hurdy_gurdyman

---------------- On 1/14/2005 9:55:27 PM Ki Choi wrote: Well, I got the itch for the most warm and airy sounding tube amps for my Khorns. I am getting satisfyingly accurate sound from HK Citation IIs, HeathKit W5Ms, and Bel Canto SET40 in my set up. Now, I'd like to experiment for different sound from a tube amp doesn't have to be so accurate but produces classic warm and airy tube sound. I have had a modern EL34 tube amp for a pair of B&Ws once before that was pretty close. I am considering about Marantz 8B. Let me hear from Khorn/8B owners. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Ki ---------------- Here's a thought for an inexpensive amp that has a clean, classic sound that's both airy and warm. An old Bell 2024 (or is it 2420?). These are a 6V6 based integrated with 12AX7 drivers and preamp tubes. Smallish output transformers and a simple circuit. Very clean and airy mids and highs with a good touch of "classic tube warmth". Drawbacks are a phono stage that doesn't have enough gain for most cartridges (hums) and the bass is underdamped (mushy). This may not be a problem with well damped horn bass, but was an irritant with regular box speakers. When a sub was used the amp sounded fine on box speakers crossed at 80Hz. This amp is very relaxing and throws a good soundstage. Someday I'm going to rebuild my power supply and use it again. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_hurdy_gurdyman/detail?.dir=6d5d&.dnm=b4e4.jpg&.src=ph They can be found for under $200 and are simple to work on if repairs are needed. Dave

Ok, continuing the saga. Even though corner loading the bass seems to do great things, I just can't coax enough levels from the mid-horn and tweeter this way. A whole re-design of the crossover would be in order, which I'm not in the mood for right now. I wired the horns back to normal (I actually hooked the mid-horn up a step lower then normal) and turned the speakers back facing into the room. I have them sitting on the floor right in the corner with a thin block of wood under the bottom to tilt them back a bit. This is much better balanced. I suspect this is optimal for Heresy's, as they are pretty lean and forward sounding anywhere else in the room. Mid and treble horns actually work pretty good in corners compared to cones because of a horn's narrow radiating pattern. Perhaps in the spring I'll experiment with building new boxes and rear mounting the woofer with the mid and treble horns front mounted. The horns levels will need to be raised to match the increase in bass that will result, but I suspect all the effort may be worth it. In the meantime, I'm getting some pretty realistic music pumped into my living room. Dave

I followed the Pi Forum thread with interest. I've had a pair of Heresy's for a couple of years now and loved what they did right but had issuses with the very lean balance and sometimes harsh (bright?) mids and highs (this with a classic tube amp.) I tried putting them right into the corners (pointed into the corner) sitting on plastic milk crates.LET THERE BE BASS! Amazing how big the bass became. However, the mids and highs now sounded mellow (can you picture a mellow Heresy?) To fix this, I moved the mid and treble wires to the next higher autoformer setting on the crossover. This balanced things out pretty good. The Heresy's now sound like they've been put on steroids! You won't need a subwoofer with this set up except for movie rumble. It's interesting and educational to try this. I might even leave things this way. Certainly simple and reversable. Dave

Thought I should mention that my 1975 Heresy's have an orange surround with 8 ohm woofers. Dave

I'm not sure if this is apropriate here, but I have a Scott LK-48-B (kit version of 222D) and a Fisher 500C that I would sell one or the other, but not both. The Scott is all origional except for replacing the output coupling caps. I used it daily from last fall till a couple of weeks ago when I replaced it with another amp I like. The Scott works good and has low hum and sounds good. The Fisher has many tubes missing, but the amp works good when I put tubes in it. The tuner needs a tune-up. I'd let the Scott go for $200 plus shipping, the Fisher for $150 plus shipping. Both sound good with the Heresy 1's I have. The Scott has more full sounding bass. You can see the Scott on my website. http://www.geocities.com/the_hurdy_gurdyman/ Email me for more details. I hadn't really thought much about selling these, but I'm a bit short of cash right now and trying to fix up a motorcycle and put it on the road while there is still good weather left to ride it. I may not offer these for sale again once I'm caught up finacially (one never knows about these things). Dave

Hmmm, I could be wrong here, but I thought the way to have non-polite disputes and insults was to send them in private messages. If that's the case, why has this thread been started? I'm sure the origional private message sent was not intended for public display, nor should it have been. If you receive a private message that insults you, inform the moderator and keep it off the forum. Posting it here does a dis-service to the entire forum, as it just gets the moderators madder and take us one step closer to being shut down permanately. Dave

