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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/13/19 in all areas

  1. I recently purchased a Crown Macro-Tech 2401, based on discussions here and elsewhere about building a system around the 402's. I had absolutely no idea what I was buying - it just happened to come up locally and I grabbed it for some solid state bass control - thinking I would run my Prima Luna somehow on the tops. It was going to sit idle until I work out exactly what direction I am going to take with the system build, but the other day I bought some XLR to RCA plugs and connected the Crown to my MHDT tube dac. First thing I noticed was the fan... it's amazing the amp didn't levitate with the squall of air gushing through it. I took the panels off and gave the old beast a clean, then replaced the fan with a quieter set of fins. Plugged back in, I set about some serious listening. Running the Altec 19 bottoms and crossovers and the k402's on top, the first thing I noticed was how much I have been missing at the top and bottom. Second thing was the GRIP and SLAM. Then I noticed that my favourite Dire Straits album just didn't seem as 'listenable' as was on the Prima Luna - a harsh edge here and there - but then, there was also features of the music that I had never heard coming through before. A few albums later, the penny was really starting to drop. Feed the Crown exceptional recordings and it delivered exceptional sound; but the slightest hint of weakness in source material would be utterly laid bare. I listened to a cluster of known -gem recordings - a couple of Diana Krall offerings, Yello, etc. On these, I have never heard anything come close to the sound I was hearing - a crystal clear deep wall of shimmering magic. The 402's were gone, and the room was filled. Immense. Switching back to the PL, I can listen to anything and everything. It does a smashing job as jack of all trades - but the Crown is master, and has made me see a new way forward. Alas, our time together has been cut short by blown resistors. I hope I can get it up and running again so I can experiment with a new concept to me - taming the raw beauty of a monster solid state amp with the Xilica, and just maybe some additional tubes up front. Tonight I dine on Prima Luna mush - it's easy to chew and to swallow - and tastes sweet every day. But I have been to the butcher's block and tasted his wild venison - rare, thick-cut and bloody. I want some more.
    5 points
  2. I do it a little different, I don't care to move stuff around or unplug things. So I just go to the garden bar to hear Heresy's, the bedroom for Cornwall's the yard for mwm/split LaScala tops and the living room for the main 2 ch and ht speakers. I move my butt instead of anything else.
    4 points
  3. that is very common in my convos with myself..... usually followed or preceded by a string of profanities I like to think I not stupid and then do one of those.
    4 points
  4. What occurs on forums is that a few people decide to post opinions with no basis in fact or science. It's easy for members to spot said posters. Normally controversy surrounds their threads and posts for obvious reasons. Sometimes threads get locked, some times posters are banned. That's what occurs on forums.
    4 points
  5. That basically means that anybody can say anything on any audio related subject and it can't be proved wrong because they say that it's so.
    4 points
  6. I find that to be an incredible statement considering the poor quality soldering I see in your builds. The lousy solder joints likely cause far more audible degradation than the few milliohms difference between wire gages do. I see you use a soldering gun for your projects. So did I when I was a high school student many years ago. I have since learned that a controlled temperature soldering iron with interchangeable tips yield the best results; Temperature controlled soldering equipment is required by NASA, and soldering guns are specifically prohibited.
    4 points
  7. Clapton, Winwood, Grech & Baker? Whew! 1969 as Blind Faith! Greatness imo! What's a pretty lil girl like me to do in 1968??? Kick some a$$ in San Fran w/the Boys that's all! One of the best you'll ever hear from those psychedelic years!
    3 points
  8. Would never attempt to collect as many as him, although he has somewhat let a few go over the years. He is doing good, working doing music around Indy and a week or two in Key West once a year for the singers and song writer festival. He is the same old Michael, pretty much the same, we talk to him or his girlfriend pretty regularly. With the exception of the big yard speakers they are all ready to go, walk up and turn it on, well except for a pair of RB 75's stored, were not a reference fan for the most part. Don't really say that around here much since many like them, just to be nice you know, and they are better than many brands. Speaking of sucking ,the in ceilings speakers in the wife's sewing room pretty much suck, but they are in the ceiling and take up no room so they can suck there.
