ClaudeJ1

I think it was Les Paul that advised Bing Crosby to sing close to his mic. with a T-pad compensator, AFAICR in an Audio Mag. interview. Ever since then, vocal clarity in the mix has been improved and the main reason why they use a nylon stocking stretched over a wire frame (6+ in. circular, black being sexiest, LOL) as a low pass filter between singer and Mic. The inverse square law dictates that the distance is critical within a fraction of a inch for a radical change in those sharp peaks.

Jubilees are Klipschorns. Properly called Klipshorn Jubilees.

It doesn't.

Isn't Oris for an 8" Lowther rather than an Altec 1.3" driver? Looks like apples and oranges to me.

ClaudeJ1 must be getting his list together for you Thaddeus, but I agree with him the "Nightfly" is a great reference recording. Engineered by the late, great Roger Nichols. DR database gives the 1982 CD a 16 on a possible scale of 1 to 20. Yessir this recording is dynamic for being of the pop/rock genre. babadono I had it on LP before I got the CD. Because of bad vinyl in those days, the CD sounded much better. CD's have always had the potential to give you and perfect copy of the master tape, hiss and all, without adding any non-linearities to the sound, like wrong RIAA curves, wrong capacitance and or resistance on the phono section, etc. A great example of this is "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis. Recorded in 1959, it is the largest selling Jazz recording of all time. The late, great guitarist, Duane Allman said he got his improvisational style of playing by listening to that recording, and almost nothing else, for 2 years. You can clearly hear tape hiss but you don't care once you get lost in that amazing piece. I will do a list of CD's everyone should own, then a longer list of individual tunes and what to listen for.

LOL, Well you do have to listen for everything I talked about. Would like a list of "test tunes," sir? Trying to make up for slight digressions here, but, hey, they made me do it! That would be great! If you find yourself with copious free time, tell me why they're your test tunes and some things I should be listening for. Sorry I missed this one. Give me time, and I will do it here.

That's where we differ, Claude. For a music lover, there were no "good old days" or "good new days." Every day with good music from any source is a good day. A super clean, dead silent. flat from dc to light recording of crap is a recording of crap...but a great performance recorded 85 years ago is a SMOKE! Dave No we don't differ at al. We agree. This is why I used to buy English or Japanese pressings, Mobile Fidelity, Sheffield Labs, and 45 RPM direct to disc recordings. On virgin vinyl (not "short pressed" with recycle crap) good recordings and good music was wonderful. 78 Shellac records didn't require a tweeter (see old PWK papers). I wanted both good music AND a good, clean medium to carry it. PERIOD. One without the other is not good. In the "microgroove" LP days, audiophiles wanted better sound so badly we were willing to pay 4X the price for it while overpaying for Moving Coil cartridges hand-wound by a blind guru in the mountains of Tibet. I did mention that my worst recording was on CD, right? We don't differ at all. Modern digital MEDIUM has the POTENTIAL for unparalleled sound excellence but the world has gone to low bit MP3's, which BTW, can equal CD quality at 320 VBR from a Lame encoder, but it slows those $1.29 ea. downloads from the servers too much. Greed is only good for the greedy. Very few people give a damn about quality throughout the chain of events. It only takes one missing link in the chain of sonic events to break up the party.

What to listen TO is just as important as HOW to listen to it. I'm still wondering why you haven't asked for a list of the best recordings and what to listen for on those recordings. I have never seen a thread that wasn't a victim of digression, whether slight or severe.

LOL, Well you do have to listen for everything I talked about. Would like a list of "test tunes," sir? Trying to make up for slight digressions here, but, hey, they made me do it!

Dave, I agree with you that the ENGINEERING is the problem, not the medium. With the advent of the CD, I can say that one of the WORST recording I own is on CD, and the BEST recordings I own are on CD. Now a very few people are putting 24-bit 192Khz. sampling rates on Blue Ray (hey plastic is plastic) which, Oppos currently have the best, built-in Sabre DACs. Although, according to Tom Holman (of Advent, THX/Lucasfilim, and Audyssey fame) only bats should care about that high of a bit rate, but I digress. As tech. editor of several photo mags in the last 20 years, I was also a very early adopter of digital photography and helped (just a little) in the development of the Foveon camera sensor technologies. I have been saying that ever since the Fuji S2, and Canon 10D, all digital cameras are better than 99% of photographers. I'm saying the same thing about the digital recording medium. It's only as good as the producer. One of my reference recordings is "The Nightfly" by Donald Fagen of Steely Dan. It was released in 1983 during the Digital Infancy and has withstood the rest of time. Since, in the right hands, that good of a recording could be produced with the primitive equipment available back then, as compared to today, there is not excuse to ever blame bad sound on the medium anymore. The days of crappy recycled vinyl with Himalayan warps, unplayable on any turntable, along with noise from bad pressings done too quickly by greedy manufacturers are gone. Either the bits are readable or they are not, period. So I need to be forgiven for not being the first in line to wax nostalgic about the "good ole' days" of vinyl. There were way more quality variables back then that could produce excellence or crap. IOW, a wider gamut. Like Bill Joel said: "The good old days weren't always good and nothing is as bad as it seems."

JC, Is this the one you painted black and used with the MCM Grand top end?

