Kriton

I concur with David - the best places to live are north of the Metroplex. I just left Keller, and my house did reasonably well selling there (which means I didn't OWE anything when I sold it) - Southlake is pricey too but you will learn about that. I am now in Tennessee, and the first thing I did was name the SSID of my wireless internet node "The Republic of Texas" and will be flying the State flag as soon as I can get a flag holder up...neighbors already think I am nuts. And the TN orange they use for the Vols is kind of revolting, too...just saying. B

Coy - I smell a road trip, you in? I need to plan ahead but I think if it is in June and I can get my crap squared away, I am in like a groupie. Bruce

OK WAIT - did you see how close he is sitting to those monsters? My ears are still ringing from Coytees Jubs, and I was sitting twice as far away - I am still enjoying the sonic exfoliation, truly. Looking marvelous - I am still working on my own set...I have a feeling that Thump will not be interested in doing any more exotics, am I right? I was thinking Bubinga...(just kidding)... Bruce

Qualifying this remark with the fact that I too am a 1911 enthusiast, owning two Wilson combat .45's (the CQB 5" being my daily carry - when I can carry), a hard chromed Les Baer and a Wesson Patriot - I wanted to make a couple of comments - cheaper with pistols is not necessarily a good deal in the long run - yes, you can get them checked out by a smith once you receive it, the chances of you getting your money back on a shot out pistol is unlikely if you get it through GunsAmerica or something - I buy new if I can, becauses I know how many rounds I put downrange - I will tell you that my CQB has at last count just shy of 10k rounds through it, and you could not tell upon casual inspection, that this is not a new weapon - despite three - week long trips to Thunder Ranch when they were in Kerrville, a trip to GunSite and all of the drawing from concealment over that period of time, etc. Only a very experienced shooter or good gunsmith is going to be able to tell you what you have, so buyer beware. As for the whole "pulling your pants down" - all I have to say is that is bunkum - I wear a single stack .45 full size on right and mag and Surefire holder on left (to balance out weight) in a polo shirt with a t-shirt on under it untucked and you cannot tell I have them on - but that is becauses I spent almost as much time (and almost as much money) on good leather as I have on the weapons - don't scrimp on either, as these are important tools. In my experience, Alessi, Milt Sparks (and Brommeland) are some of the very best - and you will pay for the best -but 100-150 for an 1 1/2" hand made belt that will (should) last you a lifetime seems a small investment to me - properly sized with the right in the pants or outside the pants holster ( of which i have probably 20 from each of these makers in summer and winter, outside and inside configurations) and you can carry concealed and comfortable for a long period of time - break-in will take sosme time as these are tight holsters, but they will last my lifetime as good handmade items should. Just my 2c. K

OK, I know this is stupid - but I am one of those guys who has had a killer surround system for years, and has been watching the whole time on a 1998 Toshiba CRT - well I am now moved and I want to upgrade to a wall mount flat screen - I have researched this and every one has opinions, but I trust you fanatics to steer me in the right direction more than anything I can read online - and now I saw at Best Buy that they have LED units out, can anyone decipher this crap and tell me what the best rated model is out there right now - plasma, LCD or LED? What do you boys think? Sharp, Samsung, LG - what is the best model,a dn should I b be looking at big box stores or online? Can I get a cheaper deal online and is it worth it to risk the potential service problems? Projector? what do you think? I have the Oppo blueray providing the pictures and my dated Sunfire components providing audio - if that makes a difference.Got to tell you, I think the LED's that I saw were brighter than anything else around them - are thhey still having blurring problems with the plasmas, etc? Size is 50-65 inch, by the way - assume that I can control the lighting. Thanks! Bruce

I have a 9090 (not db) that was a shop machine before I go ahold of it, cleaned out literally an inch of saw dust and put nearly a can of DeOxit into the pots, and now it sings with a pair of recapped Heresys - I have recapped all of the large caps on my 5000X Sansui (which was immaculate due to being put back in the original styro clam-shell in 76 and never opened again) and it is smooth and brings in stations like a champ. However, you must check that offset; I think that was one of the reasons that initially my Sansui's did not sound very good - the offset was way way off - I adjusted them and never looked back. The 9090 is a fine piece of work for Klipsch, in my opinion. B

