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wwh

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Everything posted by wwh

  1. I'm guessing any adjustments you make will be very room dependent. There is a software tool -- Room EQ Wizard (REW) -- that can be used to measure the response in a room and create an "ideal" EQ. I don't have any experience with it, but others here have. I use a software-based active crossover (BruteFIR) for my Khorns and added a little EQ, tuned by ear, to attempt to get some increased extension on the bottom end. I found that more than around 6dB boost below say 30 Hz resulted in clipping even at moderate volume levels. I eventually settled on the following levels: 20 Hz +4dB, 22 Hz +4dB, 25 Hz +4dB, 28Hz +3dB, 31 Hz +3dB, 34 Hz +3 dB, 37 Hz +2dB, 40Hz +1dB To really get that bottom octave (16Hz would be nice for pipe organ) a sub is necessary. Maybe someday... - Bill
  2. You'd probably really like the Grado sound. And as Wrinkles said the SR-60 and 80i are less than $100. Although they both come with on-ear pads, there are many mods available to address their somewhat less than ideal comfort. You can replace the pads with Grado's own circumaural "L-Cush" pads for $20, or use more complicated adapters and such that accept other pads. - Bill
  3. If you haven't already, check out Head-Fi: http://head-fi.org/ and my favorite headphone dealer, HeadRoom: http://headphone.com/ A few things to consider -- Do you plan to drive these with the headphone output on your laptop, or do you have (or want) a separate headphone amp? Do you need reasonably good isolation from ambient noise, or do you listen in a quiet environment? I'm not familiar with the sonic character of the Image2, but my personal preference is for around-the-ear open-back headphones that have a reasonably neutral sound, leaning towards detailed. I'm a big fan of the Beyerdynamic headphones and do most of my listening on DT-880s. I have the 600 ohm version, which really needs an amplifier, but they are also available in lower impedances. If you want better noise isolation, Beyer also makes several closed back models. Some quick generalizations about brands (my own opinion, based on listening to these manufacturers' higher-end around-the-ear models) -- Audio-Technica ATH-M50 - great price, great sound. Strong bass, but not obscenely so. Excellent comfort and noise isolation. May be a little sweaty. Beyerdynamic - Excellent comfort. I've listened to DT-880, DT-990, T-1, T-5p, and their new Custom One Pro. The Custom has a clever adjustable "damper" that acts like an acoustic equalizer, allowing adjustment between closed-back and open-back. The DT and T- models tend to be detailed and revealing. The 990s are more bass-heavy. Sennheiser -- Outstanding comfort. I've listened to HD-598, HD-600, HD-650, and HD-800 models. My favorites are the HD-598 and HD-800. Sound leans slightly toward the dark / warm side of neutral. AKG - K701 and K702. Good comfort, sound somewhat darker than Sennheiser -- less detailed than I'd prefer. Grado - I've listened to the SR-60, SR-225, and PS-1000 models. Of these, only the PS-1000 is around-the-ear. All have very detailed mids. I found the PS-1000 to be a bit bright in the treble, and they didn't fit my head very well. The pads are conical, so depending on the size and shape of your ears, they may or may not fit well. Audez'e - the LCD-3 model is the second best sounding headphones I've ever heard. Cushy pads, but uncomfortable on my head (too much clamping force in the jaw area). Hifiman - I've listened to the HE-500 and HE-6 models. Both very neutral and transparent. Similar to the Audez'e in design and sound, but more comfortable. The HE-6 model is notoriously difficult to drive -- some even drive them from the speaker outputs on a power amp. Stax SR-009 + HeadAmp Blue Hawaii - Best I've ever heard -- comfort, sound, transparency, detail. But a little spendy - $11,000 for the setup. - Bill
  4. Halide Design Bridge - http://www.halidedesign.com/bridge/
  5. The web site's a little clunky. If you select Products from the top, then (the clue) loudspeakers from the left-side menu, it links to a PDF of the specs: (the clue) specifications On a related subject -- What about some of the Klipsch "bookshelf"-sized speakers like the RB-51 / 61 / 81? How do these behave when placed relatively close to the wall? With or without a sub? - Bill
