efzauner

Can you take it apart, take photos and dimensions? It would be a great DIY project! Just kidding, we will let you listen a bit first. But just a bit....

If msrp is really CDN$1700, then 895 is an ok price, see if you can go lower- Try $800! ... Has he got new replacements in yet? Does he need room for something new? try to judge how badly he wants to get them out. Visit him early in the week when sales are slow... As for CND vs US pricing, I have noticed that Canadians are getting a raw deal on alot of electronics. The higher Canadian prices where justified when we had a 65 cent dollar, but now with the canadian dollar at close to 87 cents US, I have not seen much of a corresponding price decrease on specialy items. On highly competitive stuff like DVD players, sure, but not on alot of other stuff. Too Bad.

Anyone care to visit together? Have a brew maybe? The Montreal Hi Fi show is March 24-26th...But I did not see Klipsch on the exhibitor list, unless they are represented by a retailer. http://www.fsiexpo.com/

Big S for you! So, stabbed in the neck huh, robbed while at the movie, like sitting in the theatre? In the lobby? Did he go to the hospital emergency? Did he report the crime to the police? What was he doing driving with his neck stabbed last nite? He had no other friends to help him out? I think that while in the emergency or while talking to the police you would start thinking of calling a friend back home to come help you out, instead of driving around parking lots asking for help....

For the short distance and relatively large piece of brass, there will not be any difference between copper or brass. Please do your homework before you disagree.

Has any one seen the jpgs that I posted? I saw them in the post-preview, but not on the actual forum. But my PC tends to do that

Caps reforming? I have a Heatkit w5m that dates from the 50s. It is all original. Had not been used in years and it worked no problem! Are there any technical references on cap reforming?

popbumper: this is really a matter of personal taste. The key, like I mentioned in my post, is that you do double blind tests. I personally cannot tell the difference betweet persians and siameese, but some discerning audiophile may be able to. Theoretically the persian's thinker hair should absorb some of the base, making a deader sounding room. I cannot stand live cats myself because of severe alergies. I prefer dead ones. The problem is that dead ones shed fur after a few weeks, and thus the acoustic properties are changed. I wish there was a better solution to this. Maybe if I brush the cat with one of those ceramic, negative ion generating curling irons the fur will last longer.

Rob What kind of HVAC do you have? Forced air? If so how are you sound insulating the feeds and return air ducts? In my home gym in the basement I have rockwool insulation in the walls and ceilings, but the weak point are the ducts. From the gym ceiling they go all the way up 2 floors to the master bath and my pumpin iron music at 5 am wakes my wife up. Are you planning to use something like sonopan between the sheetrock and flex joints? what about doors? My feeling is that all this stuff goes out the window if you have a square inch of air leakage around light pots, doors etc.

Those are the pre-driver transistors. The main outpu transistors are mounted on the main heatsink. With the manual provided by fellow member you should be able to identify what is what. The pre driver transistors are rarely the culprit. First try the fuses. There are Power supply fuses and speaker fuses. That should be enought to protect things. I do not think what you see is "carbon" from burning. The transistors are in metal cans and have relatively low currents flowing thru. They would burn up inside without showing signs of too much stress on the outside. This is an old unit. If it was used regularly, the low heat from the transistor over many decades would be enough to discolor many glues or other compounds holding the heatsinks to the transistors. Don't be too alarmed. you got a nice amp and even if it is output or other transistors, they are easy and cheap to replace. Trying to put a light bulb in series with power cord is an OK idea. I use a standard rotary light dimmer in series and slowly turn the knob while measuring power supply voltage.

If all we do is connect stuff to our systems without understanding the science then we are reduced to being alchemists and snake oil believers. Eventually you *may* find something that sounds better, but you may also blow up your equipment in the process, and you may delude yourself into believing that you can hear a difference. We are now in the 21st century and the scientific method has been with us for a few hundred years now. By applying science to understand what is going on and make educated decisions on what will and will not make a difference in sound, we are increasing our chances of success dramatically. Science can measure light from the big bang 15 billion years ago, put a man on the moon, measure and display our brain activity in 3D colour, replicate DNA, etc. Why do you think that science has no place in audio? You would not stand for your mechanic, dentist, doctor, stockbroker, (gardener for that matter) trying things out without having a clue as to what is going on and evaluating the result without a valid test. Why do audiophiles insist on trying things out without having a clue? The placebo effect is well known in medicine, I am suggesting that it also works for audiophiles. If you want it to sound better, it will sound better 30% of the time! By all means put dead cats under your speaker wire, but at least do a double blind test to see if it makes a difference compared to a stuffed cat, or no cat at all. The alchemist may have tried things out without knowing a thing about why, but at least they made proper observations and took good notes so that they could decide if they were getting results or not. Some audiophiles don't even want to make proper tests! Now, go and kill some cats, but don't let the SPCA catch on to what you are doing!

