pauln

Check ALL the signal path electrical connections, including those in the crossovers. It is not uncommon that when a connection is almost barely microscopically open it can act to rectify a radio signal to present the audio signal into the chain. We guitar players find this all the time when an instrument cable (which suffers a lot of flexing and foot stomping abuse in it's career) just approaches the point where it is about to suddenly give up the ghost. When this happens I've heard commercial broadcasts, police band, Mexican radio, etc.

"What these things are capable of doing" has different interpretations along the quantity/quality aspect. In terms of quantity of watts, they wil tolerate a lot, but don't need but a few. I've had mine four years and have yet to push more than 1 watt through them using very low power tube amps. The La Scalas are very revealling and an emphasis on the quality of the signal will be rewarded. In addition to the quality, some attention to matching is needed, too. Some very high quality amps may not sound like a good match for the La Scala. Some of these great amps were made to drive much less efficient systems which sounded good together because some of the "imperfections" of the amps were not revealed by the inefficient speakers. La Scalas tend to reveal everything good and bad in an amp, so low level signal quality is very important to hear the details in the music. There are some very popular and inexpensive amps that have gained a reputation in this forum (search around) as being very satisfying matches to the La Scala. Take your time to find what works for you - you may have to hear a few amps to find the right one.

There is nothing wrong with the RS meter. Most amateurs just turn it on and look at the readings. Here is how to make it work better: Attach acoustically damping feet to the right side of the meter and set it on a marble slab oriented so that the RS meter is laying in its right side; lay a brick on top of it (use an ACME brick set on edge so you can still move the dial), then cover the sound entry opening with a Dr. Pepper bottle cap and allow the meter to warm up for 30 minutes after turning it on before taking any readings (take off the cap for the reading...) Since the meter itself will be rotated 90 degress you will need to cock your head to the right, but since the right brain is the part that handles numerical concepts, the increased blood flow to that half will only improve the accuracy of the readings.

You may be tempted to get out on the beautiful water... a sailing lawyer I know had a little adventure his third day there: paraphrasing his observations... If you go sailing or boating, be sure to observe your chart, and do not cross over into the area marked off by a red border on that chart. Turns out that is the royal residence property line extending out on to the water and if you violate that you will be intercepted by gun ships. They will indicate you should follow them out of the royal zone, they won't know English, and if you are in a sail boat they will not interpret your requirement to tack as strict compliance... they will freely express their concern by firing their machine guns into the air. If you wave a rope at them they will tow you out of the royal zone to the marina across the water (and escort you to the police station nearby for a little orientation talk). Everything will be fine after that, in fact the police will keep a friendly eye on you after that and actually help keep you out of other kinds of trouble...

Just to be clear, if the subject's task is to choose which of A and B is the same as X, it seems there are three possible results but only two allowable responses: 1] Subject hears that A is the same as X and that B is not the same as X; selects A. 2] Subject hears that B is the same as X and that A is not the same as X; selects B. 3] Subject cannot distinguish a difference, wants to select missing choice of "Can't tell a difference", but that choice is missing, so he has to guess (and will be correct about half the time). If the test is for discrimination ability, the assumption is that when the answers become 50/50 the limit of discrimination has been reached. But why not include a third choice of "can't tell"? Why is there no third choice to indicate no difference is heard? Is there an assumption that the subject might hear a difference that they can't detect? Does that even make sense? Does the forced guess past the limit of subjective differentiation assume there are subliminal aspects to the choice (or guess)? If so, is it a given that a system that sounds subliminally better is desired? Something about the forced guessing and no third answer bugs me about this... it seems one would want to know at what point the discriminations reaches its limits and the guessing begins. That real limit is fuzzed up when the guessing is required. There are those that test the frequency response of an amp by providing it an impulse signal. For some reason that method fails when used on listeners... This thing reminds me of the problems with testing for paranormal powers. If ESP really existed, all the experiments would be confounded by the ESP powers. Guessing the future (a throw of the dice) would be blamed on telekinesis (making the dice move as "predicted"), reading someone's mind would be blamed on forcing that thought into their mind in the first place - for every test of an ESP power, there is another ESP power (either of the experimenter or the subject) that confounds any result (with ESP there is no "double blind"...) For a different reason, all the placebo experiments have a fatal flaw. The fundamental assumption is that the placebo has no effect whatsoever, yet it does, thereby confounding the fundamental assumption of the experimental design.

+1 on the violin concerto, one of my favorites. As the the rumble: If this is the first time, check for recently loose things - window panes, things in cabinets, shelves, etc.; you might have vibrated something free. If it has been an ongoing problem, you might invest in a test CD to hear if your overall system has a resonance or other problem somewhere.

There are two related measures, both are ratios that compare the power of the noise floor with the power of the signal: Signal to Noise ratio compares the power of the noise floor present when passing a reference signal level. Dynamic Range compares the noise floor with no signal to the maximum power signal at a specified distortion.

For those keeping score at home, the CDCofficial case count for the USA :

I use the second side of Synchronicity by The Police. I don't really care for Sting and The Police, but this album has certain features that are subtle and distinctive, some at the threshold of hearing - excellent for testing things. Every Breath You Take - Sting's voice (throughout the recording) has a slight sibilance, one of the things most likely to vary with changes in gear/setup. King Of Pain - the wood xylophone intro and double stopped bass, lots of places where there is a dramatic silence, then dynamic resumption. Wrapped Around Your Finger - the bass is absurdly low and there is a mixing/mastering artifact in the words (a mistake) where the begining of something is cut out - at the threshold of hearing. Listen to the line "Mephistopheles is not your name" and listen to what happens about the time the word "your" is being sung... there is a strange quiet squeak or squeal. Tea In The Sahara - the punchy bass and kick drum during the intro, and the echo processing on the guitar has some slight "mistakes" that seem to sound a little different on different occasions.

