, from now on they get NestlesToll House.

Isn't amazing how many people go back to Heritage with great satisfaction?

Good choice I say that because I like laScalas, not because I don't like Rf-7's, really I never heard the 7's for more than 5 minutes so it would be unfair. Although I am fond of big plywood boxes as speakers. Oh almost forgot, they look great in your room, very nice.

nice rotel pre, i like rotel stuff too, i have a rb99bx amp i got for a great deal from a local auction. 200wpc & it sounds very nice, much better than my adcom 555ii's. are the rotel preamps rated good? havent looked into their preamps yet, but i'm considering trading the adcom gear for rotel stuff too based on how the 990 amp sounds.

Awesome! I made the switch from my RF-83 setup that I said I'd never sell to La Scala II's off craigslist late last year. I agree about the La Scala sound being better.

Congratulations; roughed it without them for almost a week, since you decided to wait. Isn't that great, the way things worked out?

very nice! i see some adcom gear, what are you running the scallas with?

dogs always be gettin in da way... fact is... he's/she's as proud as you are I am sure... those things are beautiful!

Awesome job ! I went up the food chain, and stopped at La Scala's too. Wow, is appropriate... Cute wuffer, don't hurt his/her hearing !

This I will bestow upon my fourm buds, everything sonic, Test your system. Bookmark your favorites as you test. Talk about giving your speakers a workout !!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNrF1I5mf3c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNf9nzvnd1k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukQ6OSs3dWo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS9d13zAN1k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-9zxSpx5-I Word of caution, I had an old pair of Bic Venturi's, Note the word HAD, the sub base test above, ripped/shredded the woffers. These have always been a test set anyway, so it looks like ill go to the swapmeet and pick up another pair of test speakers.

The frequency sweep - 1 hz to 35 hz - is badly corrupted by harmonics or something. The 3rd one - sweep from 1 to 100 hz is good. My CF-4s are down about -13db at 15 hz, 10 dB at 20 hz and 8 dB at 25 hz from the level at 100 hz - although that's an uncorrected sound level reading on the Realistic sound meter. Corrected, based on values I've found online - CF-4s are down -5.0 db at 15 hz -4.5 dB at 20 hz, -5 dB at 25 hz from the level at 100 hz. While the curve is down, there is still very useful, and powerful, bass delivered by the CF-4s down into the upper teens and twenties.

I think we are going to have at least a thousand questions for Boxx once everything is set up. Good luck with them! Here is the first question. Would you be willing to adopt me???

Awesome! Despite being a day late on this myself, I am super excited that you have sold it finally. It looks like a fine piece and I'm sure that the new owner will be really happy with this

That's enough incentive to stay married... Yes, and with my new rule, the proper amount to spend on speakers is $100 times the years married. Next year I will be celebrating my 31st, and I expect a $3,100 set of speakers. You just had to start this dam thread! Wife came in a saw this, oh that is so sweet you guy's talk about our anniversaries, um, yeah babe that's what we do!, as I minimize Ebay auction for a tube tester!....close call. See, it worked out. Glad to be of service. Yes dear, you have Cosmo and we have Klipsch............

Most HT's use bass management and cut lows from the speakers. With a sub to do the heavy listening I'd think the amps would do better in HT than 2 channel.

Great thing about amps like this is that they don't cost much to try so there isn't much at risk. I think T amps can give you a lot for the money but in the end they leave me wanting more.

Think you will find it is geared for things like computer speakers. If you buy 5 of them your "amp" will weigh 10 lbs.

I agree this may be the way to go as long as there's a driver upgrade too. Lots of good 2" throat drivers out there.

Darn it, it's 14

That's enough incentive to stay married...

I have a MC 275 Mk VI and am falling in love with it more and more every day. My speakers aren't quite as efficient as Khorns but does a great job. I would imagine it would be spectacular with yours.

First find a local buddy that runs tubes, see if he will help set you up with something he may have for a test on your system.