    3 points
  9. all those speakers ... did you take over the Colter house of klipsch? wonder how he’s doing these days -- miss the guy.
    3 points
  10. Exactly what I'm doing right now! Jerry Garcia's 1st solo album from 1972 Rollin right along from 1974 with "Compliments of Garcia." .. Voila! 1971 Half-speed Master of King Crimson's "Island" Yum! Time to dig! I"m feelin it again! 😂
    3 points
  11. I think some you guys are being a bit rough on Jeffrey. I disagree with his approach and conclusions, but he is entitled to his opinion. In many ways I think he is rather sincere in his perspective and probably not all that different than some of the folks around here who are enamored with fancy and uber expensive capacitors etc. I don't think these folks are trolls. They seem to really believe in this stuff. I think the Forum has enough room for all of them (footnote 1). Footnote 1: That said, I still think this approach leads some people away from making real improvements that are based on science and engineering. However, that is their choice (and loss). Good luck, -Tom
    3 points
  12. Everything looks pretty dusty but they should clean up nice. Depending on actual condition of the speakers (you are correct in stating they hold most of the value) I'd say a fair asking price range for everything would be $1000-1500. Although, if I inherited my father's LaScalas the last thing on my mind would be how much I could sell them for.
    3 points
  13. I agree fully about speaker wires. The wisest thing about speaker cable choices I ever read was recently on another audio forum: The most important Characteristic of Speaker Cables is ........ Length. If they are not long enough to reach from your Amplifier to your speaker, you will not hear anything at all.
    3 points
  14. Looks great Chuck! A switch-up is always fun. Downside with me is I'm always playin w/it all. Then you're right back where you were in the beginning going "What was I thinking?" lol
    3 points
  15. Chuck.....nice room full of some awesome gear.
    3 points
  16. 3 points
  17. all amplifiers are exactly the same... they all produce the same transient response, the same dynamic range and the same noise floor.
    3 points
  18. Good to see the old speakers again !
    3 points
  19. Hello Everyone, and thanks for the welcomes. I do feel reinvigorated about just really enjoying music again. I actually did get some modest , but nice tube gear to drive the Klipsch's I found a 75 WPC stereo tube amp (with KT120 tubes) made by old Bob Carver, formerly of Phase Linear (back in the 70's.) It's got way more than enough power and with some modest, but again good cables from Kimber (8TC's - for speaker cables and Kimber Hero's for interconnects) powered up by a (once again) a modest tube preamp made by a small company called ModWright, which I found used on Audiogon for 35 cents on the dollar, I just feel like I am getting fantastic performance from these Cornwalls, and I probably haven't got them fully broke in. Vinyl sounds wonderful, but some of my old CD's which always sounded excessively bright on all of the other speakers I have had, actually sound good for the first time, ever! They are just such a balanced and really dynamic speaker. I am just stunned with this performance, and the good old Klipsch corporation doesn't force me to mortgage my house and sell a couple of grandchildren to own them. Without any doubt the best dollar for dollar value in all of the audio industry. I remember hearing Klipsch Cornerhorns and LaScalla's back in the late 70's, but this was after I had already dumped a load of money into a new set of Infinity Q2's. I remember liking the Klipsch better than my new Infinity's at the time, and then the ongoing disease of upgrading just sucked me ever forward, into the vortex. Being out on the other side of this really makes me think, but I guess I have enjoyed a little of that dark side of upgrading enough to find my way back to the Klipsch's, once again after over 40 years. Go figure…..Ceptorman said you all like photo's, so here's the new arrivals all set up.
    3 points
  20. About the in ceilings, she knows, she could care less about what it takes to run it all or why, but if she does not like the sound she has an opinion. She picked out our best speakers which are the biggest, she heard them and said that's what we want, I thought she was kidding.
    2 points
  21. If a choke or transformer has a winding constructed from, say, 100 feet of 24 AWG wire, and you modify the last 2 inches of each end of that wire by replacing it with, say 16 AWG wire, then the percentage effect of your modification on the current carrying properties of the winding will be absolutely negligible. If you leave 99.7% of the wire (the part you can't get at because it is inside the transformer) unchanged, and modify only the little bits that stick out of the transformer, then you will have no worthwhile improvement at all.