Not sure if you are a musician or not, but there is another thing to look at so as not to be mislead by the magnitude of the frequency numbers. The frequencies correspond to musical notes, but the relationship between the frequencies and the notes compresses at the low end and expands at the high end. For example, at the low end - you might be comparing two speakers of which one claims it goes down to 38Hz and the other claims 36Hz. How much difference is 2Hz in that range? Turns out that 36Hz is the lowest D on a piano (the forth white key from the left end) and 38Hz is D# (the next up black key) - a difference of one note, one semitone, one half step... may not seem like much, but wait... Higher up, say at the highest D on the piano (seven white keys down from the right end) the frequency is 2350Hz and the D# next up is 2490Hz, a difference of 140Hz, but this is still the same relation - a difference of one note, one semitone, one half step... same musical difference per the scale, but 140Hz vs 2Hz. This is all because the musical scale is an octave and the first note's frequency is doubled to get the last note. This happens over and over for each octave throughout the range. Piano has a range of almost eight octaves, so the frequncies double eight times on the way up. Anyway, the point was to offer some perspective on what the ranges of frequencies really mean in terms of the notes you will hear. See the link below that shows more about it. Notes and Frequencies

It is following the usual transmission progression of influenza - number of cases in USA doubles every three days. Mortality is hopefully overstated as this rate would infect total USA population by July 4th.

If and when you have found and accepted a new job, and you are all ready to announce and leave your current job, here is how to do it with flair: Do not write a note of resignation. Do not inform your boss or co-workers, yet... Do not drop by HR and give them the news. Wait until you are in an important meeting with your co-workers, your boss, and hopefully your boss's boss. While your boss, or hopefully your boss's boss is speaking, interrupt and ask, "Well, there's coffee, but where are the donuts?" Whatever happens, (which will be interesting) let them proceed, then inturrupt some more grumbling about no donuts until you know it is the breaking point, then exclaim, "I just can't believe there are no donuts in this meeting! I've had enough of this... I quit!" * Bonus: If your co-workers have heard you tell this as a funny story in the past, you can always wake up a sleepy meeting just by asking if there are any donuts.

Some pigs in Canada do now... link H1N1 outbreak map... link

Not a TV watcher, but the radio said it takes a few days in open air for the virus to die. Can live longer on paper currency. I've quit blowing my nose with $20 bills until this is over.

It doesn't matter where a flu carrier calls home. It doesn't matter whether the travel was business, pleasure, medical, visitation, study, political, relocation, or any other kind. It's a communicable disease, which means it may spread from everywhere each carrier may travel. What matters is where the carrier traveled geographically.

2009 Swine Flu (H1N1) Outbreak Map First confirmed death outside Mexico is in Texas. Anyone wondering about this story...? First death in Mexico may have been Felipe Solis. Obama was received at Mexico's anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died after the two shook hands; inital reports said he died the following day from flu symptoms, later reports stated he died three days later, even later reports claimed it was a week later (of unknown causes). When Obama returned to DC the press asked if he had been tested yet as a precaution, and the official government medical spokesman's answer was, "No, the protocol is to not test until symptoms show".

Swine Flu Tracking Map Here's who has it, and who had it... Checking this map twice over a day or two should convince all but the terminally math challenged that the pandemic is exponential.

None of those kinds of tweaks will work very well until you have these throughout your system. Audio Grade Fuses (24K Gold) Bonus! When they blow you can allocate them to your precious metals investment portfolio.

Frank's daughters? Frank Carlucci, fomer deputy CIA director and chairman of The Carlyle Group? Better be nice to them...

How can so many agree with something you have not said? You have not identified the changes you made... Did you change the frequency response? In the old days, the slur for HiFi sound was "Boom & Twinkle"; the mid bass was elevated in level to add punch, and the high end (this is back in the turntable days) was afflicted with the sparkley sound of inexpensive styii hitting their resonant frequencies around 17-19KHz. The overall effect was a lively, vibrant, lush, rich sound... but not accurate and after a while it could be a bit tiring on the ears.

I try to avoid reading any of my records now that want to tell me too much about the music... it upsets my delusions! Beethoven's 3rd is fantastic. My copy had the story on the back which I eventually got around to reading and then hated that I had done so. I was not surprized to read that his 1st and 2nd did not "make the charts", but that the 3rd really got a lot of attention. I was dismayed to read that it was originally meant as a dedication to Napolean, then retracted. Listening, I had been loving the deep dark funeral durge sounding movement with the basses prominent, and then when it transitions into a fuguey direction it just gets magnificent, buidling in beauty and majesty; and because it reminds me of Bach, I had assumed that Beethoven was paying homage to Bach with that - the deep mourning of losing Bach, but the music remaining forever... I still hear and imagine Bach when I play it, and I don't read the backs of classical albums anymore...

"Showing is proof, but proving is fear..." Gentle Giant

All the great civilizations of history crumbled and fell because of their antagonistic factions arguing about their equivalent "cable thread". Brothers, there is a third way! - Forego using speaker cables entirely - just place your mono blocks adjacent to your crossovers and connect them directly. Now of course if you are not using mono blocks you are missing the true clarity and detail, separation, dimensional geometry, subtle nuances and....

SALE! Rocks for hundreds of dollars on ebay..