Islander

Thanks, Randy! Hmm, I wonder whether the AL-4 upgrade would be applicable and useful for 1974 AA models? Would there be gains in sound quality and sensitivity? One could be increased; the other would be more of a challenge.

If they're only 20 minutes away, maybe go with a companion to check them out. That will collapse the wave function, so they'll either be there or not be there. Right now, they seem to be in a state of superposition, so it's almost equally possible that they exist or don't exist. If you can arrange a meeting to hear them, I would not recommend going alone.

And yet headphones can reproduce deep bass tones. That seems impossible, but I’ve heard them myself.

What other upgrade kits are available? I’ve never seen them listed. Just curious. Thanks.

I guess the joke jiggled right past you...

Interesting. I’ve never seen tatas with motors. Are these ones self-gyrating? No offense intended to any tata electricians in India.

That seems like a definite possibility to me. If your speakers are connected out of phase, with one woofer cone moving ahead while the other one moves back, your bass volume will be seriously compromised. I’d check every speaker wire connection to be sure that the positive (+) plugs (probably black) are going into the positive sockets on the receiver end and the speaker end, and that the negative (-) plugs (probably red) are going into the negative sockets at both the receiver and the speaker end. If even one of them is connected wrong, the woofers literally won’t be pushing together, they’ll be working against each other, so their bass output will be really poor. Even if you connected every connection properly, it can happen that the assembler at the factory hooked them up backwards inside the speaker cabinet, but this is extremely rare and should be caught during final testing. It should only be considered after everything else has been double-checked. I don’t know how much you know about sound systems, so I’ll keep it pretty basic. Is your receiver set to put out a signal to LFE? Modern AVRs are pretty complicated. My current AVR is a 2016 model and is my 3rd AVR, starting with a 1998 model. Even so, while setting up this one, back in 2016, I had to call Yamaha Music’s Tech Department to get some help to get the system sounding how it should. It turned out that there were a couple of spots in the menus that had to be set correctly to get the subs working properly. The settings were not obvious, and the tech said that this was something he’d had to explain to a number of customers, so it wasn’t just me who struggled with it. For the subwoofer settings, the phase switch should be set the same on both subs. It’s easy to overlook. As for the subs’ Level setting, it should not be necessary to turn it up past 11 o’clock, especially with two subs. Next and last is the subs’ high-cut, which sets their nominal highest frequency. Don’t be misled by these types of controls. It’s not like the subs put out full power right up to the frequency that you set, and then totally drop off. Their output will start to drop off around that frequency, and some output may go a bit past that. As for the speakers, they put out their sound down to a certain frequency, and then it starts to roll off, until the output is so quiet as to be ineffective. Their lowest rated frequency is usually where the output is down by 3 dB. That’s a noticeable drop, then after that point they really drop off. HMM, I JUST SCROLLED UP AND DISCOVERED THAT THIS THREAD IS 3 YEARS OLD, AND THAT THE MEMBER HAS ONLY 5 POSTS, THE LAST ONE IN APRIL 2019. THIS IS CALLED A ZOMBIE THREAD, AND SHOULD BE LEFT IN ITS GRAVE, SO PEOPLE DON’T WASTE TIME RESPONDING TO SOMEONE WHO’S LONG GONE. PLEASE BE AWARE OF THIS. THANK YOU.

Beware of the enablers! They lurk in many places in the Forum. They'll help you spend all your money, until your living room is full of giant speakers and your friends always want to party at your place, but there's only room for a love seat and an armchair, so they have to sit on some of the speakers, which is no problem, because they're that big. Also, as Coytee pointed out many years ago, La Scalas make excellent speakers for a guy in university, for a couple of reasons. First, they're too big to steal, and second, they're stable enough for drunk college girls to dance on them safely.

That was my expectation, too, lol!