    2 points
  22. Hi karlson3, In your post, you mention that the THTLP is about half the size of the Devastator. The measurements that I have indicate that the THTLP is actually a slightly larger cab. The measurements that I saw for the THTLP is 72" x 18" x 36", which is 27 cubic feet. The measurements for the Devastator are 48" x 24.75" x 30", which is about 20.7 cubic feet. I'm not sure if the models that you posted for the THTLP are all accurate. I'm not sure that mine are either! My understanding is that the THTLP is the THT in a different form factor, but with similar performance. If that is the case, then this is what I have. THT modelled 1w1m response using the 390HF driver. (Note: I am using drive voltage that based on each driver's DC resistance gives exactly 1 watt; and all models are 2pi space.) This model matches pretty well BFM's measurement of the sub, though BFM may have edited out some of the tips of the peaks in the blue line, though real horns tend not to have as strong of resonant peaks as Hornresp indicates. The locations of all the peaks are generally in the same regions (except the missing one around 170Hz), suggesting that the model is fairly reflecting the actual horn. With the same 1w1m, this is the comparison with the Devastator model. Maximum SPL based on 500 watts and 19mm excursion in the THT: (Note: the xmax on the 390HF is listed as 14mm, but that is overhang only. My guess is that usable excursion is up around 19mm or so, so that is what I used.) Maximum SPL based on 1700 watts and 19mm excursion in the Devastator: (Note: the driver was tested and has usable of just over 20mm, but distortion at that level is getting pretty high, so I used 19mm for the comparo.) We don't have a good place to measure the Devastator cab (first attempts were generating in-band cancellations from boundaries). Hopefully, we'll get some measurements posted soon! An important point is that THT was designed many years ago (before the era of the 21" superwoofers) and that the driver and recommended plate amp are less expensive than what is used in the Devastator, so in some sense this isn't really a fair comparison. But from a performance-only perspective, I think the models are reasonably capturing the differences between the two systems.
    2 points
  23. 2 points
  24. I vote to retain crap shoot, including its pun-ishing aspect.
    2 points
  25. One of our main standards is the TOS. PM me with violations or possibly report a post that breaks them. Opinions are still allowed no matter how ludicrous they seem.
    2 points
  26. I was referring to the KT88 build from March of this year. Well, I have used a Weller WCTPC 60 watt production soldering station with an 800 degree chisel tip to solder 12 gage wire to the inside of a 1/2 inch schedule 40 stainless steel pipe. Previously that job had been done using a propane torch, so... I'm pretty sure that soldering station could solder any wire you have used in amplifier builds. You brag about using MIL spec wire, yet you do not use MIL spec tools and standards to solder those wires in your builds. Got it🙄
    2 points
  27. I may be a little off topic here, but below is a picture of my Klipschorns upgrades with the Western Electric wires and other upgrades that to me takes a great speakers and takes it to the next level.
    2 points
  28. When doing incremental stuff I've found that a change for the better often times necessitates change back "for the better" at a later point. There comes a time when you have to acknowledge that "hearing" is itself a moving target. At least I've acknowledged that mine is. If I can't hear two very close options with near instantaneous switching between them then I'm wasting my time trying to choose which I prefer. If I have to wait hours or days between them, then forget it. Likewise if it takes hours or days of listening to "generally perceive" a difference a change makes, then I know it's not worth my time to dick with it. I know my hearing (aural memory) is not stable enough to chase minute increments over time. I fully realize that such acuity as being discussed, while outside my grasp, must certainly be more within the grasp of some folks. However, when utterly outlandish claims are made, either in addition, support, or especially as a basis for the ability and/or results, credibility goes right out the window, regardless.
