Cal Blacksmith

About 4 days ago an add poped up only about 6 miles from me for a pair of Khorns, $1900, B style, I have been wanting Bs since 1977 when I first heard them. I have emailed for days, then I took out a Wanted add for the same as his title. I know that in the past when I first listed on C/L, if you do not do things perfect, your add will go up but you will never hear any reply. I got a phone call this morning, just a few minutes ago really, another forum member here was trying to get them too, he saw my add and gave me a call. We had a very pleasent chat for about 5 minutes and he said as he had already had a pair, he was bowing out of trying for them too. Man, that is just another example of the great people we have here. Sir, if you read this, please come forward. I sadly have forgotten your screen name (I am most often guilty of not remembering names for several times when I hear them.) but my invite to come up (he is south on the map) and take a listen to what I have, you said you had heard the names but not the speakers so at the moment I have Cornwall 2s Fort'e 1s, Quartets and a few pairs of Heresy speakers up for the listening. I truly hope I get the Khorns but even if I don't, I would be very glad to meet you in person Now, if this guy ever answers the emails or sees my add!!!!!! Herre is hoping he does !

If we are talking the weakest link, mine would have to be the projector. It is several years old now and is only a 720. When new it was not bleeding edge but pretty advanced, now it is run of the mill for lower end setups. 120 inch DaLight screen is nice though Sound system Yamaha 663 (I think) feeding a Fort'e 3 and a Yamaha M80 for fronts and sides while the AVR takes up the center and rear duties. B.A. sub (could be better) speakers are Acadmy center, Quartet mains, Heresy 2s as sides and KG 2.5s as rear. All in all we are happy and have been for several years. One day when the bulb goes out on the projector, I will use that as a reason to "upgrade" LOL! Only about 500 hours left on the 2000 hour bulb

It looks like they know their Sh*t

I remember those prices, I first heard Khorns at Sound Systems Inc. Fayettville N.C. on Mcphearson church road. Long gone now but at the time they were the best high end sound shop in town. Oh how I drooled on the thought of buying them along with a Mcintosh 225 that was hooked to them in the high end room. Now, I don't even know of a shop to go listen to better than consumer grade gear. Sad.

I have a Forte 3, I love that amp, yes Mr. Pass had a big hand in it. It runs class A to like 15w (from my dim memory when I looked at the specs years ago when I bought it) then switches to AB, very clear and musical. I have it drivng a set of Quartetes in the HT, it never gets out of class A.

Hi Cal, Welcome to the discussion. Are you an audiophile? Do you actively try different amps, speakers and sources and things to chase down an ideal sound? What criteria do you use when you select your gear? Mark You know me. We met in person several years back when you were selling JM amps at a L.A. audio show and you had to borrow speakers to complete the setup in the room you had. I was the one who showed up with an orchestral version of "I left my heart in San Francisco" and you made the comment that there were not a lot of people who enjoyed the same music as you. We sat and listened to a few cuts from the LP, we chatted a little about the equipment, you gave me a hat and we parted ways. I have traded equipment back and fourth, I found what filled my need for equipment and I stayed with it. Currently it is a VTL Ultamate preamp, Sonic Frontiers 2 6550 push/pull amp and Cornwall 2s. They are fed by ultra flex, ultra fine strand O2 free copper calbe. I honestly did not hear the difference between this cable and the 14 gauge "zip cord" that it replaced but as it was paid for and run, I saw no reason to change it. I have about 10 feet of cable to each speaker. The CW2s have the updated Crites Ti tweater and one day I am going to update the Xovers. Perhaps to some I may not be an audio fool but I did do a lot of looking and found what scratched my itch and stayed with it. I feel I have some nice gear. No it is not the MOST expensive nor is it now considered "current bleeding edge" but at what point do you continue to throw money at any hobby when you find what makes you happy, I listen for me and my pleasure. I am not an electrical engineer but I do understand a little and thus my comment about how on paper everything affects everything but when do you reach the point of diminishing returns? For me, I am at that point but I have no issue with anyone who is searching for more, that simply means they have not found what makes them happy in my book, your book may be different!