  6. Another model you might consider is (the clue) loudspeaker from Sjöfn Hifi. It's a small 2-way design that I thought had much of the character of a single-driver design (the woofer covers a very wide frequency range). Their low frequency extension is amazing considering their size. The catch is room placement. It's designed to go close to the wall, toed in 22.5 degrees, 20" from the floor. (the clue) - Bill
  7. Hmmm... I see a list of 5 files, named Sound 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 (.wav). Download results: Sound 3.wav -- Completes (290 MB) Sound 4.wav -- Always fails at 15.7 MB / 284 MB Sound 5.wav -- Completes (50.5 MB) Sound 7.wav -- Always fails at 5.0 MB / 301.8 MB Sound 8.wav -- Always fails at 306.0 MB / 340.4 MB There's something strange about the web page as well. In Firefox (version 13.0.1), clicking on the file names or the Download button did nothing, and the browser-based player (HTML 5?) doesn't work. The Epiphany browser (Webkit) works, though. In any case, thanks for sharing this. I'll see if I can figure out anything else with Firefox on my end. Your St. James Infirmary recording has become one of my favorite demo tracks. I've brought it to RMAF the last couple of years and received many questions and compliments. I think the best I've ever heard it, in terms of realism, was on the Vandersteen Model 7s in a large suite. - Bill
  8. Not as shiny as some of the thermionic equipment, but here is the inside of my Outlaw 7075. - Bill
  9. Three PCs, all running Linux -- Music storage server running Ubuntu 10.04 server and Squeezebox Server. Also serves the music library via NFS to: Primary workstation (Ubuntu 10.04 x64 desktop) feeding my headphone setup (CEntrance DACmini -> Beyerdynamic DT880 600 ohm). PC in the listening room running Ubuntu 10.04 server and my DSP / playback software for the Klipschorns. - Bill
  10. My impressions were very similar to yours, especially regarding the tightening of drums and other low frequencies (See thread: Active crossovers in software) Before you switched to the active crossovers, were you using the original 1980 crossovers? Regarding amps -- if you decide to replace your Crowns, you might look at some of the home theater amps. I'm using an Outlaw 7075 (very low noise, plenty of power for Khorns), and Emotiva and ATI (who manufactures the Outlaw amps) also have multichannel amps that would be ideal for a triamp setup. - Bill
  11. JBL Hartsfield (at least Classic Audio Reproductions' version -- never heard the real thing) Cerwin-Vega D series DCM Timeframes (the fabric-wrapped ones from the '80s and early '90s)
  12. I thought of PWK's BS buttons when I saw those buttons. They're from Precision Transducer Engineering -- they make some refrigerator-sized active speakers with an 18" sub on the bottom and a Tannoy driver with upgraded (TAD?) HF compression driver on the top. I noticed some more "mainstream" brands than at previous RMAFs, including Hsu, Polkaudio, and Martin Logan. Now if only Klipsch and Magnepan would show at RMAF... [] And I think they were using a ~$100,000 pair of Audio Note amps. I listened to a couple of tracks in this room. OK, I guess, but the price is absurd. - Bill
  13. Harman had the JBL 1400 arrays at the show, and Home Audio Sound (JBL distributor) had a really nice setup with the DD66000s and Mark Levinson electronics. There were also the usual Acapella and Classic Audio rooms with horns. I didn't see any Avantgarde this year, though. - Bill
  14. Constantine Soo did a Klipschorn review around 10 years ago on the Stereo Times site: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/5860/40626.aspx
  15. If the wood is still there (not eaten away by mold, for example), you could reglue the delaminated area as Gary suggested. I have used the same technique with the 'CPES' product from rotdoctor.com. It's essentially a very thin epoxy that soaks into wood almost like an oil, but then hardens. If you can clamp the laminations together (or apply a heavy weight), once the stuff cures the laminations will be fully rebonded. Just use a layer of wax paper against the wood so your weights or clamps don't bond. More information in this thread from the 'Updates and Modifications' forum: http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/p/74367/759558.aspx#759558 And there is a great wealth of veneering and refinishing information from Greg Roberts (greg928gts) and others here.
