Travis In Austin

The law copying a DVD or BlueRay disk is a bit in turmoil. This is the best summery of the controversy I have come across. "The controversy became a major concern when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 passed into law. The DMCA was the ratification of two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, which amended the United States Copyright Law. Prior to 1998, Supreme Court decisions and laws passed by Congress were clear and consistent. Passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to bypass DRM on a CD or DVD for any reason. Hence, the common practice of changing one’s entertainment media from one format to another became prosecutable. However, The Family Movie Act, passed by Congress in 2005, allows DVD owners to edit content (which requires CSS decryption) such as offensive language and scenes from their DVD movies." A bill was introduced in congress a couple of years ago to resolve all of this, but it went no where. The copying part of it is not the problem, it is the bypassing of DRM. This last summer the UK passed a law making it ok to copy DVDs for personal use. Hopefully things will get clarified here as well since it is clear that it is very easy to do for legitimate purposes. The making of a backup audio recording is still allowable under the "fair use" doctrine as far as I know. Do you can record an lp to a CD to listen in your car, you can make your own cds from tracks of other cds that you own, and you can burn a copy of a cd as a back up. You are allowed to sell CDs and DVDs (and records, but you are not allowed to rent records) under the "first sale" doctrine of copyright law. It is all complex and ever changing. We need Gil to chime in here. Travis

The Hindenburg Syndrome is a a reflexive fear of hydrogen. Airships went out of military vogue in the US because our helium airships, the Akron and the Macon crashed due to weather, that and improvements in power plants significantly reduced the power to weight ratio to the point where the advantages in airships over fixed wing aircraft, and rapidly developing rotary wing aircraft, became negligible. I remember reading about the US government investing in airships for shipping needs a couple of years ago. It looks like they are making significant progress. http://gizmodo.com/the-aluminum-airship-of-the-future-has-finally-flown-1301320903 In terms of sound, I never heard the Quad of the 70s. It required so much money it wasn't even a remote possibility to me. Two extra speakers, a new real to real player. Mallette, if you have a four track R2R I can send you some prerecorded tapes to check out that I have picked up over the years. My impression, after the demise of Quad, is that multichannel sound has tracked movie sound, not audio, and that is going to be the way it is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Bell Labs had developed 8 channel recording as far back as the early 1930s. It never took off even though people were astounded by it. Digitial technology allowed for multichannel format to be easily stored on a DVD to be used in the home. We went from 2 channel VCR to DVD with 720 resolution and 5.1, to HD 1080p and 7.1 and 9.1 in Blue Ray, now we are at UHD 4K and the 11.1 system, and right around around the corner is 8K and Hamasaki 22.2. The digital multichannel audio components, SACD and DVD-A, don't seem to have taken off with multi-channel, it is all in HT equipment. I am not sure if digitial audio downloads, regardless of quality, will embrace multichannel. Obviously the technology is there, I don't think it is a Hindenburg Syndrome because Quad crashed so terribly, I think it is SACD, DVD-A crashed and burned. Analog guys are never going to go for it because there will never be 4 channel records again, or tape. For good multichannel audio to happen, you are going to have to be either able to download it, or be able to play in on your DVD/Blue Ray/ or 4K player. If it takes off in that domain I would think that there would be a market for the audio world to take a look at it. Right now, it seems to me to be that people are at two extremes, they wear ear buds during the day and watch a multichannel movie on their HT system. I am perfectly happy with 2 channel when it comes to music listening. It looks like hydrogen cell vehicles are about a year or two away. I am much more afraid of an Ford Pinto gas tank then I am of hydrogen.

Bob Katz is great. One of the three best mastering engineers of all time in my opinion. He wrote "the book" on mastering and has been a leading proponent of getting the use of compressors/expanders under control in the industry. Thanks for linking this great reply article.

How are those Qbs sounding? From what I have heard they sound pretty good for the price. I think when you hear a pair of Heresy speakers would will have a great point of reference in what a small size horn driven speaker can do. Heresey should be about 10 times more efficient then your Qbs, it will be interested as to what you think the comparison between the two is the the bass end. The real key is the sensitivity of the two speakers. The Qbs are about 89 as I recall, and the Heresy's are going to be about 98 or 99db sensitive. Which, as you know, are going to produce a much greater amount of sound at same power level. All things being equal, at 1 watt, the Heresys will sound 10x louder than the Qbs. I am not sure how the 4 ohm impedance of the Qbs with the 8 ohm impedance of the Heresy is going to effect that. Are you able to play the Qbs up to a volume of your liking? You should have plenty of power to get them where you want to be. I have heard that many used Qbs have hole or tears in the EMIT tweeter material. You may want to take a close look at that to see if there are any problems. Travis