    2 points
  29. Will do Need a few days to play around with it and play familiar records However first impressions on the test record was WOW - I give it a thumbs up
    2 points
  30. The current set up-Acurus A2007, Yamaha CX-A5200, Zu Audio cube center, La Scala AL5 fronts, Sonance VP80s x4 in ceiling surround (14 ft floor-ceiling windows-wall mount not feasible) Rhythmic SW. Just replaced an Onkyo TX-RZ800, which I thought sounded good, but dayum what a difference...WOW
    2 points
  31. https://www.hifinews.com/content/klipsch-la-scala-al5-loudspeaker Couldn’t remember if this had been posted on the forum ...🙂 miketn
    1 point
  32. Nice afternoon of tunes Dave! Besides Deja'Vu and the Hendrix not too much from the late 60s here `cept on cassette. Thunderstorms again this evening, six days in a row last week but none since until I fill the chimney with charcoal! Picked up a dry-aged porterhouse marked down seriously from the store this morning. So moving inside there's only one other way: butter, burgundy & mushrooms a little garlic in the iron skillet and fried that bad boy up crispy around the edges, pink on the inside! Thought that tryptophan was in turkey, I'll sleep good tonight! Not too far into the 70s these guys took a flute to Southern Rock like Jethro Tull did to R&R!
    1 point
  33. 1 point
  34. Beautiful set up , love 💕 it ! Some have it some don’t ! 😉
    1 point
  35. That could be true, considering that I was watching some meteors at 2 A.M. when the idea of measuring my voice coil wire came to mind. I also understand that the voice coil wire is engineered to have a certain resistance. It is also true that I would not want my speaker connection wire to add 4 ohms to the amp/speaker circuit. I use 12 ga and 14 ga speaker wires to my bi-amped Klipschorns. I certainly would not want to mislead any novices with any outrageous implications. Have a nice day.
    1 point
  36. Very thorough review: https://hifihaven.org/index.php?threads/leben-cs300f-integrated-amp-with-matching-leben-rs30eq-phono-stage.5194/ Maynard
    1 point
  37. @TasDom I absolutely concur with Marvel on this as long as you know how to solder. So neither end of the cable had hot glue all the F over it? I have modified several of their cables and one end was completely sealed up with the sheet. Like they were daring you to try and fix or modify it. Pin 1 Shield, pin 2 clear or natural insulated wire, pin 3 black insulated wire. The shield does not have to be attached to the shell.
    1 point
  38. Great to see a very positive review of this latest version of the LaScala, much- deserved and well written. Great work on this, Roy!
    1 point
  39. 1 point
  40. You probably need to think about a Tapped Horn Sub (18 ft. long horn) with a 12" LAB driver that will STOMP those Mickey Mouse direct radiator 15's. Why you guys are messing with this amateur crap is beyond me.
    1 point
  41. About an hour ago I received a little surprise in the mail - in the form of a new phono stage from an audiophile in Sydney It a DSP design by Parkes Audio - The Puffin Playing around with the settings as I post I have never used my Test Records and it was a good time to unwrap one of them By - Opus 3 Title - Test Record 1 - Depth Of Image
    1 point
  42. At least they look like something that can be worked on. Who cares if they end up an inch shorter?
    1 point
  43. Here you go, Mr. Reviewer, from page 3 of the manual, under the heading "Placement": "The Klipschorn (AK6) has a fully enclosed low frequency horn and no longer has to be flush to the corner in order to operate properly. The Klipschorn can now be toed in or out to obtain the best imaging. The corner still serves as an extension of the low frequency horn, improving low frequency performance. For best results, Klipsch highly recommends the Klipschorn be placed in the proximity of a corner."
    1 point
  44. I agree about applying Watco, however the OP should probably wait until after they have been shipped. I recently applied Watco to an oak table (a few coats over about a week). They were rubbed down carefully. However a week later there was still some aroma indicating the finish was dry but not completely "cured". I would be concerned that some of the material used for packing might "stick" or mar the finish unless it is completely cured. I am just being cautious.