  16. When I was a kid, our next-door neighbors had a pair of Khorns. My brother and I were roughly the same age as their kids, and we became good friends. I first heard the Khorns at various birthday parties, Halloween parties, etc., mostly playing kids music. The Khorns were big, powerful, and had a quality that I couldn't describe, that was lacking in my 10 year old self's Sears all-in-one stereo. Later, when I was in high school, I migrated to components. I had a much better cassette deck than turntable, so I used my neighbors' system to transfer many of my LPs to cassette, partly because they had a better turntable, and partly because it was an excuse to listen to my stuff on the Khorns. :-) Then five years ago, they moved out of state. I offered to buy the Khorns, they agreed, and after some refinishing, I've been enjoying them since. Interestingly, my Khorns are the only speakers from the Heritage line I've ever heard, but I've been sold on them since I was 8. - Bill
  17. I've never had the opportunity to hear any of the Palladium line, but if their price/performance is anywhere near the heritage line, I would think they would best many speakers costing $40,000+. RMAF 2011 is only 9 months away. It would be great to hear the P-39F, maybe with some McIntosh equipment. How about it? - Bill
  18. I have never tried the foo_dsp_ xover tool specifically, but I am currently running my Klipschorns with a similar setup using the BruteFIR filtering software on Linux. I'm guessing that foo_dsp_xover uses IIR filters. When / if you try this setup, let us know how it works out. As a general concept, there are many advantages to implementing the crossover in software -- you can do time alignment, per-driver attenuation, EQ (BruteFIR supports up to 128 bands of equalization), ... What sound card are you planning to use? Amplification and volume control? - Bill
  19. Also consider landscape lighting cable. It's usually black, so it hides well if you have darker flooring, and is frequently cheaper than "speaker" cable.
  20. These guys also have a massive photo collection from the last show: http://spintricity.com/58/4284/oct-2009/got-music#/58/public/Vol1-10 I've attended for the last three years, and it's a great show -- lots of absurdly high-dollar systems, some of which are amazing, and some of which compare poorly to systems at 1/10th the price (IMHO). Also, plenty of (relatively) affordable systems. Unfortunately, I've never seen any Klipsch products there. I try to visit about half of the rooms each year -- seeing the whole show is possible but requires all three days and can get rather tedious after a while. Some general observations: - The least crowded time seems to be the first ~2 hours after the show opens each day, although I've never stayed until closing so it might be less busy in the late afternoon. - There is a trend towards computer-based digital playback and fully analog, LP-based systems. Most vendors are happy to play music you bring, and many are equipped to play high-resolution digital music off of USB thumb drives or CD / DVD data discs, in addition to standard audio CDs. - Each show has had a nice array of horn-loaded speakers -- Acapella, Classic Audio Reproductions, JBL, Avantgarde, others I'm forgetting... - The 2009 show had an entire ballroom for headphones and related equipment. I didn't get there, but I plan to this year. - Many (most?) systems feature high-end cabling, and there are plenty of tweaky accessories -- always entertaining for us skeptics. (Carbon-fiber outlet covers, anyone?) - Lots of products small and mid-sized companies -- plenty of things you've never seen or heard before. - Many of the systems are absolutely amazing -- sonically and visually -- but in terms of performance for the money, in my opinion, my Khorn-based system is still the best value. Each day after attending the show, I have come home and listened to my reference songs on my own system, and it hasn't been a disappointment. - Bill
  21. I have come across several Windows-based tools out there that implement FIR and IIR filters, some of which are integrated with friendly interfaces to configure the filters. One is foo_dsp_xover, which is implemented as a foobar2000 plugin. I've never tried it, but it looks interesting: http://xover.sourceforge.net/ There is a large amount of information about PC-based digital room correction here (for Windows and Linux), some of which involves crossovers as well: http://www.duffroomcorrection.com/wiki/Main_Page - Bill