---------------- On 5/17/2004 2:36:40 PM dgb wrote: Yes, quite a bit thanks. Have been debating over dbx or Dolby S, and you may have just made my decision easier. Do you know anything about the higher end Yamaha decks KX-690 and KX-1200? Don't know much about their units. ---------------- I've never owned or heard a Yamaha tape deck. I did have a Yamaha mic mixing board and thought it sounded great. My Yamaha motorcycle has been good. Dave

I currently have a Teac with dolby B and DBX type II, a Sony deck with Dolby B, C and S, a Tascam with Dolby B and an outboard DBX type 1 pro studio unit. The DBX type II mistracks frequently, making some un-musical pumping sounds in the music, and sounds a bit dull on the top end most of the time. Same deck with Dolby B sounds fine. Dolby S is superior to all the other Dolby's and DBX II in every way from what I can hear. DBX type 1 is very good, but you need a very flat frequency response with an extended high end (at least 19kHz) to get it to perform right. Beats DBX II in every respect. Both DBX units can mistrack on very simple music, or music with a lot of percussion. I have found no problem with Dolby in this regard. Of all but my Tascam 133, I prefer DBX 1 on all but real simple music the best, with Dolby S a close second. Dolby S works great on very simple music. Only my Sony deck has Dolby HX-pro. However, quality of the deck is important. My Tascam, with just Dolby B, sounds better then all the others, even without the extra dynamic range. I have used all my decks in recording live music of my own band, other local bands, and myself solo. I've used various combos of the above for editing and copying. The most reliable and good sounding recordings I've made are with the Tascam for the live recording, then edit to either Dolby S or a CD recorder. Both sound good consistantly. DBX type 1 sounds great if at least a few instruments are playing at once. BTW, I understand one of the biggest problems with DBX II built into commercial tape decks is that DBX company didn't have any strict quality requirements for those that licensed their product, so quality could vary a lot from one manufacturer to another. This is one of the reasons DBX didn't catch on, as some of those units sounded awful. Hope this helped. Dave

Hi Amy, Just wanted to also say welcome. I've only been here since last fall, and have managed to dodge the flame wars, but would like the forum better without them. It's great to have opinions, even strong ones, but there is a right and a wrong way to state them. I have a feeling things will smooth out better now. Hope your new responsibility doesn't become to much of a dreaded chore Excuse me now, while I get back to listening to some wonderful sounds coming out of the old Heresy's... Dave

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_hurdy_gurdyman/album?.dir=/cb32 I brought this thread back because I have some new pics of my dog, Isha, with her winter coat on. Also, I wanted to ask an opinion. Isha is obviously mostly husky, but I'd like opinions from some of you dog experts as to what other breed she might be mixed with. One person suggested malamute. Any other guesses? She weighs about 60 pounds. She was dropped of anomonously one night at the local animal shelter at about 9 months old. She's now about 1 1/2 years old and has quickly become a loved member of the family. She does a problem with other dogs, though (alpha thing), but loves people, with a very playful personality, and a lot of energy to run off. We go for bicyle rides every day. Helps keep an old man in shape! Dave

I used to own one of these. It has very nice Peerless output transformers (I still have those out of mine). However, it had one of the worst ventillatin systems I've ever seen. Mine ran so hot that most of the paint burnt off the power tranny, which finally burned out. The phono preamp was only so-so, but the aux imputs and power amp sounded real good. Dave

When I was a teenager, I went through several console stereos. My all time favorite was a tubed Philco made in the sixties. It had a straw-weave grill on each side and 10" woofers with small tweeters, each having AlNiCo magnets. It was made of nice, medium-light colored wood (no cheap particle board in this.) If this is what this guy has, grab it! The voice range on my old console was truly wonderful. Bass was better then most consoles of the time, a bit tighter then the typical boomy open backed console, but not particularly deep. Dave

Sounds like my cones are just what they are supposed to be. They sure do sound great! Thanks for the answers guys. Dave

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned concerning tube vs solid state bass in general, is that it's very speaker dependant. As long as the tube amp is a good design with excellent output transformers, it should sound basically similar on a highly damped woofer, like that in a K-horn. However, in something like a vintage AR speaker, a solid state amp will definately have better bass response then most tube amps. The woofer in a horn loaded design like a K-horn needs little help from the amp because it is already very well damped. If the bass is tubby, there's either something broke on your amp or the amps are just not designed to have good bass. Dave

Do you know if the output tubes on the Fisher was in good shape? Weak tubes can cause muddy bass. If the amp has a rectifier tube, that can be weak as well. I've owned a bunch of different vintage tube amps and have noticed that a lot of them do have a less taunt bass then ss. Some amps, though, do better then others. My Scott LK-48-B has better bass then any of my others, including a Fisher 500C receiver. I don't know which Fisher you listened to, but if it is similar in amp quality to my old Fisher, the bass should sound a bit warmer then ss, lacking a bit in low end punch. There are a lot worse ones out there, though. I didn't mind the sound of the old Fisher, as it wasn't bad bass at all. It actually sounded more natural on acoustic bass then many ss amps. The old Scott does it just a bit better, IMHO. Dave