    1 point
  45. One of the plagues of the 21st century seems to be the "watch the YouTube video and believe what (anyone) says", because it's so easy for anyone to put a video up. I'd also remind those that use YouTube for their information gathering--that Sturgeon's Law applies to things like YouTube videos (perhaps especially so). One should always write down the implied, tacit assumptions in any video or article like that one. Here are a few tacit assumptions that seem to come to mind: 1) loudspeakers produce "bad" vibrations 2) loudspeakers have internal resonances inside their bass bins and inside their closed-back drivers, etc. 3) loudspeakers/listening rooms/listening positions within the room suffer from "floor bounce" and that's made worse if the loudspeaker is on the floor. 4) "fields" of low frequency energy exist in the room, and these "fields" are better if their decoupled from the room boundaries. Of these few tacit assumptions that I've enumerated above (out of many more that the presenter was apparently throwing around), only nos. 2 (internal cabinet resonances) and 3 (floor bounce) are issues that are ones that are actually worth talking about. Loudspeakers don't produce "bad vibrations", and the structure-borne vibrations conducted away from the loudspeaker if it is coupled stiffly to the room boundaries must go somewhere for us to hear them with our ears or to feel tactilely. If the loudspeaker boxes are vibrating, don't you want to attenuate those vibrations by setting the loudspeakers on the floor to couple to the room boundaries, instead of the resonances building up in the bass box itself to be re-radiated into the air? Better to rest the loudspeakers on something that absorbs the reaction forces of the bass drivers and moving air inside the boxes. Where do these "bad vibrations" go? They dissipate into the room boundaries. In order for them to be conducted away from the loudspeakers and re-radiated into the room for your ears to hear, some form of conduction and re-radiation has to be provided that is extremely efficient so as not to dissipate the structure-borne vibrations back into the air instead into heat (which is where almost all of it goes). What are those mechanisms that do that? Almost nothing does that...and any that does is extremely attenuated so as not to be heard above the direct arrival energy from the loudspeakers and the in-air room reflections. What do we do about floor bounce? Carpet works really well (even though the loudspeakers may be sitting directly on the hard floor itself). If the acoustic waves in air from the loudspeaker, bouncing off the floor and reaching the listener's ears are not controlled, we get something known as "early reflections". This is a phenomenon of how we hear (psychoacoustics) that leads us to want to control floor bounce (or early reflections from anything close to the loudspeakers in-room)...not "bad vibrations". Nothing about the act of setting the loudspeaker on the floor is important to that process. What do we do about internal box resonances? Answer: better engineering of the loudspeakers to suppress them through stiffness/compliance means, geometry of the box and drivers, and through filling the internals of the box with sound absorption material. Putting your loudspeakers on the floor doesn't affect what's going on inside the loudspeaker bass bin boxes. Same thing is true for closed-back drivers. There are no mysterious "fields" of acoustic energy in the room at low frequencies, only low frequency acoustic waves in air whose wavelengths that are longer in air than the room is in length, width, or height. That means that the geometry of the room boundaries becomes important at some low frequency break point, and the pattern of standing wave intensities vs. frequency is a function of where you put the loudspeakers, the listening position, and the room boundaries--but it's not controlled by "setting your loudspeaker on the floor" (i.e., coupling). The 1/4 wavelength cancellations and 1/2 wavelength resonances in the room are all controlled through geometry--distances, angles of the walls to each other, distance of the drivers from the walls, and "coupling" (a little more involved in terms of its subject matter, but NOT mysterious). I gave up teaching graduate engineering courses a few years ago because the mode of teaching that the university was constrained to use (streamed video capture of lectures after the fact)...ostensibly because of student unwillingness to be present in the same room and the same time as the lecture, and the willingness of companies to pay universities to give their employees as graduate students instead of making the students do what they should be doing, which is showing up in person. It's just like the YouTube video whereby the students are not able to immediately ask questions and get answers as they view the presentations--but then they don't have to drive and spend the time face-to-face. That's how one learns from lectures, i.e., being in the room with the instructor--asking questions as they arise, along with demonstrations (which can be extremely difficult to show for many areas of engineering and physics). It's those two required areas that are so extremely important for useful learning--real learning. Otherwise, you get the mush that you find in the video--along with lots of confused thinking on what's important and what's not, and what the tacit assumptions are that are being inducted into the discussion. Chris
    1 point
  46. You can actually predict the gain of your room fairly accurately. All you need is the HxWxD and a little bit of math. I think this is the reason the khorn sounds very much better in smaller rooms (where it'll actually have a strong bass response). As far as the measurements, since its LMS I'm pretty sure the khorn was mounted in the corner of the revolving door, along with the Jubilee. This will effectively represent what happens with corner loading and is in fact the whole reason the rotating door was invented in the first place.
    1 point
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