I don't have a link but I have an auto switching HDMI 4 port unit. I think it came from Monoprice but am not 100% sure. It is also switchable from the unit simply by pushing a button on the unit but like I said, it is auto switching so just turning a source on, it will switch to that source by it's self, it is really nice. YMMV! EDIT this one is similar to mine and is still not all that expensive, has other features too. More than 2 inputs allow you to add more things later like game systems, video cameras etc. http://www.monoprice.com/Product?seq=1&format=2&p_id=8463&CAWELAID=1329456936&catargetid=320013720000010715&cadevice=c&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CJHN7M-eybwCFUiGfgod-xcA-w

wow that's weird. I would think it would be the exact opposite. What all kpt stuff do you have again mustang? Just the double 15" bin? 2 kpt684's, 3 kpt-904's, bunches of kpt-200's. I wouldn't think this is the norm in most rooms. Right. My room is definitely not like other's here that I am aware of. Two of my speakers are actually 75' apart and the ceiling height is between 24' at the eves to 26' at the ridge. My shop has concrete floors, metal beams, and sheetrock walls. Nothing I have tried works as well for me as the lascala system. My shop is a similar size, 20' at the eves, 24' at the ridge, steel building, concrete floor and fiberglass insulation on all but concrete surfaces. I fill it quite nicely with 4 H1s, setup in stereo, 4 ch driven. Mounted at about 16 feet up on the 30 foot wall firing at the long axis at 75 feet, powered by an old Onkyo '70s vintage stereo reciever. Granted it is for background use while working but I must say that it is better sounding than likely 80% of the "publics" GOOD stereo setups. I can only guess what LaScalas would sound like

Yes, for a while at least, 9.2 will be enough but thanks for checking, it is good to have all the options on the table and the 9.1 to 11.2 could be overlooked.

No I did not look at the 4520 but even the x4000 will only be half used. I have to go that high to get Pre outs to feed my outboard amps. On this system, we have no use for music or second or third rooms while internet connectability isn't an issue either as we are on Sat internet service and only get 15 (useable) gb a month. We do get another 15gb but it is from 2 AM to 8 AM, not really a time anyone can use the "extra" data. All that and only $80 a month at 10 mbps (on a good day) who could ask for more? No there is only Dialup as an alternate service and that is no option at all. This is a dedicated HT / projecter setup.

By all means, unless you need to see matching components (nothing wrong with that!) I will just echo the above, use the PS4 for disc duties, it should do very well. I can't speak for streaming though, our home internet is Dish Net for only $80 a month we get 4G (CELL PHONE 4G 10 mbps) speed WOW! In addition, we have 15G of data to use between 8 AM and 2 AM per month but from 2 AM to 8 AM we get ANOTHER 15G per month. A couple of movies streamed and you are up against our data limit! Shades of when cell phones first came out. I was paying $1 per minute and we got a whopping 120 free minutes a YEAR, that is 10 minutes a MONTH we did not need to pay for AND there was no internet or texting even available to buy. I can only hope that the changes in cell phones will take place with Sat internet service. No there is NO other service save for dialup that we can buy. Hey, it is not all bad though, if we run out of data in a month we can buy another whoppping 5G of data service for only $10! It is much less expensive to buy the Blue Rays than it is to stream that much data. We have about 350 movies on DVD/BR. For that money, I might have been able to buy or build a cell tower of my own!

Thanks for the feedback on the unit, I do like the advanced codecs and Audyssey setup. Drew, it should not be turning off, i doubt that your kids are running the volume up loud, and as you are posting here, you at least know about effecient speakers so the amps should not be overtaxed. Do double check everything and if you can't find anything wrong, get intouch with the seller and take care of things ASAP! While banana plugs do make things easier to connect and move wires aroud, the binding posts should be fine with just wire alone, make sure all strands are tightly twisted and none are able to short out then if all is well with your wires and the old HK did not have issues I would seek a replacement unit. Just saying!

I am not familiar with that specific amp but I have a long history with Yamaha. Regardless of the specifications, I find that the power supply on Yamahas to be on the weak side, I solved this by using outboard power amps and the increase in quality to be amazing. I suspect that some of the difference in sound you are hearing is possibly linked to the power supply, I know the speakers that are left on the Yamaha (center and rears ) sound much better than they do when the AVR runs everything.'

Well outbaord amps are not required, for speakers, i am using Quartets as mains, H2 sides, KG2.5 as rear and Acadmey as center. I have two SS class A amps to run the mains and sides so while the amps are not mandatory, they really do help the sound and the use of them takes the power load from the AVR and allows it to be at it's best. I have not heard back on the price yet but ironicaly, after I did a full disassembly and reassembly of the system, the Yamaha is now operating normally again. It had refused to pass signal above std definition and would blank out when anything else but low quality signal was fed to it. This happened after a breaker tripped. The whole system is on surge protection but it was messed up anyway. Unless the Denon is a steal of a deal, I will just stay with the Yamaha but my heart is now really set on an upgrade, this would then move the Yamaha to the TV room and the amp in the TV room moves to excess equipment status. It would be nice to have the updated codecs and the 3D and 4K passthrough even though the projector is not able to use those abilities. The projector is showing it's age too and when the bulb is due for replacement, new PJs will be seriously considered.

