Ki Choi

I would suggest shorting the inputs of your Adcom power amp and listen for the hiss. In my experience, most modern SS power amps have high enough signal to noise ratio to avoid any hissing to be heard from your listening position if it is working within its design parameters. With some power amps you could hear some hissing when you have your ear right next to the tweeters especially with Khorn's senitivity. If no hiss is heard with shorted inputs to your power amp, try by passing the preamp with any CD players with variable outputs connected directly to your power amp for test. Listen for silent passages and while paused to be sure. You power amp may be fine and the source of the hissing is from upstream equipment. There are no hisses and I get dead quiet with my Khorns when I use most of my tube amps and tube/SS preamps. Only exceptions are HK Citation II and when I had fake NOS driver/gain tubes in my AudioPrism Debut II Silver Sig tube amp. Ki

I got taken last year by an ebay seller claiming NOS Amperex and GE 12AT7s that were really copies of the originals. It looked good on ebay photos. The Amperexes came in some what authentic looking boxes but the GEs came in cheap cardboard boxes with stamped labels instead of printed... The one of the Amperexes failed within few hours and the GEs were too microphonic and noisy through Khorns, I had to pull them and put back my old original tubes.

Travis: The set up isn't ideal but do work without moving the Quads out of the way of Khorns. The Khorns have Trachorns in the center and Beyma tweeters in the inside letting me place the Quads to be placed about two feet ahead of the Khorns near the side walls and still sound good. Also having to sit pretty close to the Khorns - due to not being able to toe them out in almost near field mode - helps as well. The Quads have figure 8 radiating pattern, and they would let me place them close to the side walls and still give me haunting imaging.

I believe these were listed on ebay recently... guess there was no taker.

Sue went out of her way to get me the shipping cost for them... Her asking price is excellent but the cost of having them packed properly and shipped to Seattle made it not practical for me. Hope someone in the neigboring state would pick them up in person. I am missing a nice pair of LaScalas to finish my Heritage collection...

In regards to mixing brands...it's funny but when driving Krell power amp with tube preamp, one must be careful. When the setup works, it works well but when the tube preamp sends any stray DC into Krell power amp, it blows... I had to find out hard way once when I used to use Sonic Frontiers Line 3 tube preamps (with too many tubes per side to count...) and blew up a Krell amp due to SF feeding DC from one of the tubes that went south on me. The Krell amps (FPB series anyway) have an internal jumper that probably adds filter cap in the input signal path for you to use a tube preamp. I tried to cut the corner in striving for the ultimate transparency and had to pay. Not being able to enjoy music in low level was one of the main reasons why I got rid of the N802s few years back. The N800s do better at low level but no way close to the Khorns when it comes to retriving the ambient information in the recordings especially at the low level. Jack, you must have reached your Audio Contemplative State...where I have been trying climb up to for so many years. It would be nice to be happy with my equipment some day and concentrate on music for a change. I heard a report on NPR (radio program for those who live outside of NA) this monring about the two most significan violin players in history and paid tribute to violinists Jascha Heifetz and Fritz Kreisler. I was emabrassed to think I have not heard of Kreisler and have only one CD of Heifetz... I want to get to a state where I can talk about these two virtuosos more than the latest speakers with diamond tweeters...

My side walls are reflective with some window frames on left side and bare wall with a picture frame on the right side. It certainly made differences in with my Beymas positioned closer to the side walls (when I mounted them outside). The front wall (between two corners) having full curtains that had been bunched up in four different sections, the tweeters mounted inside benefited in my case. The sound from the tweeters got not only deflects some but the curtains also absorbes majority of direct reflected sounds from the tweeters mounted inside. I got better mileage...but yours might be different...

Randy: I have mounted my CP-25s insides of the Khorns. Having the tweeters outside, they were too close to the walls and got different imaging performance - I moved them insides. Ki

Used to have two Khorn fronts, Belle Klipsch center, and two Heresy rears... Changed to Heresy fronts, Heresy center and Heresy rears for about a month... missed the full live sound of Khorns and Belle Klipsch center.. but had already sold the Khorns...so now I have three Belle Klipsches for fronts and center along with keeping the Heresys for the rear... much happier with the current HT since I can also adjust toe-in on the Belle Klipsches to suit my taste.

As I mentioned earlier on other thread, I am sure you are under estimating the value of your super-charged Khorns. My lesser 2002 stock Khrons went for $3700 locally via Audiogon. I am shocked someone from this fourm hadn't jumped all over it ... knowing the speakers... If you would take them back to its original shape and reduce your asking price few hundred bucks, it will go fast, IMO. $1400....Did you keep your old frames, tweeters, and AK-4s? If I only had two more coners... salivating uncontrollably in Seattle.

