Islander

$56,000 in Canadian dollars. I think they’ll definitely sell some Heritage Jubilees. Once the price gets into that range, $10,000 one way or the other isn’t a dealbreaker. The Jubilee buyers likely make more than the buyers of Palladiums, but maybe not. There’s likely a certain amount of overlap between the two groups of buyers. The size and price of the Jubilees make them a prestige item, as well as being very high performance loudspeakers. I remember reading that part of the reason for the Palladiums was that in certain rich markets the strike against the Klipschorn was not anything performance-related. The issue for some buyers was that they didn’t cost enough, if you can imagine that. In some circles, admitting how little you paid for your great speakers could be embarrassing, so the beautifully finished and very good-sounding Palladiums were just the ticket for those buyers. Now the Jubilees are here, and they make a statement! For some people, they might be just what the accountant ordered, lol.

Electrons aren't the only thing that flows downhill. Ask any plumber...

P-39Fs up front and P-37Fs to the sides would make for a great surround system...

Pretty amazing stuff! I wonder how much power it was using? The giant tubes/valves were a good touch. I’m guessing they light up during performances.

I used Dynamat on my La Scalas’ K400 squawker horns. It was easy to work with and looks shiny.

I have a sort of similar setup, and it can’t be beat for convenience. The front Centre, rear Centre, and side Surround speakers are powered by the Yamaha RX-A2060. The two Paradigm subs are connected to the Subwoofer Outs on the receiver as well. The Main Left and Right speakers, however, are different. They’re modded and bi-amped La Scala IIs. The signal goes from the Pre Outs on the receiver to an ART CLEANBoxPro, which corrects the receiver’s RCA connections to the XLR connections of the Electro-Voice Dx38 processor. The CLEANBox also corrects the voltage difference between the home audio voltage and the pro sound voltage used by the processor. The processor does all the functions of the crossovers in the speakers, plus something they can’t do: it time-aligns the tweeters and woofers. The signal goes from the processor to the amplifiers, one for the woofers and one for the tweeters, with no capacitors or transformers in the signal path, and from the power amps right to the drivers. The result is clean and clear sound, with very low harmonic distortion due to each amplifier only covering part of the frequency range. The amps are very quiet, but thanks to the CLEANbox, there’s no hiss at all, in spite of the extremely sensitive speakers. For the very best sound, I use just the Main Left and Right speakers, for TV and movies I use all 6 speakers in Surround mode, and sometimes, mostly late at night, 9 Channel Stereo is just right.

That’s different. Maybe the fact that those passenger cars are lighter than the typical all-weather passenger cars is a factor. I’ve never seen a setup where anyone other than the engineer had control over the brakes. If that were a normal scheduled passenger service, with the usual stainless steel cars, with heating and maybe A/C, plus food service from a kitchen car, and every worker earning union wages, the company would be doing their best to eliminate every “extra” job they could, since it would cut into their profits. As for safety, railways are not like airlines. Railways operate on the ragged edge between safe and profitable, so the occasional breakdown is tolerated. In 1985, I took the train from Toronto to Winnipeg and back by Via Rail, a distance of 2,032 km (1263 miles) each way. Via is CN’s passenger service. On the return trip, we were many hours late, but that was treated as routine. “Delays R Us” seemed to be their motto. Last year, a friend of mine took a long train ride in central Canada on Via. The train ran at 100 mph (161 km/hr), and there were very few delays. Maybe things have improved in the last 4 decades. It was long overdue.

Yes, railways were pretty dangerous before Westinghouse invented air brakes for them. However, trains still take an awfully long time to stop, because the brakes are applied on each car sequentially. The engineer applies the train brake, which causes the pressure in the brake pipe (the hose running between cars, all the way to the last car) to reduce. The brakes apply in the first car, which operates a relay valve, which lowers the brake pipe pressure behind it, and the second car’s brakes go on, and so on, until eventually every car has its brakes applied. If it only takes a few seconds for the brakes on a car to apply its brakes and then “pass on the signal” to the next car, it could take a minute or more before every car finally has its brakes applied, resulting in a very long stopping distance. The locomotive has its own brakes, which apply almost instantly, but the locomotive alone can’t stop the train in any reasonable distance, because the weight of all the cars will push it. If the loco is in a curve, it could get pushed off the track. It’s more stable if the loco is pulling a bit, so the locomotive brake is applied lightly when slowing or stopping a train. Being the engineer in charge of a train looks simple, but it’s a big responsibility, which is why few road engineers are under fifty years of age. First, they serve their time moving units around the yard and in and out of the shops, gaining lots of experience, before they’re entrusted with the control of a train.