It has been a long time since I was a "regular" on the boards, the wire debate raged then and I see it is still going strong now. I guess what I don't understand is why anyone would care about how someone else spends their money? I fall in the realest camp I guess, I have no problem with going along with the electrical point of view that everything can have an affect on the circuit and I have no problem with the point of view that says that there are so many things that affect the end product that the very small part that the wires play esp speaker wires, the low voltage interconnects I agree a little more with, just do not have a huge part when you take room treatments, placements of speakes, even source material into account. Hey, if you have the money and can hear the difference, even if it is only in the grey matter, go ahead and spend the money. I for one have a lot of places that need attention before I even start to think of multi $K speaker wire,..... if ever. It is the weekend, enjoy guys

I have a buddy who works for a large retail electronics chain where the color blue is often found. He is checking into the X4000 and what he has to pay for it. Initial probing of prices showes a HUGE difference in MSRP and COST. I just sent him a correct number of what I am interested in just to be sure we are on the same page. I really am looking for a PRE PRO but those are not going to be found in consumer stores and honestly, if the initial results are true, I can be quite happy with an AVR and just ignore the built in amps At another store...... I went to Frys electronics just to see what they had and wow, the lack of information on the part of the sales team is astounding. Not one of the "sales people" understood what a preamp / processor is, not one. They had to scurry to the online terminals and google it then when they DID find one in their system, once person asked the other, how many watts does it have? I guess there really should not be any shock on my part though, when first aproached by the staff they pointed me at a $499 Onkyo AVR and boasted it has all the LATEST AND GREATEST, LOOK BUILT IN BLUE TOOTH! Oh brother.

A little late to the party but I strongly suspect that if you change the listening modes, you will get the results you seek. I know it is true for my Yamaha setup, there are many modes such as stadium, arena, concert hall etc which all change the amient sound levels such as crowd noises.

Thanks for the welcome backs. Hey, whatever you guys want to do, change the name, move it whatever LOL. I love coffee and love to talk coffee! Out of time right now though, carry on!

I can see where this is going LOL, OK, lets talk coffee! What a lot of people do not realize is that as a food product, like all food products, when it is cooked (roasted) the clock is ticking. For drinks like Espresso, two weeks is about all you get before the roasted beans are plant food or mulch. The degassing really needs 2 or 3 days until the beans hit their peak, they stay there for about 5 days then slowly go down hill. This is why we never advise anyone buying coffee with a BEST BY or USE BEFORE date, the beans are hopelessly stale long before you bought them as these dates are anywhere from 6 months to a year and a half, much longer than the two weeks that you get from fresh roast! The only way to know how old they are is with a ROASTED ON date, the actual day they were roasted, then is is a simple process to look at the bag, look at todays date and see how long it has been since they were roasted! Everyone needs a grinder, you need to grind just before brewing, This is not a whirly blade chopper that is sometimes sold as a coffee grinder, you need a good burr grinder. The blade chopper produces everything from dust to boulders. The dust will overextract nearly instantly and the boulders will never give up the goodness inside them, you need a burr grinder. The reason you need to grind it just before use is that due to the surface area, your ground beans will spoil and be stale in about 15 minutes from the time you grind them. Coffee is a food product and it does spoil. Think of an apple. If you cut it open, in about 15 minutes, the white flesh turns brown right? The same thing is going on with your coffee but because it is brown to start with, you do not see it. Now cut that apple into a thousand small pieces and let them sit for 15 minutes, there are few who would want to eat that rotten apple mush that it has become but hundreds of thousands of people every day, pack that spoiled coffee mush into drip filters and brew something to drink.... yuck! The time frame for methods other than espresso can go a little longer, perhaps up to a month before the beans are gone, espresso is the hardest thing you can do to the beans to make a drink with, evey little nuance is there to taste. With other methods, they are a bit more forgiving but you can still taste the difference. Properly roasted coffee should not produce oil, much of the coffee is over roasted and nearly everything from Charbucks is burnt. The darker you roast the beans the more you taste the process and the less you taste the beans, at the point of producing oil, you are well into burning the beans. A city or city + roast is about the limit for the coffee I drink, I want to taste the beans, the flavors, the chocolate, cocoa, lemon, orange, spice flavors. Coffee grown on the same farm but higher or lower in elevation will taste different, let alone from other farms, other soils even other countries, the taste is different for each! Over roasting the beans causes them all to taste like charcoal, at Charbucks, that is good as they can buy lower quality beans, roast the dog poop out of them so they all taste the same then mix 2 oz of "coffee" with 16 oz of milk and suguar, syrup and sprinkels then the buyer of said drink never tastes the coffee that they are supposidly paying for. Cat poop coffee, nope not going there either. EVEN if it were true about tasting good (I really doubt it) Cevits today are force fed the beans on farms. The TRUE cat poop coffee is supposed to be found in the wild where the Cevits can pick and choose what to eat, supposidly only the choicest and best beans. On a force fed farm, all choice is gone so all you are gettng is poop made with the least expensive beans they can feed the poor Cevits. French bread, great stuff, by law in France, true french bread is only 4 items Flour, water yeast and sugar. It is regulated to size and shape too. I love to bake and have commercial equipment to make larger batches, I hate to take a full day to make bread from scratch and only get 2 loafs, heck to get a dozen it only takes about an hour more total so go big or go home! LOL. It freezes well so it does not go to waste.