It's hard to estimate closely just how much it will cost someone to put together a high end system. The first question will be how high? Then, new or used? After that, it depends on what's available in your area. That applies mostly to speakers, because of the size and weight of Heritage speakers, but if you like to hear the gear before you buy, it's very relevant. The next factor is how lucky you are, which is dependent on how much time you put into following sales listings. The more you look, the more you'll see, which also educates you as to prices for stuff. Also, keep putting money into that stereo account, which doesn't have to be kept in a bank. If a month goes by, or even a few months, and you don't spot anything interesting, that's okay, your account is still growing. Count on spending a few thousand every year, until you reach the point where you're satisfied. Only you know that point. Remember, you can get off the merry-go-round at any time.

That won't get it done. If you're trying to put together something that will approximate the performance of Jubilees, then you need sources that are of the same calibre, meaning excellent power amps and a good preamp, and so on, including a pro processor, not a cheap one. It would be better to keep saving, putting aside whatever you can afford, and keep looking for bargains, until you have the budget to buy the right stuff. You can often save lots that way. You can wind up surprised at how much you've spent, and at the same time surprised at how much you've saved.

Boston: just like Pink Floyd, is the band that requires you to crank the volume as soon as they come on.

That last post may have ignored the point of building these amazing stereos: they amaze us! Being able to go into your living room and listen to better sound than you'd get at a concert is beyond cool, it's a source of joy. Pat

Well, it turned out to be more than I expected. This was back in 2008, when the OG or UG Jubilees were around only $7,000, with free delivery in the main 50 states. New, with warranty. Putting together a pair of JubScalas, when I already had the speakers and one amplifier, cost me somewhere around $4000-4500, buying used stuff, like the Dx-38 processor from a Guitar Center in California, the second amplifier from a Forum member in Seattle (I drove down there to hear it and pick it up), the K510 horns and K-69-A drivers from another Forum member, this one in Tennessee or somewhere around there. That was the original JubScala setup, with the speaker shown in the picture. The upgrades came later, first the La Scala IIs, then the 402 horns. The K402 horns are huge, a full metre across. But I did eventually buy them, which meant a trip to the mainland, which costs $200-250, including gas and food, if you bring a friend. The only drawback to the actual Jubilees was their size. They're 41 inches across, so I would've had to shift some stuff to fit them into my living room, but it probably would have been the better value, especially if I was starting from scratch, with no La Scalas. Of course, now I've upgraded to La Scala IIs, and K402 horns with K691 drivers. At this point, I've got several tens of thousands into the system, but on the other hand, by buying used, I saved many tens of thousands. There are lots of enablers on this forum, and I'm sometimes one of them. It's fun to see everybody's systems develop, but that's not for everybody. I started this message a day ago, but then I headed over to the nearest A/V shop for an event day, when some of the company reps were there. I've met the Audio quest guy and the Yamaha guy couple of times, and even Vince Bruzzese from Totem speakers was there. Anyway, I hope this info is helpful. Let me know if you have any questions.