The woofer on my Heresy (K-22)has a paper cone with concentric rings. All the pictures I've found of other Heresy 1's have woofer cones that are solid, no concentric rings. Is mine somehow not origional, perhaps re-coned? The magnet has K-22 on it as well as the PWK emblem. The cone has a reish accordian surround. Maybe I just haven't seen enough pictures of Heresy's yet? Dave

When I first bought my used Heresy's last summer, I had a crackling, distoted sound coming from them. I finaly ended up taking the mid drivers apart. I discovered what looked like some crushed coal or charcoal in the compression chamber. After carefully cleaning them out, the problem was solved. Dave

---------------- On 2/1/2004 11:52:31 PM Woodog wrote: ---------------- On 2/1/2004 8:23:24 PM pulmoguy wrote: Are these "big" enough for my 30 x 15 foot drafty old living room? Any comparisons between Heresy's & Forte's? ---------------- I was listening just to the Heresys in my church meeting room.. huge room, the speakers are 40' apart. They did quite a nice job, and assuming that you are not a heavy rocker, they would do a very decent job for you. they are wonderful speakers. I've heard it said about the Forte speaker that it is a Heresy on steroids. I think that the Heresys have midrange/upper treble that is soooooooooo wonderful. forrest ---------------- I agree about the mid/highs. I use my Heresy's with seperate powered subs in a 14 x 22 foot room using a 20 watt per channel tube amp. I can get as loud as I ever need to. Dave

I have some older medium format cameras with nice optics. I have a 4 element coated 80mm/f-2.8 Zeiss Tessar in my Century Graphic, an 80mm/f-2.8 5 element Sekor and a 4 element 180mm/f-4.5 Sekor for my Mamiya C-220, and a 4 element 100mm/f-3.5 in my Mamiya Super 23 press camera. All are sharp and contrasty. Picture quality from these big negatives (6mm x 6mm and 6mm x 7mm and 6mm x 8mm)are remarkable! Dave

I recently had a chance to audition a pair of RF-7's. They had good bass and lots of treble, but didn't have that almost magical midrange that my Heresy's have. With a good sub, the Heresy's sound amazing! I also had a chance to listen to a pair of 1987 Klipschorns. The Heresy's with subwoofers sounded closer to the K-horns then the RF-7's did. As matter of fact, I was surprised at just how much the family sound of heritage speakers sounded so alike. The K-horn sounded like a big Heresy with extended bass. Made me feel a lot better about my "lowly" Heresy's. BTW, the many tweeks mentioned doing with Heresy's are, indeed, worth the effort. They turn a very good speaker into a great one. Dave

At the price those speakers are selling for new, you can just about imagine the quality of sound they'd have. I bet the mid-horns in a pair of Heresy's cost about as much as that whole speakers system. I've heard several speakers similar to those with piezo midranges, and they all sounded, well, cheap. I couldn't live with them. About all they are good for is parties. I'll stick with my Heresy's. Dave

Gads! I may have nightmares for a week now! Dave

---------------- On 1/27/2004 1:42:37 PM Manuel Delaflor wrote: Heresy's alone might sound "less good" than any other Heritage speaker. But a pair of Heresy's with a sub... that's another thing. They can still beat almost EVERYTHING that is in the market right now. ---------------- Have to agree with that. My Heresy's with subs sound better then anything I've heard at an anywhere near sane price. Dave

---------------- On 1/27/2004 12:39:14 AM TBrennan wrote: Here's the Hereseys I bought the other day from Smilin. At first I wasn't sure I liked them but they're growing on me. They don't have as nice a tonal balance as my KRKs but on the other hand they sound more "lively", well you guys know that kind of thing. These have the EV mid so I reckon I won't need a P trap, my buddy "P" who developed the trap was all set to send me a pair. ---------------- Tom, What EV mid-driver is used in these? Dave

---------------- On 1/24/2004 10:10:16 AM gerbache wrote: I think the plan is to at least see how high the forte's go for. Assuming they aren't too bad, I can sell the heresies afterwards and make back most of the money I would have spent. Plus I'm really thinking they will be a better apartment speaker than anything with a subwoofer, just because I don't want the bass to be -too- high. Thanks for all the suggestions! ---------------- A good subwoofer can be adjusted so the bass is "just right" and won't be too high. Depending on the sub, a good one will extend bass even lower then the Fortes can go. The Fortes, however, will play low enough for most music without a sub. The mids and treble should be similar with either speaker. Dave