Dude - the RS meter is very helpful for calibrating (however primatively) the surround sound blance of a 5.1 or 7.1 system - you put the meter at the primary listening position (where your head is going to be when you watch movies or listen to music in surround). Set it on something at the height of your head (don't hold it as your body may skew the results but if that is all you can do, it will work). Now turn everything on, run your front speakers test noise on your receiver. make sure the gain for each of the speakers is zeroed out - and let the test tone rip - usually it is quite loud. Turn the meter on; if the noise is so loud it pegs the meter, turn the dial up to the next level of DB's (it will usually be around the 70 or 80 level) - now once you do that, the meter should be bouncing around between the high (say 90 db) and the low (say 80 db) - go back and forth from right to left, and make sure that the noise coming out of both the right and left channel is hitting the same db mark, adjust gain (+/-db) to make this happen - then go around the surround speakers with the same noise, and do the exact same thing to THE exact number that you used for the fronts - rock back and forth between them to make sure they are ALL the same DB on that test noise, even and especially, the center. I personally like dialogue so I hop up my center at least 2 db higher than the fronts, but that is just my preference. NOW, put on a DVD and listen to how nicely this will create the illusion of surround sound - the pod racing scene from Star Wars the first crappie movie comes to mind...in my system, it made a huge difference - you may need to do it for every disk as they are very differently engineered, but you will be shocked at how much use you will get out of one after a while - I am sure that you can use it for more, but that is what I have one around for. YMMV. B

AND (though I know this will not be terribly popular) - check out the spade/banana connectors on PartExpress. That is a spade ended dongle that you can scrw down to your crossover block, that has a femal banana receiver end that you can slip banana plugs into. I personally dig locking bananas and I think that with the locking variety, you will get all the mechanical connection you nee, and they are great for swapping cable runs if you move the speakers around a lot (like me). I was lucky enough to anticipate the increase in the cost of copper speaker cable and bought a pretty big roll of Canare Starquad and Belden 12 gauge from Blue Jeans back when it was pretty cheap per foot. I have since turned that stuff into all kinds and lengths of cabling, with all sorts of ends on them - they are very nice; it looks like boondoggle at camp in my shop sometimes with all of the braided rolls I have lying around - the grey casing isn't pretty, but they sound good enough for me. B Oh and I think all of us at one point or another have been suckered by Monster or some product or another, just part of the curve man - this is why the forum is cool, you can ask before you plunge, and there are guys here that have forgotten more about this stuff than I have ever known.

I don't know if I necessarily buy into the whole idea of "warm sounding" cables - but I like well made, neat cables that don't cost me a years salary, that aren't Monster anything...for this reason, I have quite a few BlueJean Cables You can buy the raw wire and make your own, or have them prepare the cables, the shipping is fast and the cables are no-nonsense, and built to last. They have good reasonable explanations for their recommendations, and many choices of combinations. If you want to compare prices with another on-line making, try Cobalt cables, you will see what I mean; I own a pair of these too - good cables but I am not sure they are anybetter than BJ cables - and they can be pricey (in my cheapskate terms). B EDIT - WIN21, you read my mind brother!

Ok, gotta say - that is cool! Some day my wife is going to find me slumped over some ancient piece of tech like that, after having fried myself trying to get that old critter to work...I would love to see that thing turn on and glow - It would be apart and all over my garage in about ten minutes. Nice project from the abyss... B