Have you noticed if many Khorn owners have them in rooms that don’t have proper “Khorn corners” that allow them to fit tight into the corners and let them sit at that 45-degree angle into the room? I don’t know; I’m just asking. I’ve only ever once seen a Khorn, in a vintage hi-fi shop, in the middle of a very crowded room, cluttered with all kinds of speakers. For the interest of my Forum brother/neighbour, MC39693, it was Q-Lectronic’s old shop, before they moved to their current roomier and brighter shop on Douglas Street. I couldn’t hear it properly, and I wasn’t too concerned anyway, because I’d just bought my first La Scalas a month or two earlier, and was in mid-honeymoon with them, just starting to “mod” them with new caps (they were 32 years old at the time). However, after that, I noticed that the sweet spot seemed really narrow. That didn’t seem surprising, because they were close to either side of my old CRT TV, less than 1.5 m/5 feet apart. A couple of months later, psg, a Forum member from Eastern Quebec, was in town for a scientific conference (he’s a scientist), and was free for a couple of hours one afternoon. He took one look at the speakers and said, “Those have got to go over to that other wall (the long wall to the left of me), today!” That sounded logical, but I didn’t have enough speaker wire in stock, so we listened to records instead. It was a good visit. A few months later, once I got a lot of Karma Kable, I got my buddy and his gf to come over, and we rotated the room’s floor plan 90 degrees to the left. This called for some muscle, especially the moving of the 35” 180-pound CRT TV. However, we got it done, and the speakers went from being 5 ft/1.5 metres apart to being about 12 feet/4.6 metres apart, and from nearly straight ahead to toed in about 35 degrees. That was in the Spring of 2007. Since then, I turned the speakers this way and that, which was easy with the flat-bottomed 1970s La Scala. Once I got the Noughties (2007) La Scala IIs in 2013, it was more work and less fun to turn the speakers, and the sweet spot was still too narrow. It was a bit later that I realized that what I had were kind of Super-Industrial Split JubScalas, since the tweeters were now capable of being turned any way I liked, without bothering the bass cabinets. As well, the 7 degree forward tilt of the tweeters compensates to some degree for their extra height on top of the HF cabinets, allowing the two drivers to come together at a closer distance. Finally, a couple of months ago, I read an old Dope From Hope from 1951, which explained that for best stereo effect, working in the greatest possible area of the room, the speakers should be aimed at the opposite corners of the room. On a table at the side of the room is my handy Canadian Tire laser level, which is really handy for levelling pictures and aiming speakers, and the tweeters were soon aimed just as PWK intended. That’s one of the cool things with the JubScalas: the tweeters and bases are just sitting on top of the LS2 cabinets, so it’s easy to rotate them to whichever direction you like. Aiming the tweeters (or complete speakers, for that matter) at the opposite corners of the room causes the speaker axes to cross a bit in front of the MLP. For years, I’d heard a few guys rave about this, but I always thought it would look too extreme, and it sort of does but it’s worth it. To see my reaction when I rolled up the volume, read on. Well, holy crap! Now the sweet spot is more than twice as wide as it’s ever been, and is the overall sound is more “right”. Back on track! Yes, driver integration, in the effort to simulate a point source, is a worthwhile quest. Was it Chris A who lowered his Jubilees’ tweeters down over the bass cabinets, with great results? He was really impressed with how they sound. ”Major breakthrough” was the kind of thing he was saying. He seemed well pleased. It seems that we can only focus on one thing at a time. Us regular mortals, that is...

How far do you feel that you need to be from your La Scala IIs before you feel that their three drivers integrate properly? Coytee has owned numerous big Klipsch speakers, including UG Jubilees. He did a check of minimum listening distances, and found that he had to be quite far from Klipschorns, nearly 20 feet/6 metres, but the Jubilees came together at a much closer distance, under 10 feet/3 metres, if memory serves.

I did say "nearly all". Not "all".

The lamp cord that I'm familiar with is white or brown, and always 18 or 16 gauge, never anything thicker. The strands are medium thick, which cause the wire to be medium stiff. It will hold a shape if it's bent or curled, so it will often need to be physically straightened to use its full length. I never heard it called zip cord before I joined the Forum. Speaker cord, on the other hand, has a very wide spectrum of sizes, from clear-jacketed 22 or even 24 gauge that low-end A/V shops will throw in with every pair of speakers they sell, to heavy stuff that looks like garden hose, with every variety of insulation ("No! It's called dielectric!") all the way to nothing, in the Tara Labs "vacuum-insulated" wires that are priced well north of $10,000 for a pair of short ones. Sorry, they're interconnects, not speaker cables. They were called The Zero, but sure enough, a magazine tested those wires and the jackets didn't contain vacuum. They didn't contain nothing, they had some air in them. Tara Labs' explanation was that it's not hard vacuum, like you find in space, it's very thin air, like you'd find at the top of a very tall mountain, like 12,000 feet high. Here's the link to the Stereophile test. About the bottom of Page 2, you'll see the comment about how the air at 12,000 feet is not even close to a vacuum. https://www.stereophile.com/cables/1206tara/index.html

Karma Kable! Very fine-stranded copper conductors, individually tinned to eliminate corrosion and reduce skin effect. I use 8 gauge for the woofers and 10 gauge for the tweeters. There's also a thick clear sheath over the two insulated conductors.