The glue actually works but is not very time efficient or cost effective. I have tried them all, and for me a good basic turntable cleaner vacuum system such as VPI with Disc Doctor brushes and cleaning solution beats them all. I would like to see and hear more about this ultrasonic cleaning system. Just doesn't seem to me that it was address grunge in the grooves, like spilled coke, cigarette smoke residue, etc. The Disk Doctor system works without a machine but is more time consuming. But quicker than glue. Travis

How often, if ever do you listen to the radio? Have either the MX 113 or the Mac 4100 been updated? They are both from about the same era, the receiver was sold for a few years after the MX 113 ended. Some people swear by the EQ feature on the mac equipment, other people swear against it. I am not technical enough to know whether or not it complicates the signal path even if set to "0". If it did, for me, I would opt for the MX simply because it is simpler. If one has been updated, by someone who knows what they are doing, I would keep that one. I would tend to want to get rid of a unit what was either in need of updating or was updated but there were questions about it. All things being equal, I would tend to go with the MX 113 since it was designed as a preamp to go with an amp such as the 2125. Well, I guess where to start might to be to compare how ones sounds versus the other, but they should be so close to tell if they are all up to speck. I would connect a source each of the inputs on both to make sure they are all ok. Do you listen to vinyl? If so I would for sure see how your turntable sounds through each unit since that is going to more critical. I would see if anything sounds scratchy on the volume controls, the eq controls on the 4100. It has been a long time since I had the 113 so I don't have any idea what the resale of the 4100 is to the 113, that could be a consideration. Sorry I don't have any direct answers, but I am hoping there might be a question or two you might not have considered that will assist you in your decision. Travis

Colin, I followed the link to your full article, that was quite a good read. Thank you for the article and this post. Travis

"Well honestly, I’d say," my greatest achievement, he said, is "making a full time successful business out of this for the last almost 13 years while keeping a stellar reputation." Respectfully, I wholeheartedly disagree with that assertion. In my view your greatest achievment has been that you are an exemplary husband, father and son. Further, you set a shining example that it is important to make time for yourself, away from business, by setting aside time for annual trips that you allow nothing to interfer with. While your assertion aboit your integrity is certainly true, I have come to known that Craig the man is so much more than NosValves the business. The sucess of your business is in large part due to your strong commitment to "excellence" in the business sense of that word. You, Sir, and NosValves exemplify everything that is great about this Country. Travis P.S. I also saw in that article that you gave a very nice nod to Mark. Knowing you that probably just came naturally which, in my mind, speaks volumes about you. Unfortunately, it is all to often that people forget that their success had some help along the way.

I wonder if USANORWAY had any luck?

No offense as you seem like a nice guy, but I can't think of a good reason why anybody would freely and publicly post confidential wholesale prices of anything, especially for something they are in the business of selling, on a website that is owned by the company whose products is in question no less. Good luck with your project but this boggles my mind. Is that a surprise to you, or anyone else on this forum, that consumer audio typically retails for just over double of wholesale? But you are right, probably best to delete the percentages, just for the sake of avoiding an endless flood of messages asking him if he would't mind buying new speakers for them. I admire him for buying NEW Klipsch. Now the big question, Snacky, can your company order the relatively new Stadium Klpsch product? :;