I love how much Mark fires up the passion some have for this hobby that no one is really an authority in but so many like to think they are! It's pretty easy to listen to something you like and buy then enjoy the music. I treat audio just like video, I went back several times to Best Buy and watched every 50" LCD and Plasma model until I determined what I considered the best picture and bought it and have enjoyed it for 4 years now and who cares if anyone else likes it or thinks their's is better. Nothing but ego going now, I bought the 50" store brand a couple years later and we love that one as well, wife's TV and she loves it because it's brighter which it is but I/We enjoy both of them. I have two separate systems in the Man Cave and realize what both are and what both are strong and weak at but love them both. Buy what you like, enjoy what you buy and who cares what others think they know:-)

Go the AVS or HT forums.

La Scala

A direct radiator sub placed in a corner will have a 90 x 90 polar pattern. Same would go for a woofer with proper placement.... and a fifteen would hold that to ~1kHz or so..... at which point it's easy to find a matching tweeter. I'm not sure polar response / timing is the source of the difference you're experiencing...

That shouldn't be considered odd at all. That's the textbook behavior of an FIR filter....phase-linearity with a specific amount of delay.

Just remember that the Heresys are voiced to be placed on the floor. They actually sound very good and well balanced on the floor and the bass completely falls apart when raised up. There is a change that can be done to the crossover (changing taps on the autoformer) to even them out but you lose efficiency.

Absolutely, take the saw to them... Thats how I do it! Dave

More food for thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHKnztY3Glc in particular 3:09 onward.