Yes, that’s the rule of thumb on the Forum: If the speakers fit through the door, they’re not too big. Of course, nearly all of the Klipsch Pro speakers are less than 24” deep, in order to fit behind movie screens.

In regards to your muscle car analogue, let's leap past it to super cars, like the top Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Koenigseggs, and of course Bugattis. How many of those cars actually make it to a race track? I think the answer would be less than 10%. Does this mean that more than 90% of super car owners are wasting or misusing their cars? I don't think so. They drive them around happily, enjoying the fine handling, braking, and occasionally, the amazing acceleration. Just as you don't have to drive a Bugatti at 350 km/hr (218 mph) on a track or on an autobahn to enjoy using it, MMurg doesn't have to run his Jubilees up to deafening levels to truly enjoy them. Most roads are not autobahns, and most living rooms aren't auditoriums, and yet people can still really enjoy their gear. When Roy says that "The smaller the room, the bigger the horn that's needed.", it's more than an opinion. It's actual knowledge, from a well-trained and very experienced engineer. And for what it's worth, it's backed up by the opinions of us humble owners of these big horns. I hope that wasn't too 'negative'. We all have our opinions, and we all make compromises, every one of us. Some of us may say that someone has compromised his system and its sound by using undersized speaker wire. (Uh-Oh! Be Alert For Incoming Flames!). However, not many of us say that someone has compromised his dream system by having an undersized house. Can you see the difference? For what it's worth, my JubScalas are about 12 feet apart, and I sit roughly 12 feet from them. My reclining sofa is placed so that my head is about one-third of the distance from the back wall to the front wall. That should be ideal, but I'm sure that even so, MMurg's system sounds way better than mine.

The 510/K-69-A set will go down to around 480 Hz easily, which is where the La Scala bass bin comes in and takes care of the bass part. That’s how Roy set it up originally. I’ve got a pair or 510/K-69-A sets with custom Plexiglas bases for sale. The factory stands are meant to be screwed to the top of the speakers they’re used on. If they’re not screwed on, they tip over onto their faces. For that reason, I designed some 3/4” thick Plexiglas bases, and had them produced at a specialty Plexiglas shop. They look great! The stock black metal brackets screw onto the Plexi bases and the combo is very stable. As well, you can turn them or place them anywhere on top of the La Scala cabinets, although I’d recommend placing them at the front, so that the time alignment created by the Dx-38 is preserved. You can aim them in whichever direction you like, although PWK’s newsletter, The Dope From Hope, recommends aiming them at the opposite corners of the room. Aiming them like that gives the widest possible sweet spot, with the stereo effect being produced in the largest area of the room. Meanwhile, the much larger bass cabinets are not as critical in regards to where they’re aimed. This means that they don’t have to be aimed at the same radical angle as the tweeters, so they can take up the least amount of floor space. As Coytee says, once you have the pieces, it’s just a matter of connecting them and plugging the correct settings into the Dx. There’s no need for any further tweaking, unless you want to chase the last possible 2% of sound quality, I was happy with the original settings. It was the first time for me to set a device like that, but once I got started and saw the logic of it, it took me only about 20 minutes or so. Some guys use a computer program to do it, and they say it’s simpler, but that was too advanced for me. Coytee knows easily twice as much as me, but as he says, it’s pretty straightforward. Once you punch in the settings, you’re good to go. If you update/upgrade years later, as I did, you just update the Dx38 settings. Unlike with a passive crosssover, you don“t have to buy any new parts. As for amplifiers, keep in mind that you just need 4 channels of high-quality sound. That can come from 4 monoblocks, 2 stereo amps (the most popular choice) or one 4-channel amp. If you already have a high-quality stereo power amp, which I had, you just need to get a second matching one. Keep in mind that this is a high-end speaker set up. Cheaping out in any way or with any component (like with lower end power amps) defeats the purpose of what you’re trying to do. Also, using matching power amps simplifies things. The gain for bass and treble is equal, so you have no matching issues, and the sound is consistent, from deepest bass to highest treble. Almost forgot: the Electro-Voice (E-V) Dx38 digital sound processor is a pro sound unit. This means a couple of things. First, that it’s a high-performance and heavy-duty unit, and second, that it uses a different signal voltage from home audio gear. The simple solution to this is to add an ART CLEANBox Pro, which is widely available and costs only $90, plus the price of two short XLR cables. That’s the basics. Just ask if you need any of it clarified.