Have you tried Solen near Montreal? Do they not ship to the US? It really should not be a problem. I live with shipping from the US all the time. I try to use USPS because when it comes into Canada it is Canada Post that handles it and they are kind when it comes to customs and fees. We really are civilized up her, not ALL goods go via dog sled! If you are having difficulties and really want litz inductors from Solen, I can get some for you and put them in a little brown box in the mail Can you pay via pay pal?

JJ the material is out there. You just need the time to find it and read it. My previous link to westcost sound has excellent theory and measurements on cables and how they affect sound. There is also a good section on electronic crossovers and how, by eliminating the passive crossover, you dramatically improve damping factor and save amp headroom. I really like the West coast sound site. Audioholics also has a really good section on cabling. I am thinking of delving deeper into this. I have an HP impedance analyazer, and other test gear. I just recently simulating a Hafler/Rochford Fosgate power amp in software and am going to build on that to add cabling and cross over effects. Right now I have it simulating clipping and I can see the amount of harmonics generated. I am also simulating intermodulation distortion etc. My next step will be to simulate TIM: Transient intermodulation distortion. This is a long project as my job and 3 kids drains most of my time. The plus side is that playing with the simulator as a hobby helps my day job and vice versa. Alk: I can simulate x overs with C, L, ESR vs frequency easily with table date, no need to create polynomials. You might have difficulty with that in spice because frequency dependant resistor are non causal in time domain (for non tech types: non-causal basically means that the signal comes out before the signal goes in!) Let me know if you would like me to try something. However, I think we agree that it is diminishing returns. PS: for those into car audio, the Rockford Fosgate amps are all nearly identical to their Hafler pro stable mates. Very impressive!. I got a schematic from Rockford Fosgate and compared it to schematics of pro gear that is included in the pro owners manuals. All basically the same. I am simulating 2 amps: a regular classAB amp and a Class G subwoofer version of it. One last note on Characteristic Impedance Zo: The formula Zo=sqrt(L/C) is derived with calculus solving for the current and voltage pulse traveling down a transmission line with L and C chopped up into infinitesimally small sections. The result, Zo is propagating wave version of ohms law for an infinitely long transmission. It defines what the amplitude of a current pulse traveling down the line is as a result of a voltage pulse traveling down the line. If the transmission line is a small fraction of a wavelegth then all you need is the L and C (and R of course) times the short length of cable. At audio frequencies and the distances involved in home installations, you do not have to consider traveling waves. If you measure the voltage along a speaker cable, it is the same voltage everywere. You seem to have a background in communications. You may recall college level courses in introductory high frequency where you measured the VSWR in a slotted line by moving a probe along its length. At RF/microwave frequencies the voltage along a coax cable is indeed different depending on where you measure! Boy, I like this thread, I is forcing me to open my textbooks and study. Trying to explain/teach something is the best way of learning it yourself! Enjoy the music,

JJ Sorry to go on, but you may be mixing up characteristic impedance with simple inductance-capacitance-resistance. For short distances it is only the L-C-R that is important. Characteristic impedance is Zo=squareroot of(L/C) were L and C are the inductance and capacitance per unit lenght. If you know L and C per unit lenght you can calculate Zo but for any electrical purpose that is a fraction of a wavelength, all you have to do is use the actual L and C value, depending on the length of wire you have. The Characteristic impedance just becomes a bulk L and C attached to the amp/speaker connection. for more details please see: http://sound.westhost.com/cable-z.htm

If Litz wire makes so much difference in the inductdor, would it also make a difference if you wind the autoformer out of litz wire too? What about winding the speaker voice coil out of Litz wire? You could cut out an ohm or so no?

Having just done some simulations (I am lazy, I have $100K of simulation software on my laptop-thats my job) of simple 12db HP and LP filters, I see that the cap and inductor Q just increases the overall loss just like you said. From your Q graphs I was able to calculate the following (approximately): for 200uH inductor at 2KHz Inductor Q=15 ESR=170mOhm for Solid WIre Q=20 ESR=120mOhm for Litz Wire at 10KHz Inductor Q=10 ESR=1.2 Ohm for Solid WIre Q=65 ESR=200mOhm for Litz Wire The added resistance of the solid wire at 10KHz results in about a 1db loss with an 8ohm speaker load. This is basically the loss of a 1 ohm resistor in series with the 8 ohm speaker. Are you suggesting that the difference in sound perceived with the Litz inductors is a result of the 1 dB increase vs the Solid Wire inductor? I cannot believe that this 1 db makes all the difference. Changing the sqwaker tap would do the same. Or is there something else going on that the ESR does not measure? In other words, something is happening, but ESR is not the right measurement. Send me the ESR vs Freq and I would be happy to setup a simulation of your networks with ESR modeled vs freqeuncy. But I don't think we will see much more. The above simulations are the min/max already. Also dont forget that for a constant ESR, Q will increase linearly with frequency anyway because the reactive component 2piFL increases linearly with frequency.

sunburnwilly. It all depends on expectations. If I say pay me when you can, but in my mind I am expecting payment in a year, but my friend is thinking 5 years, and aftern a year he has not paid me a penny, but I see him with lots of new expensive gadgets, then i think I will be dissapointed that he had the cash to buy more toys, but not to pay me back anything. Yet, if after a year or so I see him still strugling financially, and he comes to me and says, "I will try to pay back in the next year, but if I cannot, then I will give you back the amp" then that is OK too. I think that agreements amoung friends should also include some sort of open, honest discussion about terms. Just so that no one gets upset and the friendship is strained.