Chad and Alex: Thank you for the great information about these speakers, and also your posts about what Klipsch is doing and where you are headed. I think folks are struggling with the "concept" in terms of who and what these speakers are intended for. I know that I initially did until I thought about it and started looking at what else, if anything, was out there. I initially thought that the only products (since I am not in that "market") were compact sound bars that you plug an iphone into (cradle), or something high end like the Stadium, or maybe the Sonus speakers where you can get "whole house" audio without wiring. When I looked around for "bluetooth tower speakers" what initially popped up where speaker from Craig, Jensen, VM Audio and some others that ranged from about $100 to $300. The VM Audio Exat 33 were very looking and appeared to be the best of the bunch at about 300 a pair. So it initially looked like you were way over market, but I started looking around some more and ran into Focal Easya at Crutchfield, for about $2,800 a pair photo, and these would appear to be the upper end of the market, or at least what initially popped up when I looked. Introduced late 2013, they were apparently on display at the T.H.E. show in 2014. It looks like there is a huge gap between the lower end stuff at Walmart, Bestbuy, etc. and the Focals. Of course, I know I am not telling you anything you don't already know, just laying it out for those who may be struggling with who exactly these are intended for like I was. Was there many new "wireless tower/floor-standing speaker" offerings at CES this year besides yours? I think part of the problem with the question you posed, at least for me, is in asking what we thought of the idea most of us on here don't have a current realistic reference point. The best analogy I can think of would be if this were a high end automobile owner's forum (take your pick, Mercedes Benz, Lexus, Lincoln, Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, Viper, etc.) and they had a "concept" car at the Detroit auto show with one of their high performance cars of the past that had an electric motor that ran on batteries, and could go about 70 miles on a charge. Few, if any, current owners of a high performance vehicle would be interested unless there might possibly be some potential collector value to it. I remember twenty years ago seeing "electric" concept cars at high end auto shows and nobody could see it, except maybe executives of energy and power companies. Members on here, with great sounding two way speakers, regardless of whether they are Heritage, Reference, or otherwise, are not in the "market." I think you have tried to bring out in many of your posts on here that the new, current, younger market is very much different. I think we are all aware that there was a major degradation of sound the new generation was brought up on with inferior downloads (we will never agree as compared to what, vinyl, CD, DVD-A, SACD), but everyone recognizes that too many shortcuts were taken to the point that the market and artists (Neil Young) are pushing back and demanding better fidelity software, regardless of whether it is a download or not. It wasn't until your post and looking at this that I had forgotten that the market, or a vast percentage of it, believes that the best sound they ever heard was when they switched from standard earbuds to Dr. Dre Beats for their MP3 player. I don't think that is really that far off. I think for ages 14 to 25 the vast majority would have a reference point that comes from: 1) what comes through their television speakers, 2) computer speakers, 3) sound at the movie theater (about a 50% chance it is Klipsch, which is why you need a movie trailer at the beginning of the movie that is mind blowing that says: The Audience is listening . . . to KLIPSCH), 4) the ear phones they have plugged into their MP3/portable player, or, 5) their car speakers. Most of the market (here's a shocker) believe all audio equipment pretty much sounds alike. Thus, the mass-market's emphasis on selling components is by features and price. I wonder how many people on here know that the headphone market exceeds 2 Billion (that's billion with a "B". Before the sale to Apple, Beats was 25% of that market (500M). I wonder how many know that the "high end" audio market has declined 50% over that last 10 years. I wonder how many know what the total market for high end audio is? I know Mr. Shalam, as a current Board Member of CEA knows, and by virtue of his membership on the Board of the Audio Divison of CEA, that Mr. Jacobs is acutely aware as well. I have enjoyed many of your comments on here explaining to folks what it is that Klipsch is trying to do. That Klipsch intends to focus on quality products worthy of the Klipsch brand as opposed to being the cheapest. A great case in point has been your stadium product. You look on websites that carry that product, Parts Express for example, and you look where it lies in the range, it is at the top. This reminds me of being in an Apple Store recently with my girlfriend who had to purchase something, while we were waiting I of course went over to the audio products (which is pretty much only headphones) and there in a line from left to right were about 5 options all in a row from lowest to highest price and set up so you could easily compare them to one another in terms of sound, comfort, etc. On one end was something like Urban Ears, and then Beats, and then Sennheiser, and at the far end, Bowers and Wilkins. There were cards in front of each set of headphones with specs and features. I was curious to watch and listen to people's reactions and, for the most part, people over 30 said they thought the sound of the Sennheiser or B&W were best out of the five or six available; and they either concluded that the extra money was either worth it or not. However, they did conclude for themselves they were of higher build and sound quality and why they cost more. The younger crowd didn't even want to compare, they wanted Beats because "Tim has these" or "Susie just got these in purple and they sound awesome." It is great to see Klipsch exploring the headphone, wireless and other product markets. Wireless tower speakers are for sure a "niche" market as you say. I think most forum members are going to fall outside of that niche. You would certainly know best on how big it is, what the best price points are, and ultimately whether it is worth or not to expand beyond the wireless Premium Reference (which sounded like would be produced for sure, and could be run in a 2 channel set up just as easily as a HT system?). I would say that most Heritage owners, even the most loyal, are not in the market for it. As you have seen, neither nostalgia or sentiment are enough to even see the "need" for this product, much like people initially seeing the need for an electric vehicle. For me, I have two spaces that it would be nice to have a 2 Channel set up in with sound in the background (kind of what the Stadium is designed to do), and it would be great to have a great sounding 2 channel "system" without having a separate amp to be able to play a cd or digital file. These are perfect for dorm rooms, apartments, vacation/2nd homes, and anyone who wants better sound without having to get an amp or HT receiver. Like you say, this generation (the market), is used to being able to plug a mini-jack into something and have sound come out of it. I am not a big headphone listener, but I would think they would agree that good floor standing speakers are a definite move up in sound quality from their tv speakers/headphones/car audio they are used to listening to. Regardless of whether they are launched or not, it is nice to see that Klipsch is focusing on being on the far end of a row of products, where after a prospective buyer listens to 3 or 4 similar products says "those Klipsch for sure sound the best, I can see why they cost more" and that sound will either be worth the difference or not. Some will buy it because it is made in the USA because, like you, I buy American whenever I can. (I know how much Gittman shirts and Oxxford suits cost). Some will buy it because of the Klipsch name, the sound quality, the appearance (not much comment of what great WAF there is here), and probably a dozen other factors or combination thereof. Of course, many won't. They, like the vast majority of the market, buy based on "price and features." I think it is all very exciting and looking forward to seeing how things go. Travis Edited P.S.: The total value of the "high end" audio market is 200 million.