Those platforms really do look fine. However (you’re probably thinking, “Here we go!” at this point), depending on the feet that come with the AL5s, you might need to add something. I don’t know which feet they come with, the traditional steel “button” feet, or rubber feet. With rubber feet, you should be fine, but with the steel buttons, the speakers might creep around it you play them at fairly high volume for a while. On the other hand, they’re heavy enough to press the steel button feet into the wood, so the resulting dimples in the wood of the bases should keep the speakers located where they belong. I was surprised to see the L-brackets. I may be wrong, but I had the impression that the HF stands on the UG Jubilees had hinges at the front, so that they could easily be tilted to whichever angle the particular installation called for. However, it could be that 99% of the buyers of Heritage Jubilees will never do much tweaking of them, especially not to the level of precision that you’re working with, so the simple strap/L-bracket makes good acoustic and economic sense in almost every instance. The used K402s that I bought came with homemade stands made of plywood. During installation, I checked and found that a 7 degree forward tilt would line up the horns with my ear level at the MLP. Each homemade stand consisted of an upright post, secured to a small base, around 4”x4”, with no front parts. I got some 2’x2’x2” Styrofoam, which would be covered in black once the last cut was made. Once I noticed that the Right 402 horn would not clear the adjacent cabinet by 1-1/2”, the simple solution was to add a second slab of 2” thick Styrofoam, and the Left speaker got it, too, for the sake of symmetry. The stands/bases were rigid enough for the job, while still being light and easy to move. For the fronts of the 402 stands, I used what I call steel strapping. It looks similar to the Klipsch L-brackets, but is a bit narrower and has 3/8” holes along its length, roughly every inch or so. It’s typically used for making lightweight brackets. Since I already knew the angle of bend that was needed, it was easy to bend each bracket to precisely 7 degrees, after cutting them to the correct length. When everything was assembled, it looked pretty good, with the bases covered in black material. The bases are light but rigid. In the case of your Jubilees, I can see how you’d hesitate to bend the Klipsch L-brackets, but the material I referred to is readily available at most hardware or automotive supply shops. You could get some of that, cut it to whatever length you need, and then bend it it to whatever angle you need. You could even make up some extras in various bends, say 5, 6, and 7 degrees, for dialling in the angle if something else changes. The strapping is often galvanized, but you might prefer to paint it black, flat or glossy finish, or the stock battleship grey. You weren’t kidding about the minimal clearance at the fronts of the HF sections. However (last time I’ll use that word), with the care that you’re taking, you should be okay. Move carefully, assume nothing. Even so, sometimes it’s good to remember (in the case of speakers, motorbikes, cars, boats, and so on) that they’re only new the first day. As I wished for you before, happy listening, and keep us up to date!

I wonder why he sold the AL5s after such a short time? If it’s the person I recall, he seemed pretty happy with them.

This should probably be in Alerts!, but since most readers of this thread will be La Scala/LS2 owners, I thought I’d mention that on the US Audio Mart page for “Klipsch la scala”, there is a pair of custom smoked glass tops for La Scala II/AL5 for sale in Kentucky for only $25, pickup only. I have no affiliation, of course. They should fit original La Scalas too, but they might stick out about an inch at the back, since the new models of the La Scala are about an inch deeper. There are no measurements provided, so I’m making some assumptions. The actual measurements should probably be confirmed.