  22. This is still a common linux driver problem. Not all linux distributions are the same. I've found SuSE linux to include more hardware drivers than anyone else. SuSE actually funds alot of driver development later released open source style but they release it first. If you run into trouble their forums are superb. The guys there can be a big help. I would ask in advance on the forums about various hardware support. Linux support for newer devices can be a problem. Generally, the older the hardware, the better the support. Also, even when your hardware is supported, ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture -- the standard hardware / software / API layer) can be a major pain to configure. Most of the modern distributions, for example, will "just work" for typical configurations with a single sound device. Once you introduce multiple devices -- such as on-board sound with a multichannel PCI card, with a USB audio device -- it can get messy. For the patient, though, this shouldn't be a deterrent. In general, if the hardware is supported, the software can be sorted out. There are many excellent sources of support out there. One approach I had originally considered for multichannel output is HDMI directly from the computer to a compatible receiver. HDMI can carry up to 8 channels of uncompressed 24 bit 192 kHz audio. However, many of the HDMI output devices on current computers either don't support uncompressed LPCM audio over HDMI (only lossy compressed), or ALSA support doesn't exist. ALSA-compatible devices are listed in their hardware compatibility matrix, here: ALSA hardware compatibility matrix - Bill
  23. Actually I use six amps (the Outlaw 7075 is just 7 amps in a box) -- one for each of the drivers. There are no passive components between the amps and the drivers except for protection capacitors for the tweeters (crossover point at 3kHz -- well below the 6kHz crossover that the software filtering provides). BruteFIR takes a 2 channel input (left and right) and splits it into 6 channels -- one for each driver. Then the appropriate frequency filtering is applied to each channel. In the BruteFIR configuration, you can specify an amount of time delay for each of the output channels, so I set the woofers for no delay, squawkers for 6.8ms, and tweeters for 8.4ms. (I read these numbers somewhere here but haven't measured the Khorn horn lengths. Can anyone verify this?) I'll have to look into Room EQ Wizard. For others that have set up room correction -- any advice regarding specific (affordable) calibrated microphones? Are there any out there that don't require phantom power (that I could just connect to a line-level input)? - Bill
  24. The recent discussions about active crossovers have inspired me to complete my long-planned software based active system. Some background -- I had a minimalist system consisting of a Squeezebox 3 feeding a Crown D-45 for my Khorns. I had no specific complaints about the sound, although the room isn't ideal (7 foot ceiling) and I thought the upper midrange sounded "shouty." I like the convenience of having my entire music library on a file server, but the Squeezecenter software never really handled classical music well (with tracks on an album grouped into a "work"). I also have a growing amount of hi-res material from HDTracks (and Mr. Mallette), and the Squeezebox is only capable of 24/48 playback. So, what I've implemented so far -- - Replaced the Squeezebox with a PC dedicated to playback, resampling, and crossover filtering. This is an older Athlon XP running Ubuntu Lucid and a custom front-end I wrote in Python that serves a web-based control interface (that can handle the music tagging *exactly* the way I want. :-) ) The front-end controls the Music Player Daemon (MPD) software, which provides decoding and gapless playback and resamples everything to 24/96. The resampled stream is fed to BruteFIR for filtering, time alignment, and 3dB of attenuation for the squawkers. - Replaced the D-45 with an Outlaw 7075 No real perceived change here. Both do the job and sound somewhat "warm" to me as compared to the excessive brightness of the mid-fi receivers I tried previously. - Custom fixed attenuators between the sound card and amp. I experimentally determined the attenuation required so that when the sound card output is at 100%, it is louder than I'd ever want. This allows me to utilize most of the sound card's volume control range and avoid the complexities of a 6-channel analog pot. Impressions -- The sound seems "tighter" in the lower frequencies. As mentioned in one of the other threads, this is probably due to better damping by directly connecting each driver to an amp. Attenuating the squawkers has mitigated much of the shouty character, although maybe 3dB is too much? Hugely tweakable in software alone -- time alignment, EQ, crossover slopes and frequencies, etc., are just a matter of editing some configuration files. Further experiments -- BruteFIR supports up to 128 bands of EQ and can also perform room correction. Upgraded / different sound output hardware. I'm using an Asus Xonar DS card (OK specs, relatively cheap), but there are many alternatives, including external USB or Firewire-connected devices (subject to software support in Linux). Put the computer in a case that looks more at home among audio equipment, instead of the current big beige box. Have others here tried something like this? What were your results and impressions?
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