Well, that's different. Those vertical pistons make for a really different design. Seeing all the exposed gears makes me wonder about how they're kept lubricated, since the grease would tend to be thrown off fairly quickly. Even so, it must have been successful, or it wouldn't still be running.

The way some steam engines get different "gearing" is to use different drive wheels. The pivot on the wheel where the crank bar (I don't know its actual name. I mean the bar that attaches to the drive wheel and drives it.) attaches is further from the centre of the wheel. This gives the wheel a better mechanical advantage, increasing the pulling power, or tractive effort available, using the railway term. Of course, nothing mechanical is free, so the increased torque comes at the expense of speed. The "Mountain Type" locos have great pulling power, but their top speeds are lower as a result.

I noticed the same thing with the Shure M97xE cartridge. Scratchy records were less scratchy, and good records were pretty much silent. Online reviews mention this, too. I don't know whether the stylus rides higher or lower than the level in the groove where the scratches are most noticeable, but the difference between the M97 and other cartridges that I've used was very obvious. Sometimes I'd have a friend over, and would tell them that we were listening to a CD, just to see the look on their face when I got up to flip the LP over. Another thing is the groove sound in the runout part. It's just a faint "tick... tick... tick...". On a few records, it's almost inaudible, which is in stark contrast with the loud noises I'd get from the horrible portable record players we used when I was a teenager. I'm really happy with the M97, as it's quite pleasant to listen to. I've read that an MC cartridge would give me a big improvement in the sound, but for the once a week or so that I spin an LP, the M97xE is just right for me. As well, I bought a couple of styli while they were still available, so I should be good for years of enjoying it.

The electric motors on each axle are geared for each application. There's a smaller gear on the output shaft of the motor, and a much larger gear on the axle. The axle is clamped onto the motor, and a large steel or fibreglass gear case covers the gears and holds the heavy grease that's used to lubricate the gears. The electric motors weigh 2-1/2 tons, while the axle (with wheels and big ring gear) weighs 1-1/2 tons, so a motor and wheel assembly weighs 4 tons. Some locomotives have 4 axles and some have 6 axles. All axles are driven, but the engines are the same for both types/sizes of locomotive. The reason some locos have 6 axles and motors is for extra traction. The motor and ring gear add around 3 tons each, but the trucks (the sub-assemblies that hold the motors and wheels, and swivel to let the loco go around curves) are also much heavier, as is the longer frame, which makes the locomotive longer. A 6-wheeler is many tons heavier than a 4-wheel locomotive. With a 3,000 hp engine, a 4-axle puts out 750 hp per axle, while a 6-axle loco puts out 500 hp per axle. Just like with a car or other vehicle, the important thing is to get the power to the ground, or the track in this case. When I worked for CN Rail in the 1980s, there were two basic speeds: 75 mph for passenger trains and 65 mph for freight trains, so that was two choices of gear sets, which would allow the motors to run at their best rpm at their operating/cruise speed. Now the passenger trains run at 100 mph, so the gear ratios will be different. If a train is being used on steep grades (very few steep hills around Toronto) or at high altitudes, the gearing would be lower, just as it is with some cars and trucks sold in places like Utah or Montana.

In many big cities, you're never far from a highway or expressway, and the sound is always audible, even if it's barely noticeable. That faint hum/hiss of tires is a constant background sound. Another constant background sound is that of locomotive engines, especially in cities with heavy trains coming and going all the time. The commuter trains are short, so they're relatively light, and accelerate to cruising speed fairly quickly, but they don't want to have their passengers clutching the nearest support when the train reaches clear track and opens up, so they don't always use full throttle. The freight trains are different. They're very heavy, so they take a long pull at full throttle to get up to speed. Depending on where you are in the city, you can be near or far from a track, but the bass notes carry, just like a fog horn's carefully chosen bass notes carry, so you can usually hear those big engines working hard, even at some distance. To most city dwellers, that's just part of the background city sounds, like a hiker is used to the sound of the wind in the trees. The difference is that most city residents don't know what that faint sound is. If you're in a quiet place, like a lakeshore park (Toronto has lots of those on the shore of Lake Ontario), and you listen carefully, you can soon pick it out, and you can usually get the other person to pick it out too, which sometimes surprises them. "That's what that is? I can hear it all the time." is a typical response. Locomotive engines don't have mufflers. They're nearly all turbocharged, and the big turbos, around the size of a big armchair, absorb some of the energy of the engine's exhaust, in the forms of heat, pressure, and noise, in order to compress the intake air, which makes them much more efficient. This cuts down on noise, plus the fact that the engines are V-12s and V-16s causes the exhaust pulses to blend to some degree. The whistling of the turbo itself does not carry far, like most high frequency sounds. Here on Vancouver Island, things are different. There's no rail service, so no train sounds, and no highway with a speed above 90 km/hr (55 mph) until you drive North for about 90 minutes and get North of Nanaimo. Then the speed limit is 120 km/hr (75 mph), but that area's very rural, so the traffic is usually very light. There are few people there to hear the faint noise.