Let the sickness begin .. again! I stopped with Cornwalls, I ran out of rooms to set them up in and I can't bring myself to "store" them without use. 2 KG 2s 1 7 ch Synergy setup (mains stored, Fortes used in place of them) 2 Heresy 1s 2 Heresy 2s 2 Quartets 2 Forte 1s 2 Cornwall 2s Academy Scalla commercial top section (Ok it is in storage) and some others You can never have TOO many Klipsch

Chad was right on it, Johny on the spot! I am now back on track. Thanks Chad Well, I have no problem admitting to the coffee addiction. Drink it how ever you like it, there is no "right or wrong" only what you like. Anyway, Does anyone have a starting point for me to start looking for a processor/head unit? I suppose I could go with another AVR but I do not use the built in amps anyway as that is all powered by outboard amps now.

Chad, thank you, it is nice to be back, your help was very quick, thanks again

Mallette, mungkiman, thanks! I had forgotten the space in the name Sadly though, as I feared, the email account I had listed here is no longer acitve, the company dis continued the service, it was a beta email service for a software package in compitition with Outlook, they hosted and maintained it for real world feedback on their software. They are no longer doing it, I no longer have an account there. It is going to take a moderator here to get me linked back in but the above link is a good one to my forum profile, THANKS I really plan to spend more time here but I am a moderator on a coffee site and it takes a lot of time there, sometimes all day. I do miss it here hence when I had a problem with my HT last night, this is the first place I came for help !

Dtel Thanks, yes it has been a while, way too long. I got all wound up in coffee and espresso so I spend a lot of time on a coffee site, and as I am a moderator there, it takes a lot of time. EDIT HUH, I linked to the site but the new forum software deleted it, interesting. It is Coffee Geek (one word) dot com. My 2 ch setup is still pretty much the same as it was, Cornwalls, Sonic Frontiers amp (6550 push pull) VTL ultamate for a pre-amp, Regga TT and I have added a new CD deck but mostly I stay LP. I have a tuner hooked in but it never goes on, either does the cassett tape deck but the TV in that room does go through the 2 ch but I am getting a ground loop from the Hopper (dish network) box. It uses a wall wart transformer and runs on low voltage, I think the ground loop is in the cable run to the dishes because it is only when the actual coax is connected that I get the loop. Anyway, as I said, my HT got slammed over the weekend, I did manage to finish the game for the guests by sending the video straight to the projector and running L R leads to the AVR for audio only. Not near what it was before the accident but at least it finished the night. Does anyone have advice for a new head unit, my amps can do the job very well but the video section is toast. It has been a while since I was shopping for gear and I am not up to date with the market anymore. In the forum help forum, I did post for help from Amy and I was directed to a post from Chad ? Chris? to email him if you go through all the steps and can't get it working. One problem is that the Email I used when I signed up here way back when, is no longer even doing business anymore so I am not sure how that affects things.

Thanks for the direction to someone who can help. While on the drive to work this morning, I realized that I do not need a whole AVR, actually, I am quite happy with my amplification, I have two outboard SS stereo amps running A-A/B with my current AVR only driving the center and the rearmost speakers of the 7.1 setup. There is nothing wrong with the Amp section of the AVR and it has pre In for everything so all I really need is a Processor / Pre-Amp. So, what is the market looking like when we think PRE-PRO?