Ok, with the understanding that I am in no way an expert on all things Klipsch, I am just an addict, I think you are comparing apples and oranges, or more like avocadoes and pineapples, or some more disparate fruit - again in my opinion. I reach this from having RF'7's sitting next to LaScalas, and having had Heresys, Cornwalls, RF-7's AND Heresys' siting next to each other listening to the whole lot one set at a time with the same music and on the same sources. The older reference speakers seem smoother to me, and I think that is just becasue of the 2 way set-up, butI have not felt that the mid-range is "in your face" on any of these - the La Scalas probably more than the any other speaker I have had, seem to have a pretty harsh mid horn, but the Hereseys and Cornwalls (to me) are better balanced between the bass, mids and tweeters. Now that doesnt; mean that those tweets can peel the flesh from your eye balls at high volumes! The RF-7's, before I had the DenG crossover mods done, had a pretty nasty tendency on sreechy strings to cause pain in the very high registers, but after the mod they have been very nice to listen to. OK, what all that means is that I find the Heritage speakers to have a round quality, a full sound extended from top to bottom ( I almost called them "warm" but retyped that), that I find elnds itself very well to vocal music (EG, jazz, blues, opera) - My RF's do HT duty mostly now, they are more "clinical' and precise to my ears, they do not have that round feeling - I like cranking them with good rock and roll, on a modern SS amp, where the instrumentation is as important or more so than the vocals (which they do a pretty fine job with too) - I like listening to orchestral works better on my RF's, where I seem to be able to hear every string draw, while I put Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, Jussi Bjoerling or Leonard Warren on the tubes and Heresys/Cornwalls in my office, or more recently the LaScalas. Does any of that make sense? They both have very different characteristics, very different voices, and I thinkthey each do their thing very well - but I definitely have preferences on different sources and music. Kind of bi-polar on the subject actually. AGAIN - this is my opinion, YMMV. B

Hey all - The original cane grills on the heritage speakers, is that stuff natural cane, or a synthetic? If natural, do they need oiling so as not to dry out and crack? If not oil then what - anybody have any suggestions? B

OK, so preparing braces for the inside of the bass bins is a better idea to sheathing the outside of old LaScalas? [:|]

Hey SETI, long time no talk - so in this picture this is an LS I bass bin, on it's side, with V-braces in the low end, and the part of the box that held the tweet and the mid-horn is filled in and ported, right? The ported part, that wouldn't actually have open ports to the bass enclosures, though right, it is just a passive box right? When I picked up these LS's I was given the ported boxes that PB made to ist under the LS bins, to improve bass repsonse, adn they are just nil-boxes, without direct port opening to the drives...that is right, yes? I will need to smooth and reshape a couple of inches of the pointy V shape in the LF bin that has been damaged, hence why I want to paint the inside all black - that filler is going to look like hell under stanin, and if I veneer those angles inside the LF section look killer hard to get to and make look nice... B PS - Coy, I may take you up on that - I would not mind experimenting, will give me something to do! I guess I am surprised that no one has already done this mod?

Yeah, but will this negate the cabinet vibrations I keep hearing about? Since I will have to fix (with filler) several edges, could I use the this as the opportunity to make the cabs square, and then mitre the ply sheath to exacting standards? (Not that I will do this, I am just saying?) B

The new LS2's are split top and bottom, so you can move them, right? These buggers are pretty heavy, and another half inch of baltic ply is going to make them damned heavy. B

Ok, say I have a pair of older LaScalas, that till need a facelift at some point - and I am thinking about new veneer. Those inside angles bite, so I figure I might want to fill in the errors and paint it black (would the industrial pebbled finish be bad *inside* the throat of the bass bin?) Here is my real question - we know the enclosure vibrates, hence the thicker walls in the new LS2's - if I am going to reveneer these tthings anyways, along with edgebanding the front edges, what would be the problem with say, screwing in another layer of dense plywood onto the LS bin and then reveneering the whole thing? Besides making the bins a lot heavier (too heavy?), what would be the downside? B

Dean - what the hell speaker was that out of (without mentioning any names or owners etc) - if that isn't an RF cup, what is it? Heresy 2? I am just curious! B

Rich - you have PM.

DEAN - I knew there was more I liked about you than I could put my finger on ... I spend a vast majority of my time over there myself, swapping lies about my trusty Wilson CQB, and Les Baer 5" 1911's - wouldn't carry anything else, and I *do* carry as often as I can, three trips to TRanch when Clint was in TX, and I plan on getting to Washington when I can. "Ownership does not equal competency" thus saith Clint. Oh and the other thing he said, "Some people just need to be shot..." B

