Croc

i'm using L300s with 300b push pull amp with ~20 watts. i also worked for a few months Citation 2 which handles very ddificult speakers. i also tried them with Krell. so power options were explored. and La Scalas i still own !!! [] i think that due to design (horn vs port loaded) the bass just can't sound the same. also i'm suspecting that due to efficiency differences mid/treble dynamics can't be the same - correct me if i'm wrong. i thought maybe to get Fastrac mod horn woth some better driver.... since i did like L300's mid clarity and high detail level and tweeter's fenese - what jbl/altec drivers and/or horns can be matched to La Scala keeping the whole system over 100db sensitive?

Hi there,As you see in the title - I’m tempted to go back from JBL L300 to La Scala – and looking for a second opinion and info. I’m listening mostly to 50s-60s jazz plus some blues, rock and classics. My full systems details: http://cgi.audioasylum.com/systems/4657.htmlSo i used for ~4 years 1977's La Scalas and loved them very much. the problem of weak ends was solved by pairing them to a good sub and JBL 2405 tweeters. xover was moded to A-type and new capacitors from Bob were installed.but for last 2 years i was with L300s powered by 300b push pull amp. eventually i said that 2 years is enough to use La Scalas at the back of the room as a table/cupboard to put ton of small things on them and it's time for them to find a new owner.but when i connected them i instantly remembered why i loved them so much: 1. explosive dynamics. L300 are good but can't much La Scalas especially not in the midrange - i guess that only hi efficiency speakers can do this 2. bass quality - La Scalas are super fast, not distorted, not colored and doesn’t sound "boxy". i never heard such a thing. 3. Huge sound 4. Single ended amp is very easy to match, not too expensive and SET sound is very special indeedwhere they lose to L300s: 1. Mid sound less detailed, “dark”, “dirty” and a bit distorted. Not a disaster – but this is where L300 excels 2. Even with JBL 2405 tweeter the treble is a bit on a hard side while L300’s treble is “gentle” (I’m not talking about roll off) 3. The cabinet vibrates – generally speaking I like a bit of woody coloration it ads – but in some cases it gets into strong resonance which is too much. Luckily it doesn’t happens very often. At least not on my kind of music. If I could solve those problems I would let L300 in a heartbeat – and I see that La Scalas can be upgraded with a better horn, other mid drivers and possible further moded x-over. I don’t know about B&C drivers – but I liked a timbre of those old school L300’s JBL drivers. absolutely critical for me that they remain able to work with 2 watt SET !!!! unfortunately alll those upgrades easily come up to 2,000$ which i can only fund by letting L300 go - which is not easy as it's good and rare and if eventually i will see that i need them back it's gona be costly [:S] What do you think and what are my options here?Many thanks, Gennady

Finished to read the article - very nice. i couldn't stop laughing about Sam's wife's reaction to his anouncement that she will see La Scalas soon in their living room - "our living room? [] It will be your leaving room !!![:@]" i'm so familiar with responce - we had to move to another home to find a place for La Scalas. it's interesting to see Sam's reservations about speakers' detailing ability - my LS1 is one of the most detailed speakers that i've ever heard (A-type xover with Bob's new caps + JBL 2404 tweeters). Gennady

i have 3 meters long Audioquest THE DRAGON - it was their top of the line some 6-8 years ago and scarefully expensive. it's pure silver and litz and etc - don't ask me another all bells and wistels. there is a very little info available for this cable. i will try to check out what it's capacitance is. interconnects between pre and SE is 4 meter "middle" expensive shielded cable. the bass of my HK Citation II is much punchier and well defined than SE's - but i just can't listen to the music via push pull anymore [] it serves me great for the moovies though []............

Right now i power my Lascala's with a 9 watt SE pentode EL34 based power and tube pre. few days ago a friend of mine brought an SS earphone amp and it drived LS quite good. the thing is that i loved its bass.............. so i've been thinking - how about to drive mid+tweeter by tubes and bass by SS amp? since xover is easily accessable it shold be easy to do a biamp........ what do you say about this idea?

aluminium is a nice idea. will be much more expensive though......... also it might "ring" unless i invest in dumping.......

so what do you say? screws? glue? triangles will do fine? what is an angle of it? 60 degrees?