It should appear at the far right of your post, maybe near the bottom. It looks like a small grey circle with a white heart in it.

Roger was his name? Yes, he was a real contributor to the Forum. He’ll be missed by many of us. And those speakers are beautiful! They’ll really be something to remember him by for years to come.

Thanks for that info. Trey seems to pop in sometimes, too. I wonder whether the positions were eliminated, or are vacant? We do seem to need some mods. Not that I'm volunteering, mind.

I'm not sure if this is too off topic, but what happened to the volunteer (non-Klipsch) moderators, like Carl and dtel? Mallette is no longer with us, but did the other two quit, or were they told they were no longer needed? dwilawyer is still on the Forum, I think, or is he gone, too? Things seemed to work well when there were more hands available to keep the Forum running right.

Electrical damping factor is very different from mechanical damping, and affects how the amplifier is able to control the drivers, mainly the woofer. Wikipedia should have a good in-depth explanation of it. As for adding resistors, I’d wait and do a bit more research first, plus there will likely be some comments from members who are very familiar with Cornwalls and their variants. It looks like you have much of the hardware to make good-sounding speakers. It will be interesting to see how you make out with them. Also, welcome to the Forum!

Have a look at that second sentence. There don’t seem to have been any focus groups to decide what Roy calls himself, so your suspicion (what you suspect) is based on nothing. Or are you guessing what a possible focus group assembled for this purpose would conclude? What other “market related data” are you referring to? Also, do you speak for “the educated Klipsch buyer”? Your post sets new marks for misconceptions per line.

Normally, transformers are parts of a crossover, and there are also some capacitors. Try to get some pictures showing the crossovers from all sides. A picture of the midrange horn and driver, plus pix of the tweeters, would be helpful. Does the tone control really have a ‘Cardboard’ setting, or were you joking? BTW, when you see a single Tone control, all it does is roll off the treble, or maybe the mids and treble in this case. Some people think it turns up the bass, but that’s almost never the case; the bass just sounds louder when everything else is turned down.

Merci, mon ami!

What Roy chose for his own Forum handle "may not be suitable", even though he thinks it’s okay? "It’s that simple?" Do you heckle comedians, too? This is not a co-op. We don’t get a vote on these things. Changes? Err, what other changes? What did you have in mind for the company?

Chief bonehead was Roy’s disguise name, but unfortunately, the person behind the name was revealed by others fairly quickly. Then it became an in-joke among the few who knew, then the few became many, and now here we are. Logic would suggest an innocuous name, if Roy wanted to regain the anonymity that he originally had with his current Forum handle. It was not used as a representative of the Company, not at first anyway. At least, that’s how I understand it. At present, Roy maintains a relatively low profile on here, because his full-time job is designing and refining speakers. He pops in here during his free time, which should be seen as very generous of him, but so far we have one member suggesting that Roy spend much more time on the Forum in order to share what he knows, and now we have another member suggesting that he change his Forum handle to something more befitting a person in his position. If Klipsch were to assign an information officer to the Forum, maybe then the first member would get the info he’d like, and the second member could choose the officer’s handle, but I suspect that neither member would be satisfied, because they want the real thing from the real guy. Sometimes we don’t get what we want, we get what’s provided, and should be satisfied with that. Any long-time member or lurker has had time to see how the Forum operates, and how sometimes it doesn’t take much to mess it up. Let’s remember that we’re all guests on Klipsch’s Forum, and act accordingly.

Claude, I’m glad you agree, but it appears that some parts I typed may have been ambiguous. When I typed “superior circuit design”, I didn’t just mean the layout of the wires, I meant all the bits that are part of the design, including the carefully selected better quality parts, the ICs and transistors among others. No matter; it appears that we agree that modern amplifiers and some other components tend to outperform earlier versions of these units, as designers and engineers learn more and have access to better parts.

In the case of the La Scala II, the stiffer 1” MDF cabinets do reduce resonances and do improve the bass response, even if they still don’t sound like solid blocks of wood when you knock on them.