There are currently 16 record pressing plants in the USA, four of them are in California.

It's "Shittie Records, LLP" Dave Lol. I was wondering that myself, now I know which one to avoid.

Well I love jazz, I truly do, along with blues and rock. If I could only have 10 lps on a island, 8 would be rock, one jazz and one blues (the rock would for sure contain elements of the blues of course, and maybe some jazz). So in the sprit of naming great groups, I think these guys blow away eth2's jazz quartet:

Trying to keep up with Brian is a difficult task, he bobs and weaves. As for me "I'm a free born man of the U.S.A." In a 1969 article for the jazz magazine, Down Beat, Michael Cuscuna wrote, “In Jim Morrison, I found, to my surprise, a beautiful human being who has been a victim of sensational publicity and harassment by silly journalists.

In The Guardian (a National daily British newspaper) there was an article about the difficult "comeback of vinyl" discussing the limited number of pressing plants in Europe and elsewhere. As part of the article the author interviewed and photographed Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy who was recently at CES on behalf of Klipsch. In the article she discusses some of her views on different pressings of the same album, a terrible (unnamed pressing plant in California) and other interesting things. However, the most interesting thing mentioned is her audio system at home which mentions Klipsch. I have included a brief quote below with a link to the full article. "Early in December, I visited Murphy at her home in Hackney, east London. One downstairs room was lined with somewhere in the region of 10,000 records, arranged alphabetically, by artist. In the lounge, a flatscreen TV was obscured by audio kit including two Klipsch speakers, encased in wooden stands, which sell at around £6,000 for a pair and have the same dimensions as a large fridge; and an Ace Spacedeck turntable manufactured by Nottingham Analogue Systems (£1,500)." Here is a link to the full article. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/07/-sp-vinyls-difficult-comeback?china_variant=False〈=en&uid=153834883 Hope you vinyl lovers enjoy the article as much as I do. Travis

I am guessing AFAIK means "as far as I know." In terms of your original question, did you have a particular model in mind? Travis

Do you mean something that is add on that sits on top of your existing speaker? Something like the Visaton, which can be found here. http://www.visaton.com/en/chassis_zubehoer/ht_horn/tl16h_8.html. They claim FR up to 35khz, the muRatas go up to 100khz but are 2k I believe. I think it would depend on what you are running up front and what tweeters those speakers have, and your source material. If you are running CD primarily remember that there is no information above 20khz to reproduce, it is cut off there by design. Sam Tellig ran Supertweeters with his LaScalla IIs he purchased. I will try to attach a reprint of his review. Travis

That was pretty cool.

AKA, hippies with disposable income. aka. hipsters. uh NO. What is the difference between me and a hipster? A- everything. Yeah I don't see you being a hipster at all Michael, but not a hippie either. THEBES is for sure a hippie. Travis

So I'm guessing the woofers are similar to the two 5.25" sub-woofers used in the Stadium in order to dig that low? Did they go with rear Tractrix passive like with the new Reference Premium tower speakers are utilizing? I think the idea is great. The marker, IMHO, is folks looking to buy a Stadium or similar product. They are swown this as a 2nd option, if you have the room why would you get a Stadium. This is about same price as a Stadium, but you can seperate the speakers to have a good soundstage/center image. It should sound way better than similar soundbar products made for iPhone just as the Stadium does and I am guessing this will soubd even better than a Stadium, The market would be for those who want convenience of pkaying music from iPhone or other portable but having way better sound than sonus, plug and play soundbars or other products. I'm sold, if they came out looking like that, made in USA, with those specs, I will take 2 pair. Travis

I am trying to make arrangements now to attend the service tomorrow. Is anyone from the Dallas metroplex area, or anywhere for that matter, planning on attending? If you could let me know by PM I would appreciate it. Travis

I just read this on a quick break and, like many, am in utter shock. Alex, I am so sorry for the loss to you, your mother and sister, and Kevin's entire family. I never got to meet Kevin in person, but we spoke on the phone several times about speakers and the possibility of getting together as I live in Austin and have an Aunt and Uncle that live about 2 miles North of Ovila. Sadly, we were never able to make the in person connection, but I enjoyed our conversations and reading his posts on here. I am trying to see if I can break away to go to the service tomorrow from Austin. Kevin, I wish you God's speed. Travis

Fast forward to 50 seconds in Awesome movie about good ol Austin. A Lawyer friend of mine snagged a credited bit part in that movie. T

That is Montana Oscarears? Now that is mighty cold. It is 35 in Austin at noon which is very cold for us. Travis