Hi, pls advise me on Lascala bass bin bracing. I made some quick temp bracing and it did good. But i want to do it permanent, good looking and tame the sidewall just a right amount and not too much............

it's not a loss - it's more like a "release". it's probably better to let them entertain the new owner instead of just standing covered and waiting for months for their term to be connected [H]

this is a quote from my audio asylum page: Croc's Main System Last Update: April 02, 2006 at 00:09:32 IP Address: 148.177.129.212 Amplifier: Harman Kardon Citation II tube power amplifier with Jim McShine kits installed, nOrh SE-9 single ended Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): VTL The Ultimate tube preamp modifiyed with Solen and Blackgate caps and Alps pot Speakers: Sonus Faber Cremona front speakers (sold !!! sold !!! sold !!!), Klipsch La Scala horn speakers, Rogers BBC 3/5a 15 ohm monitors + Rogers AB1 subwoofers Sources: CD Player/DAC: Meridian G-08 CD player, Sony DVP-S9000es SACD/DVD player Turntable/Phono Stage: Nottingham Space Deck turnable, Space Arm tonearm, Dynavector X20H cartrige. Connected to VTL's internal MM/MC phono stage Other Accessories/Room/Misc.: Speaker Cables/Interconnects: Audioquest Dragon speaker cable with WBT 0645 bananas. Interconnects: VDH MC Silver IT mk II , VDH MC Gold, XLO Reference, others Other (Power Conditioner, Racks etc.): Roomtunes JUSTARACK 5 shelves rack, few VDH The MAINSSTREAM power cords, PS-Audio power plant P-300, Audioprism Quietline's Room Size (LxWxH): 21 x 11 x 9.2 Room Comments/Treatments: some carpets on the floor, fiberglass bass traps cover completely room's corners. room dimentions in meters are 6.4 x 3.4 x 2.8 Music Preferences and Comments: Music Used (Genre/Selections): Jazz old and new, a bit of blues, rock and classics System Goals/Comments: i'm trying to achieve a feeling that i'm 'close' to the music as much as possible, love that 'the band in my room a front of me' feeling System Strengths: Detail, clarity, non fatigue, naturality, real sound, dynamics System Weaknesses: hard to decide which loudspeaker to use today :-) Video/HT System: Integrated TV/Projector: Panasonic A900 projector, DIY 120' screen using Da Lite Cinema Vision material Processor/Receiver/Amplifiers: Lexicon MC-8, AMC 2445 power amp for rear speakers Speakers (Center, Surrounds, Sub): REL Stadium III subwoofer, Rogers BBC 3/5a serve also as sides, AR 208 rears, no center speaker Sources (DVD/VCR): Sony DVP-S9000es DVD, Sony VCR Stereo 6 heads Other HT Gear: Sony Playstation 2 Comments on HT System: my HT is in much lower priority. Lexicon's front output signal is routed via existing stereo pre/power. URL Link: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vevol&1117268423&openmine&zzEur1gys&4&5#Eur1gys Other Interests/Hobbies/Occupation: Formula 1, love to help people :-) more pictures are available here: http://a.photofile.ru/album.php?id=1164416 - those are quite recent http://a.photofile.ru/album.php?id=558135 - those are older ones

i got myself a nOrh SE-9. sound is surprisingly good. tube roling is a must though - a recitifier should go first. hard to imagine a better bang for a buck []

I've burned the bridges - my Sonus Faber Cremona has bee sold and LaScalas are now officially my main loudspeakers. 99% of my friends think that i'm crazy. The whole credit goes to Guy Landau It's took about 3 years man but it happened [8]

Carl, since you went that far with your mod - why not to mount the tweeter vertically? from what i read here it seems like a better way.

i also have in my LS old alnico tweeter and type A xover. i've tried this one supertweeter: http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=7600533.10613&pid=342 it definitely added more details on top. i thought it was not very pronounced - now i see why - 98.5DB only. i would continue to use it but the bad thing is that connecting it in parallel to the LS got bass to loose it punch. i guess it's becuase xover network became very diffrent when this driver is connected. or the impedance halves and the whole systme require much more current................ but it definitely showed me that my tweeter looses a lot information on top.