I think I can shed some additional light on this subject. I know some of you have heard this before but for basic background credentials I’ll say it again. In 1983, about the time CD was going to be introduced in the U.S. my system was to be published in Stereo Review magazine. I got the bright idea to contact Sony and try to get one of their new CDP-101 players at a discount and ahead of the actual release in exchange for it appearing in my system in the Stereo Review article. They explained there were only two units in the U.S., both on dealer tours. The best they could do is arrange for a Sony rep to bring one over for the photo shoot and let me use it for a short time, and guarantee me first purchase of the player and initial 14 CD when they became available. Cutting through the chaff, the bottom line was it sucked. Some of the CD were so intolerable ~ especially Billy Joel’s The Nylon Curtain, that listening at only 75-80dB my ears would be ringing after five minutes. I was furious. I wrote to some rather nasty letters to both Sony and CBS, and pissed off more than a few producers. I was not the only one who felt this way. As they say, there are three sides to every story, yours, mine, and the truth. Enter producer Phil Spector. There was an article in one of the stereo rags a year or two after the initial launch of CD. It expounded on how great the new format was because CD recordings were transferred from the original masters. Phil Spector thought this was rather odd since, as Billy Joel’s producer, he had the original master recording in his own personal vault and no one had ever asked him about using it. Eventually that little tidbit of information led to the “discovery” that indeed, none of the original CD releases were made from the original master. What they were made from, was the “original master” used to cut the vinyl record. And these were in actuality copies of copies of copies, etc. etc. etc., many generations away from “thee” original master. And to make matters worse, the “master” they used from making the vinyl records, of course has RIAA equalization applied as well as many other “tweaks” to compensate for losses in the analog record playback medium. All of these intended for consumer analog playback compensation and “enhancements” were ruefully exposed in the new CD medium. That was just the beginning. As things progressed we began to discover all the other digital artifacts that came with the new frontier. In regards to dynamic range or loudness levels, early CD were often, if not always, not transferred at the maximum gain level as is usually the case today. No one applied gain “normalization” back then. Virtually all of the original initial CD releases have been reissued, at least once. I can honestly say this because for a long time I owned 100% of CD released and even five years after the initial release of CD I owned at least 25% of all CD released. There has been a great transition in how original recordings were transferred to CD. As far original digital recording go, there has been a great deal of transition too. I recall a band I was in around the mid/late 90’s. We made our first CD and it originally recorded on 16 track ADAT and then transferred to 2-track DAT for final mastering. Curiously, the CD sounded better than the DAT master. Apparently there was some kind of enhancement going on in the CD transfer process that we had no control over. Likewise, I’ve also been recording live-in-concert for a local chorale/orchestral for 20+ years and producing their CDs. Nowadays I record to the PC hard disk at 24/96. I’m always somewhat disappointed to hear the final result on CD because it never sounds as good as the 24/96 master. Chris, it’s interesting that you mention Tower of Power – Direct, for two reasons. The first is that in the above mentioned photo shoot which included the Sony CD player that the Sony rep brought over, after the photo shoot was done the Sony rep said “It’s been a while since I’ve heard a system like this. Would happen to have the Sheffield Lab Tower of Power direct to disk recording?” I said yes, I do (smile). “Could you put that on for me? And turn it up. I’d sure like to hear this system stretch its legs.” So I put it on the Linn with a Decca pickup and cranked it up. I wish I had a video of this. You should have seen his face! It was absolutely precious. His jaw was, literally hanging open. His head turning from side to side as various voices and instruments came in and out of the mix. When he left it was like a disheveled dog sulking away with his tail between his legs. The second reason is I agree with you, the CD is at a substantially reduced level. I’m not sure which CD version you have. Wikipedia mentions only one CD, Direct PLUS released in 1997. But this is not the original CD release of this album. The original CD (Sheffield Lab CD-17) is the same title as the LP. There is no release date on it. Curiously, the liner notes say that the CD was made from the original digital master tape (Sheffield Lab concurrently recorded both direct to disk along side analog tape, and later digital, for archiving, which were eventually re-released on CD. I say curiously because the original recording was made in 1981 which I believe was long before Sheffield started using digital backups. One of my friend’s friends is good friends with Lincoln Mayorga. He often stays at his home when in town. I’ll try and get in touch with him and find out what the story is). What I’m getting at is that apparently Sheffield Lab did not apply any gain “normalization” in the CD transfer. This may actually predate when normalization came into play or maybe Sheffield simply decided not to use it. Chris, regarding your final comment, “I was wondering if any other folks here have experience this same effect using their most dynamic recordings: do they sound "dull" to you until boosted a great deal?”. In my experience, both my own recordings of music or just plain good old outside noise/sounds, or commercially available recordings, every recording has its own natural playback level. Obviously, much of this will also depend on your playback system as well as the room ~ how large it is, its acoustical properties, etc. I guess that’s why I like remote control so much. It’s easy to adjust the gain appropriately from recording to recording and even from track to track (every track doesn’t have to have the same gain setting as so many recording/mastering engineers seem to do). I’ve even gotten to the point where I put a little sticker on the recording and write down the gain level so I can just dial it in to the appropriate level before hitting the play button. So yes, some, many (all?) recordings can sound dull until the gain is set at the level they sound best. And yes, I find there is a very wide range in that gain. As a final note I'd also like to add that IMO the experience and care the recording/mastering engineer puts into a recording has far more to do with the quality of the recording than whether it was recorded in analog or digital, or what the sample rate/bit depth or tape speed, equipment used, etc was.

This sounds like an interesting site to visit. I have also noted that the percussion in some music is missing or cut vastly due to the loudness war.

No No Thank you...............

My friendly suggestion: I just found out you are using TADs as drivers. This is my cautious side showing, but you might want to put a capacitor in series with the TAD driver. I don't know the nominal impedance of the driver, but select the cap so the cut off is an octave or two below the crossover frequency (the cap and driver form a highpass RC filter). This will block any DC from reaching the driver and is a preventive measure in case the amplifier ever had a hiccup. The diaphragms on those TADs are quite expensive and this will help serve as an insurance policy. The cutoff of the RC filter will be far enough away from the crossover action that it will not interfere. This is just me being cautious.