whtboy

I definitely fall into the category of people who believe bits are bits. I can see how there would be differences between a cheap DA convertor and a good one, but I would be extremely suprised if a $99 Sony player used a transport spit out different bits with a pressed cd, a cheap cd-r or a special, tricked out cd-r.

haha that's hilarious. c/t... i haven't been following the headroom/power-supply weight conversations very closely, but in case no one else has mentioned it, i wanted to say that traditional EI transformers weigh more than toroidals, but are considered inferior for a lot of reasons - http://www.bryston.ca/newsletters/85_files/vol8is5.html my 75Wx6 (yeah right, how's that going to happen with a 200W power supply???) yamaha has a small EI. -jacob

i couldn't sleep and wanted to listen to something soft that wouldn't wake up my boy. so i put on sade's 'lovers rock'. it's cool that i'm hearing more detail on all my cd's with my new cornwalls but i'm realizing they make bad recordings sound worse. the voice tracks on this cd sound good - and sade has a beautiful voice - but on my cornwalls the synthesized rhythym tracks sound like total crap!!! sound guys, record producers - whoever they are - who think quartz-precision, lo-fi midi drum loops are good substitutes for real musicians are self-important idiots and it sucks when they mess up what could have been a much better album. am i alone here? this is the main reason i don't listen to most rap. every hit on the hihat should *not* sound the same and be in perfect 144.00000 tempo. this sounds so lifeless. <fast forward 30 minutes> i just ordered - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000056MMD/002-5795759-1930412?v=glance&n=130 my 320GB hard drive and m-audio sound card came in today. i'm building a linux music system and have already started ripping all my cds with the flac lossless encoder. is there a website/forum/review-center you guys would recommend for good cd reviews? -j

What I meant was, is there a big difference in the sound with those grills on and off?

How does it sound?

God damn Jeff! Imagine what it did to the little nerves in your ears!!!

Does Definitive make amps? All I could find online were speakers and subs.

It sounds better with the grills off. There seems to be more ambient detail, especially in the higher frequencies... the difference between just hearing a crash when a cymbal is struck and actually hearing the sound of the cymbal change as the the energy leaves it and it starts to settle down. It seems to have a simlar effect on guitar tracks too.

I sent him an email last night =) EDIT - also found a 2535 on ebay last night - not sure what his reserve is though. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5853467096&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEBI%3AIT&rd=1

There's a noticable difference in clarity, imaging and detail when I take the grills off my Cornwalls. Has anyone found a cloth that doesn't mess with the sound quality so much? Also, why in the world would they put wire mesh between the tweeter diaphragm and the horn throat? I would think that would only do bad things to the sound. thanks, jacob

Or a GFA-2535 would be cool too!

I'm looking to get a pair of entry-level 50+ watt stereo power amps (or a 4+ channel amp if not too expensive). I'm trying to find something in the Houston area to avoid shipping. Thanks! -jacob

One more positive note - I've been sitting in bed reading, listening to ...and Justice for All from another room, and I realized I can pick out the individual drum sounds much better than before. I didn't notice it at first, but just casually paying attention, it is much easier for me now to listen to a section of music and hear how it is played. I often struggle to figure out which drum is being hit, or to differentiate between a crash and a half-open hi hat when everything but the initial sound fades into the flat noise of the music. I can tell much more easily now, and this is on a badly scratched CD that was burned from a lame-encoded MP3 at 160 kbps! Also, the cymbals on the first few tracks of The Wall are simply incredible - so dynamic and real. These speakers don't sound anywhere close to how I imagine an ideal speaker might sound, but I'm extremely happy with my setup all things considered.

Just in case my experience sounds a little lackluster I should add I'm using a (relatively new) Yamaha AV receiver that leaves a lot to be desired. It's got a serious noise problem that is audible at normal listening levels and on top of that my living room is pretty small and has a nasty small-room echo I've been working to eliminate. I've been toying with the idea of bi- or tri-amping these guys with some of the plans available from Rod Elliot here: http://sound.westhost.com/ I've already got the board for a Linkwitz-Riley active crossover but I think I'm going to live with my current setup for a little while, do an A/B test with a real amp and see what I get. I want to say thanks to Jeff, Bob, Put and everyone else who shared their time, experiences, insight, knowledge, etc. - it definitely made me much more confident in the purchasing/upgrading decisions I've been making. Thanks guys! -jacob

And a pic of one completed network

Here's another pic of the same thing from a different angle.

Here's a pic of my first crossover, half-done. There are two caps on a Cornwall B network. The cap on the left is from Bob. The cap on the right is what was there before. Bob includes crimp on connectors that will make future cap changes easier since they don't require soldering.

Here's a pic of one of my Cornwalls open prior to the upgrade, just in case there are any people (like me 3 hours ago) who are thinking about doing this and are curious what a corny looks like inside

New diaphragms from Bob (they both looked like this and had the same date on them - 11/05)

My left tweeter was out when I bought the speakers. The left diaphragm had no writing on it, but the right diaphragm (which still worked) had "4-9-89" written on it in black ink. The driver assembly looked the same on the outside but the paper that sits between the diaphragm and the magnet was different. The paper in the dead tweeter was cut to fit perfectly in the plastic assembly and hold the diaphragm in place. The paper behind the 4/89 diaphragm was just a ring of paperboard that I had to carefully center on the dome. Not confidence inspiring. The 4/89 (working) diaphragm measured right at 6 ohms. The dead diaphragm tested as an open circuit. If I ever have to replace K77 diaphragms in the future, I will still probably do it myself, but I will make better preparations for quality lighting, delicate tools, one of those magnifying lamps, etc. The 4/89 diaphragm:

My order from Bob Crites came in today. New tweeter diaphragms and his B network cap upgrade kit which consists of polypropylene film caps, mounting brackets and a generous bag of spades and female connectors that fit over blade connections. I normally enjoy DIY work, but I did not enjoy performing the upgrade at all, mostly due to the fact that I don't have a great work space, my lighting was poor and I wasn't able to find the pictorial guide I originally saw showing in detail how to replace the diaphragm. But I winged it, it wasn't terribly complicated and both channels sound pretty good, so I'm guessing I did it right. I will say the voice coil on a K77 diaphragm is very fragile, the magnet assembly is very heavy and there doesn't appear to be a great deal of difference from the operator's perspective between gently sliding the coil into the magnet and smashing the coil to hell when you put it all back together. I couldn't really see it going in without holding everything at an angle that makes the diaphragm want to move around in the process. Bob charges a really fair price so put the diaphragms in for you, so if you're not curious and interested how to do it, I'd say it's worth it to let Bob do it. I have no patience whatsoever though, and I wasn't willing to have no tweeters at all for however long it would take UPS to ship the parts back and forth. So, how does it sound? Overall I'd say I'm pretty happy. I've listened to a handful of CDs so far - The Wall, Joss Stone (Soul Sessions), Eric Clapton Unplugged and a handful of MP3s. The imaging was very good on The Wall and Soul Sessions. Not like a pair of nicely setup Martin Logans, but pretty good considering the limited placement options I have in my living room. The imaging on Eric Clapton's Unplugged sucked something awful and I can only guess that it might be the recording itself. I'm listening to a 160 kbps MP3-encoded track of Coldplay's "Green Eyes" and the image on that is far better than the Clapton disc. I still have a number of reservations about my system in general, but overall I am much happier with my Cornwalls now, and I am very pleased with the upgrade. I highly recommend Bob Crites' cap kit and diaphragms. His prices are extremely fair and it's been a pleasure dealing with him. THANKS BOB!!! Now for some pictures...

I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want to step on anyone's toes and I think it's cool of Klipsch to host a forum for the user community without censoring content and I value this forum and the people I've made contact with as a result. Also, it's easy to critisize the product of someone's work when you aren't aware of the context and the constraints they had to operate under. For example, it's often a herculean effort to get a (better) Unix-based solution put in place when you already have an existing ASP infrastructure that isn't about to get kicked out the door, especially if there isn't a Unix admin officially available to support the enviroment. And yes, Apache/Mysql/PHP all run on Win32, but configuring them is often as difficult for a Win32 admin as admin'ing IIS is for a text-mode Apache guy like me =) That being said, Apache, PHP/Java and MySQL/Postgresql *are* typically far more reliable and performant solutions for hosting Internet web apps than IIS/ASP/MS-SQL. There are also a number of existing (and free or low cost) forum solutions that are very feature-rich and stable. vBulletin, phpbb, Jive, etc. Add to that - - the constant stream of security patches that have to be applied to the MS platform, which means more maintenance windows, reboots, downtime, etc. - the unpredictable nature of Windows compared to Unix Anyway, I just want to second the idea that there are already cheap/free, feature-complete and stable solutions available out there that would be on par with the best of the breed (they are best of breed in many cases). Here's a shortlist of what I would personally like to see, and I think these are things most people would agree would bring a great deal of value to the forum: 1. Fully indexed searching, search by user, subject, content, etc., ala vBulletin 2. Sticky threads for FAQ info, rather than forcing users to search for reference material 3. A wiki allowing users to organize knowledge-base type pages in addition to the dialogue-oriented BBS paradigm - there's a HUGE resevoir of knowledge in the minds of a number of forum users here. If that knowledge could be mined and put into a user-maintained wiki environment, the benefit to everyone would be tremendous. 4. Better thought-out email notification, with links to new posts rather than linking to the 1st post of a 12-page thread That being said, there are some horribly written Unix/PHP apps out there too - postnuke being the first that comes to mind. Just because it runs on Apache, doesn't mean it's good =) I *would* like to say thanks to everyone who is involved in supporting this forum. It's got a few warts but I'm really glad it's here! Thanks! -jacob

No, I read a good amount of the headroom threads. It just seemed to me like "a little science with a good measure of folklore" =) Using my existing Yamaha amp in a biamp setup will actually cost less than $100, definitely a reasonable amount I can part with without making special budget considerations. What I will probably do when I rebuild my existing network is move it outside the cabinet and mount individual terminals for each driver on the cabinet so I can switch between the active and the passive networks without having to open the cabinets each time. -j

I was initially looking at triamping options, but even building it myself a 6 channel amplifier would have run around $300 with a proper power supply - not a lot compared to commercial audiophile grade amplifiers, but a lot of money to spend on a DIY project that might fizzle =) If I can actually get this crossover built (my first DIY audio electronics project) it will go a long way to build my confidence in that arena. -j

Honestly, I've just been reading a bunch of articles on Rod Elliot's site and am curious what the difference between active and passive will really be. Of course, I'd love to have a real amp too, but that's a bit more expensive than putting together this network =) EDIT: That brings up a question that's been on my mind for a little while though - what makes a "good" amp good? Large amounts of capacitance available to each amplifier channel (related to headroom?)? Enough transformer to keep the caps charged? Some magic related to the output impedence being well-suited for your average driver? The "quality" of the amp circuit design and components used? Low distortion? Everyone seems to believe in the sonic superiority of good amps (I'm not suggesting there aren't differences) but I have yet to see a complete and concise analysis of the issue. It seems to me most people just mix a little science with a good measure of folklore and just try different things to see what sounds best.