That would work fine, No electrical reason why you cannot use standard power plugs and sockets for speaker connections. Fact is on pro gear, speakers are often connected with the twist-locking 120v plugs and sockets.

Al From my understanding of cross over design, (it has been some time, not beyond my ability, but just not a priority right now to spend the brain cells on.) , A simple 2nd order parallel butterworth high/low pass: C = 1 / (2 * p * f * (Z * sqrt2)) and L=(Z *sqrt2) / (2 * p * f) Z is normally the nominal impedance of the drive, say 4, 8 or 16 etc. but if the caps and inductors have considerable ESR, then they should be considered in the equations. Since the Cs and Ls are in different positions in the high pass vs the low pass, the resultant total Z is different, giving different cross over freqeuncies, No?

Al, All the inductors have the same inductance, just different series resistance, correct? Have you simulated cross overs with inductors with different series resistance? What if you make the ESR a function of frequency? Do you have data of ESR vs Frequency of the various inductors? That way you can compare the Cross over response with different inductors and see what it does to frequency response, phase, group delay etc. Or just measure the crossovers built with the different inductors? The high series resistance of the inductors at the cross over frequencies would surely shift those crossover frequencies just like different speaker impedances. Another dumb questions: When you design a cross over for a give frequency, you use the nominal impedance of the driver, say 4, or 8 ohms, whatever. Would it not be better to use the real complex impedance of the driver at the cross over frequency?

I was talking abou the big boys. Yes the smaller companies like Klipsch, Paradigm etc. really try hard to controll distribution in order to maintain a good level of service etc. However, the big boys like Sony, Panasonic, etc dont care that much who sells it. All they want is mass distribution in an all out market share war with each other and the rising Chineese brands. Sony sells products thru Costco and national grocery store chains at deep discounts and are resold at prices that are a few percentage points above wholesale. These places just move product with no service or knowledgeable staff and clearly undercut the local specialty store. What is the difference between that and buying a Sony DVD player via a greymarket internet store? And, when it really comes down to it, what is the difference between these and Best Buy? The whole aim is to sell volume and win the market share war. Every try to bring a product back to Best Buy after the warranty is out? What after sales service. All they do is refer you to the nearest authorized service center. Even Paradigm is after market share and will not close down stores that keep minimal, if no inventory, and therefore can afford to sell at very very low markups. I constantly had to deal with competition from a store 20 miles away that did just that! My complaints where not listened too. I try to find a reason behind grey market. It is easy to blame the grey marketeer, but there is always an underlying cause. When the consumer no longer sees the value of a full priced specialty store, AND the company has not been properly taking care of its distribution chain, then these things happen! Companies like Klipsch are stuck in the middle. They want to have good support from specialty dealers, but also need large scale distribution thru national chains. Then for the christmas sale, the national chain wants a special deal: We will buy 1000 pairs of speakers in one shot, but give us an extra 10% off. Klipsch knows it gonna be for a boxing day gate crasher and will be on sale at almost cost, or be part of a deep discount HT setup with receiver etc. They have no choice, because if they say no, the chain will go to their competitor. The small store gets the same offer via emai, and knows darn well that he is not gonna make a penny on Klipsch speakers this christmas unless he can buy at the same price. So he buys the minimum to get a reasonable price break. He knows he cannot sell em all, so he passes some to the grey market. But at least he can still make some profit on the ones he does sell. Who'se fault is this? Why is the small dealer behaving that way? Every time the wholesaler does something like this he erodes the loyalty of the small dealer. The grey market is there only because the small guys are trying to make a buck in an ever more competitive market.

Neat isn't it? I remember one of our HS rock bands (no, I didn't play, just listened) had those in the mid 70s. Mesmerizing and unforgetable as the rotation speeded up and slowed down on command. The only song I remember them playing was a rock version of Nutcraker!

One thing to keep in mind: original LaScalas will keep their reasale value. Buy used ones now and in 10 years you will still be able to get what you paid for them. Make em yourself and you may be dissapointed in what others want to pay. There is always value in originals.

Is this not lovely! Having to choose between a plasma and a sxrd. That is a problem I would love to have. I am sure either of them will give you many years of enjoyment. Technically I am sure both Sony and Pioneer can debate forever without a clear winner. Both are excellent units! Just compare those to what was available only 5 years ago! 9x16 crt rear projectors where only widely available in 2001! This is really a great time to watch TV. Isn't it. So go with your emotion at this point!