LOL [] - this is a good one

Bob, are those tweeters work OK with type A xover? do you have measurements of original alnico tweeter and yours? (i think i saw it in some post but i can't find it now [sn]) Does translusent version measures differently? []

Actually, one more thing on the Type AA. A lot of times, Klipsch messed up and put a steel screw in the 245 mH inductor. In A type this inductor is out of the circuit anyway, isn't it? last evening i tryed to blend my sub (REL Stadium 3) with my "new" lascalas. result isn't perfect so far - REL has only 0 and 180 phase settings - in current setuo and placement neither is perfect nor bad. in both positions it has some freqs when its blends OK but in others it reduses SPL. i will try different position. but a great discovery for me was that without sun at all LS sounded just great in the bass and although after 50 HZ they're dead in my room i didn't get that feeling like from bookshelf monitor that goes to the same 50 hz - interesting.............

in my case it definitely did. the electrical explanation might be is that in AA from DC point of view all terminals (i mean imputs, and terminals of drivers - all "pluses" and "minuses") are shortcircuited. so even at AC removal of parts from tweeters branch affects what bass and mid drivers "see" in their branches. another one - can somebody pls provide with an AA xovers electrical scheme? to Bob and other xover gurus, except capacitors what other elements would you recomend to refresh? actually if we put capaciotors out it leaves us with transformer, coil (for bass), wires and barrier strip.

Max, i've heard scd-777es at my home and it dfinitely was much better on CD that dvp-n9000es still it was not good enough for me. for the price you talking about i', personaly don;t know any descent sacd player that would play CD good. perhaps new marant's worth audition. but you can go an alternate path - get yourself a "midlerange" SACD and get it moded. http://www.vacuumstate.com/son-kits.htm http://www.modwright.com/products/ http://www.aplhifi.com/product.html http://www.sacdmods.com/ i know that first 3 are getting excellent reviews.

563 was also very basic. what was good about it is that 563 was very modable. Alex Peychev's mods got very good reviews.

guys, discard my previous impressions - i just went to listen music - put the mingus with heldridge, dolphy and others. at some stage i noticed that the sound stage is too much "dead centered", after a moment "mono like" asociation springed into my mind and a second later i saw that "mono" switch is turned on on my pre [:$] so back to the stereo - the problems are gone [], perhaps a mid bass and the subwoofer integration still need some triming. but transparancy is still there - this is great. and the tweeter became very good. perhaps still not Cremona but very very descent - it makes me wonder are replacements are that good that people throw away the original ones?..............

Bob, what caps can you recomend for DIYer?

i wasn;t sure but now i am: http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:LgFkYgf2nD8J:www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-60141.html+pioneer+575+converts+pcm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2

i own about a 30 year old pair of Lascalas with alnico drivers and AA xover. using Guy's recommendation (i guess i'm luky to have Guy at a 30 minutes drive distance[]) i moded the xover to A by removing "unneccessary" parts. the sound changed a lot. my impressions so far: good things: 1. tweeter sounds much better, smoother and more extended 2. transparency in mid and treble improved a lot - now it's quite in the league of my Sonus Faber Cremona - and this is a complement. that "veil" and significant grain that i had in mid and somewhat in treble is gone. very impressive 3. over sound is much smoother and not "shouting" or "raggy" at all negative things: 1. sound lost its size and height. now it doesn't sound at the whole front wall but just between the speakers 2. midbass got much weaker - on spl meter i measure about 8 db drop from ~140 hz. i had to tail my REL Stadium 3 sub a lot and still didn't find a good combination. 3. the sound became smooth....... i'm missng that hot huge and "in your face" midrange......... in short they became smooth and very polite[] i'm wondering why is that and whether "new" A xovers (like Bob's one) provide a similar difference............