The Othorn is the one you want....it's by far the best sounding subwoofer I've ever heard - and I'm not even hitting it with a potent amplifier yet. Hey, Mike. what about the `15-30 Hz. range for HT? The Othorn has great output for PA, yes, but for HT, wouldn't you want to have that "sub sub" octave?

Either one of those would kick butt. However, you want at least two of whatever you build. There is also a Lowarhorn on the AVS forum that is a re-folded version of the Gjallerhorn with a much lower profile.

...blah, blah, blah. Crikey, Claude, trolling with that old saw? How many times have we been done that road? Neither I, nor anyone can know what you hear. Only what I hear. I just had yet another individual up in my listening room who described how he used to listen to music, but had listened less and less over the years and didn't know why. He was giddy at what he was listening to, a record. The record was 85 years old. He obviously hears differently that you...or me. Medium isn't relevant, nor is format. Only the music, the performance, and the engineering. If you are content to do without 80 percent or so of the recorded output of all humankind, excellent. I listen to music, not media and certainly not format. Dave LOL. I'm surprised at your response about LP's. You mean to tell me you NEVER hear ticks and pops? Everything else about LP's I didn't mention was the crappy quality of the vinyl in the late 70's and 80's, how soon we forget. As to "we" having been down that road, it's my first time doing it, so don't take that one out on me, mate. I still have 1,000 LP's, BTW, and just bought a new turntable and cartridge. Too much trouble to convert them to FLAC files. So I'm not anti anything. I agree with 95% of everything you post, you mean to tell me that ticks and pops don't ever bother you?

As I am found of saying, "How can I know what YOU hear?" What is the source? If it is LP, you are likely hearing tape hiss from the master. Assuming you are hearing what you say, musicality and pleasing balance, then your are hearing what you paid for...everything that is present, perfectly balanced. One of the issues with horns is that they are merciless. If it's present, you are going hear it unless something is malfunctioning. Dave I disagree about LP's what I hear is not only the master tape, but the noise of a super hard rock being dragged thought a soft ditch at various velocities and frequencies at 20,000 lbs per square inch of pressure, converting every bit of dirt and dust into a tick and pop, totally spoiling the illusion. This is why I converted to CD's in 1983, even then the only player on the market was a SONY. Knowing how far superior digital could be, I coudn't wait!

I believe those are the woofers I tested at Panacea Engineering in his experiemental "jube-like drones." I think they have a better high and without giving up much of anything at the low end. It will change Roy's PEQ, if that is what you are using. I don't know about "better" but different with a stronger motor, might be a more accurate description.

So how does that sub sound with your big stuff? Is there a big K-402 in your future?

The laws of diminishing returns apply to audio faster than any other art form.

Call it a ZapBoom One

hmmmmmmm and here I thought the simple answer was the cost of large, quality, transformers!

Which sound are you reproducing in this comment? Are you talking about playing discs, or something else? Pink noise. It contains all the music ever written! Still not relevant to the cost and peformance of tube amps. You need to start a new thread. Pink noise? So, with respect to your comment above: "All aspects of sound REproduction as opposed to sound production are measurable a repeatable." you use pink noise as your repeatable measure? How do you apply that? I was actually joking. But you really did not address the issue of cost of tubes. For some people the cost is worth it.

The few luthiers I have known would never agree that a machine-made guitar - made to precision dimensions with uniform materials - could ever be considered a serious instrument. That's not too surprising, after all, it is how they make a living. What is more important is that the bulk of musicians demand and pay for this level of human subjectivity. They're keeping luthiers very busy. A Stradivarius comes to mind as I read this.

Which sound are you reproducing in this comment? Are you talking about playing discs, or something else? Pink noise. It contains all the music ever written! Still not relevant to the cost and peformance of tube amps. You need to start a new thread.

The answer to this thread is simple: Profitable small products using the latest technologies that sell in high volume for the consumer, and large products that sell in low volume for entertainment venues. If PWK had only made Khorns, he would have been out of business by 1960's. Two things saved the company: Bob Moers as President, and the Heresy. Fred's company multiplied sales by 7X and enabled Klipsch to become one of the largest and most successful speaker companies in the world. Heritage products main function is to market the company's longevity using PWK's past achievements as a genius while providing real and nostalgic appeal in terms of performance, but not sales volume. Heritage for IMAGE, the latest high tech. gee whiz gizmos for real sales.

Not much relevance to your points concerning black boxes vs. wood boxes with strings suspended across a cavity as to the suject of this thread, which is the high price of devices that have a voltage based transfer function. All aspects of sound REproduction as opposed to sound production are measurable a repeatable. They do not rely on a subjective opinion of a "sensitive" person. Sound reproduction is, in basically a consequence of choice by the reproducer. 90% of the sound that is REproduced is the ROOM. So primarily it is the result of economics of neighborhood and historical construction methods along with "typical" room sizes. The other 10% and only 10%, so arguing about that 10% is what occupies everyone's time. The rest is tweaking to taste based on economics and attitude. All are measurable and repeatable with current technologies. Not matter what choices are made by anyone in the entire chain, the infinite permutations of how sound in air is generated and regenerated in various spaces, whether synthesized, acoustic, or amplified, the end result is nothing more than a personal ILLUSION, period. This is also true when the choice is headphones, where the acoustic space around the listener is not part of the 90% equation.