Dean: If you do put the original horns back before your sale, I would like to be in the front of the purchase line for the Trachorn assembly. If you need the original horns, the frames with the tweeters in Al K's shipping box, I have them to send to you as a part of the deal. ;-) I think everyone should have at least two pairs of Trachorned Khorns...they are that good, IMO. Ki

7BSTs are great amps. I had them with N802 and Maggies few set ups ago. There are few audio gear I would like to get them again someday...7BSTs are one of those. Due to the low ceiling (8' high), my main challenge is in the 50Hz to 30Hz with the N800s. I did consider adding TACT 2.2XP in the chain to correct the room condition but I know I would be compromising in transparency in the mids and highs. The Quads and the Khorns are more forgiving in the mid bass section. When I play the test tones, I get very lower frequency 20Hz response from the N800s where the Quad with SW63 are good down to 30Hz and Khorns about the same. However, the room sucks 40 to 50Hz out of the N800s until I get very close to the front wall killing imaging performance. It is also amazing how close the Trachorned Khorns and Quads sounds to me. They are so different and yet so close... The Khorns play with emotion and life like sound but not much depth (I need to close backs of the Khorns so I can toe them in may be)... where the Quads produce scary type of haunthing imaging but can't play too loudly even with the Gradient subs and crossing over at 109Hz.

Fried eggs...if I was in marketing department of Pass Labs, I would jump all over such a story...very funny indeed. The Pass monoblocks use 500W AC power when idling and suck more than 1000W AC from the wall when driven moderately high while producing 600W. I used to have to run downstairs perodically to the garage to reset the 15A circuit breakers when I drove the amp hard... If I still had the SoundLab electrostatic speakers driven by the Pass amps, never mind the eggs....I could have cooked a small turkey for the Thanksgiving meal!

It's just one man's opinion but... I have to say current B&Ws and other dynamic speakers are meant to be driven by SS amps with heafty power reserves. The Rotel amp should have done a respectable job driving the 802Ds...there must have been other issues during the demo. Believe it or not, in summer times, I use an old Yamaha MX-1 SS amp (240W/ch) on N800s with very good results. I tried biamping N800s with two Krell FPB 700Cx stereo amps. There weren't enough sonic gains to put up with the discomfort... One of the main problems is lack of bass in my room. These speakers may peform with flat frequency responses in the factory labs but in the real world, they must be placed perfectly in an optimally porposioned and sized room to sing properly. As Ron had observed, they need to be placed near the room boundaries to give any kind of bass. The N800s needs to be max. 2ft away from the front wall to get satisfactory bass in my case. I got rid of one of the Krell amps and still have one (for sale on Audiogon ;-)) The bottom line is that B&Ws and other dynamic speakers are not as forgiving in amps it needs and the room it likes to live. Speaking of heat, I also tried a pair of 200W Sonic Frontiers Power 3s, monoblock HK Citation IIs (120W/ch), and the Pass X600s. I can heat the entire upstairs of my house with the Pass. In preparation of upcoming spring, I am selling the Pass amps also ;-) !

One time or another, I have had most of the modern speakers in my music room - from bigger than Subaru SoundLab A1s to as small as your lunch box Rogers L3/5as... B&W 801 S3s, N802s, and N805s made their tryout as well. Currently I have a pair of N800s in the room sharing with Trachorned Khorns and Quad ESL-63USA+Gradient SW-63s. I had compared N800Ds and N800s at the local dealership with the manager in the same room for many days in deciding which way to go. The manager was 10 years younger than me and told me the D model was better but to be honest, I could not hear much sonic differences - but then again I can't hear the differences from SACD and a good Red Book CD of same recording... It must be my age... To make the long story short, I play about 55% of the time - the Quad combo, 35% the Khorns, and remainder is for the B&W. Well, I play the B&W to heat the room mostly... Ki in colder than usual Seattle

Hi Sue: Can you let me know in PM what the packing and shipping cost would be to 98074? Ki

Thanks, Budman. Is there a chart for Belle Klipsches as the Khorns? Ki

Let me know the year this Belle Klipsch was made. Thanks, Ki

Hi Bob: Is there a simple way of checking the health of the diaphrams in K-55Vs without measurement instruments? Can I play set of test tones and listen for distortions, perhaps? I have a set in my Khorns and a set of spares that were made in ~'76. Thanks, Ki

Here's what I did - trying not to drill holes in the back, I used bottom of the Heresys to mount them in the TV wall mount stands that can be angled. Ki

IMO, the rear channels are still mostly sound effects even with discrete information from DVD-A and MCH SACD along with different versions of DDs and DTS'. I had no other choice but to mount the rear speakers high due to the location of equipment closet that was in the way of one of the Heresys. There's not much below 50-60Hz from the Heresys so the low pass point (and the Sony TA-E9000ES has a choice for the high position rear speakers) for the rear channels in the processor is set accordingly. Having the numerous subs in the corner, the Heresys are performing fine. It would be interesting to point them to the corners but I couldn't wall mount them...then.

Here's one of the Heresys in the back.

Here's how I did my HT with three Belle Klipsches for the front and center and two Heresys for the rear. Ki

That didn't come out right... Anyway, there was a post by a person who obtained a pair Belle Klipsches and inquiring about rear channel speakers but I couldn't locate the original post to respond so here's what I did: I started out with a pair of '76 KBOW for fronts, a Belle Klipsch for center and a pair of '76 Heresy's for the rear. I believe the wall mount brackets were originally made for small TVs but worked out well for me. Hope the photos appear in the post... Ki

Bob: Based on your graph, the sqwaker extends as high as the tweeter. Am I looking at the graph correctly? Ki