Well alrighty then - then why did I bust nuts to secure a spanky new BlueBerry? ( I don't regret it a bit, by the way, as the Dynaco's don't have that pesky "gain" thing anyways...) Those Industrials were *thumping* - those of you who say that LaScalas have anemic bass? They were very well balanced, and while I wouldn't necessarily listen to the same source material - they sounded kick ***, just marvelous. The screw driver on the gains to the MC60's was a little disconcerting, but those 6550's were cranking away - it was a sweet set-up, and the gentleman was nice as he could be, good guy. I don't think he is a regular over here, but he should be...His wife was gracious when we paraded thorugh his home to look at his second pair of LaScalas inside, and she had that tired beaten down accepting look of a woman who has resigned herself to the fact that her husband and the sstrangers he brings into the house have a sickness for speakers... and big Klipsch Heritage at that... B

I saw and heard the craziest thing tonight - I met an old boy for some unrelated business, and heard this fine gentleman's set-up; he was running a Lexicon CD transport directly into a pair of recetly DeWick refurbed MC60's hooked up to a pair of Crites crossovers in a pair of Industrial LaScalas - he was using the gain on the monoblocks to control the volume! I can't say that I have ever seen this before, but I have to tell you that it sounded fantastic! The scalas were very well balanced in my opinion, and I wanted to overstay my welcome and pull out some more music just to hear that system cranked up - My question is - is there any downside to running without a pre-amp in a situation like this? Does he run the risk of blowing up anything? I suggested a BB pre just so he could have a remote if nothing else, but I don't see how that could improve the sound that much, if not detract - what say you who know more than I ever could? PS - Loved those LaScalas - looks like I am on the hunt again. B

The difference as I have put it out there, is the difference between loose big ol plastic bags (that work very well in tight fitting boxes that can keep the foam corners in) and cling wrap tight fitting all-encompassing completely wrapped plastic around the speakers (such as my RS-7's) to protect them since I do not have the boxes for them any more...I have the boxes for damn near everything else - the 7's and RC-7, etc., but not the surrounds or my big line arrays. I was thiking about just wrapping the hell out of them in saran wrap, keeping them water tight and dust proof - but the issue of mold has been raised - and I cannot guarantee that these things will not be a humid environment - and they will be locked up for at least 2-3 months if not more. And that sucks. Wrapping blankets around them just is not a great solution as I do not OWN enough blankets in my whole house to do the jobs (or sheets either, for that matter). I have been looking at that loose thin foam sheeting material, but it is flimsy and if scraped against will tear...Just not good solutions except cling wrap but for the mold, which would be an even bigger disaster. How do you all think painter's tape on the laquered black ash surface of the 7's would work, say, to tape down foam corners to the speaker? B

Even with dessicants , eh? I was hoping to be able to wrap them tightly - you know when you wrap an old veneered heritage speaker with a blanket, and you accidental pull the blanket across a veneered edge and the blanket picks up the old veneer edge and peels it back a bit?? That is what I am trying to avoid by wrapping the edges very tightly - Coy - thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't do that to you (and wouldn't have a problem with you using any of these speakers!) I have way too many of these things and way too little interest in getting rid of them! I can get these to a climate controlled storage, but this IS Texas - just getting them to the storage facility will entail high heat and humidity - I wish I had the original boxes! Rats! B

Mold - hadn't thought about that - they probably won't be in a non-climate controlled environment, but I guess it would be a possiblity if they are sitting in a humid atmosphere - Large plastic bags - thought about this but, first, plastic is plastic and if I put them in large bags, like say a garbage bag, then mold is still going to be an issue, as I would tape up the bags, and have a lot of loose bag and it wouldn;t be tight, etc. With the cling wrap ( and I am thinking about using a more industrial wrapping they use to palletize stuff) - the wrap would be clear and tight, holding in the grills and covering the ports tightly, thereby keeping most dirt and dust from entering the speaker enclosure (other than what is there of course). If the wrap is clear I can see what the speaker is and any damage that they must sustain en route, and I can wrap them with the bumper styrofoam (like corners and spacers) inside the cling wrap to make a pretty cocoon like structure. The wrap wouldn't be chafing along the speaker as it would be tight, unlike loose bags or blankets and such? Keeping moisture off them would be a great benefit, but keeping them dry inside so as to avoid the build up of mold is a definite concern - would a dessicant work, and what kind if yes? OR should I just wrap them in blankets and hope for the best? B