Islander

When I put the CT125s in my La Scalas, I was really impressed with the improvement in realism and clarity. I also liked that the output of the two tweeters was within 0.5dB, instead of 2-3dB, as it was with the K-77s. I wouldn't go back. Actually, I went forward, with the JubScala conversion, but that came over a year later.

Fantastic Four, the first one especially, was pretty true to the comic, and was a good movie, as well.

salavat, you can see that modding speakers is very popular on this forum, but almost everyone who inquires about mods is given the same advice: listen first to what you have. Klipsch speakers don't always respond to modifications the way other speakers do. More expensive parts sometimes degrade the performance. Listening to your speakers before considering any mods is not a waste of time. Spend a month or two getting used to the sound of your new Heresy IIIs, then consider making changes if you feel the need. If you don't know what you have, how can you know if you've improved it?

I'm not an expert, but would five 15 ohm speakers in parallel give you 3 ohms? That would be driven off one channel. A multi-channel amp would have no problem.

For wandering around the house, rather than critical listening, mono might actually be preferable to stereo. No thinking about sweet spots or soundstaging, just enjoy the music. I'd be inclined to restore all the speakers and put the "whole-house" system back into operation, powering it with a recent-model AV receiver if necessary. That would drive all 5 speakers with no impedance issues.

Is there any way you could try the Krells or Macs without buying? As other posters have mentioned, you'd likely get more of a change in flavour than a change in quality. Another way to go would be to bi-amp your Cornwalls. You already have two amps, so you'd just need an electronic crossover. The EV Dx38 is around $1500 new or $700-800 used and is ideal for this job, with the added feature of built-in adjustable time delay units, so you could time-align the woofer with the HF section at the push of a button.

Have you actually heard a pair of Heresy IIIs? A change is not always an improvement. Some people tried replacing the "inexpensive" woofers in La Scalas, only to find the expensive "upgrade" woofers didn't sound as good, because the speakers were engineered to sound their best with the parts they're sold with. Addressing a perceived deficiency is one thing, but assuming different parts will make an improvement over a 3rd-generation design is just that, an assumption. Have you perceived any deficiencies in the sound of the Heresy IIIs?

Installing CT125s doesn't call for any crossover changes. It certainly didn't in the case of my La Scalas.

When I replaced the old K-77s in my La Scalas with a pair of Bob's CT125s, the improvement in clarity was immediate and obvious. I'd recommend them to anyone with LS or Khorn or Belle speakers.

Getting a much better outboard amp will make a very noticeable difference, but getting a slightly better amp will only improve the sound slightly and would hardly be worthwhile. It might be better to save up for a pretty serious upgrade that will thrill you for years, instead of spending money for something that won't seem so special after a little while.

Audio scaling is not like cooking scaling, like "twice as many people eating calls for twice as many potatoes". Since the sound waves don't scale up, the calculations used to design the original-size speaker will no longer be correct. A forum member built a scaled-down La Scala a while back and it took quite a bit of tweaking to make it sound good. It used a smaller woofer and all the measurements were 80% of the regular size. He succeeded in the end, but it was much more complicated than he had anticipated. There was quite a bit of discussion and interest in his project, but I wasn't able to track down the thread when I searched for it a few minutes ago. Perhaps someone else can find the link. The completed speakers were quite good-looking and got a lot of favourable comments.

I've been using a pair of Tripp Lite surge protectors for a couple of years, an Isobar Ultra 6 for the power amps and sub and an Isobar Ultra 8 for the rest of the components. They appear to be very well-made, with metal cases, and I noticed an immediate improvement in the TV picture, in that the blacks were blacker, possibly from noise being filtered out. The idea of separate filter banks appealed to me as well, so the digital components, like the DVD/CD player, wouldn't pass their digital noise to the other units, and the Class D amps would keep their noise to themselves as well.

Hmm, double post. Now I look silly. The forum still has some quirks...

Yeah, I wondered about that. You can always edit your post and hope no-one saw yer spelin misstayk.

Just speaking for myself, most of what I know of hi-fi has been learned on this forum, although I thought I knew a fair bit before. Stick around and see how much more you can soak up. [8-|][H][Y][]

$1.10 a liter? Lucky you! It's been over $1.30 a liter here lately. Vancouver Island has the priciest gas in Canada at the moment.

Sure, baggy jeans look funny, but if you have to get dressed in a hurry, watch and learn:

Why do you prefer used (possibly needing diaphragm replacement) over new, if new drivers are within your budget? Anyway, lots of options here: http://www.usspeaker.com/homepage.htm Just click on "H.F. Drivers" at the left and you'll see a long list from many manufacturers, with frequency ranges and prices.

Although your amp may be able to produce 380Wpc, it's likely that it's usually putting out only a few watts to produce fairly loud sound. If you use some common sense and don't try to "turn it to 11" or see how loud it can go, you should be okay. All that power is useful as headroom, to realistically reproduce musical peaks, but 99% of the time the amp will be running near idle when driving Klipsch speakers.

Here's a drawing showing, from left to right, a 402 on a Jubilee bass bin, on an MCM bass bin and on a La Scala bass bin, followed by a 510 horn on a La Scala bass bin:

Here's a picture showing, in the left corner, the La Scala bass bin with a 402 horn on top of it. In the right corner is a Jubilee, also with a 402 horn.

Jeff is basically right. Some AV types suggest that the speakers shouldn't be too far from the TV, since they may pull your attention away from the screen, but for music listening, an amount of separation something similar to your listening distance will sound better, with a proper-sized soundstage. I'd start with the speakers about 8 feet apart and see how that sounds. As for the width of the sweet spot, that can be adjusted a bit by how much you toe in the speakers. If you toe them in to face the listening position directly (the on-axis position), the sweet spot will be relatively narrow, but if they're toed in very little or not at all, the spot will be wider. There will also be some change in the frequency response, since the highs will be strongest on-axis and will be diminished as the speakers are less directly facing you. This can be good or bad, depending on the speakers, and can be a way to tone down overly bright speakers.

510 JubScala front view (the 510 horn is 9 inches tall and 15 inches wide, measured edge-to-edge):

510 JubScala rear 3/4 view (K-55V in cabinet is no longer connected):

There's another thing I should mention about the JubScala conversion: it's not just a tweeter upgrade. The electronic crossover smooths some lumps out of the frequency response of the LS bass bin and increases the woofer output. In my case, I was able to reduce the subwoofer output by 2.5dB. Since I have the sub crossed over at 150Hz (sounds high, but it's what works well with La Scalas), that's a few octaves that are now coming out of the LS bass bins in stereo, instead of mono from the sub connected to the LFE/sub out from the receiver. The JubScala conversion improves the LS sound from the top all the way to the bottom. The speakers now sound fairly good without the sub, something I would not have said about them in stock form. As for power handling, the K-69A tweeter is rated at 50 watts. The 510 and 402 horns are made of non-resonant composite material. If you really like the look of standard La Scalas, you'll be happy to know the 510 horns will fit inside the standard LS cabinet, to replace the 400/401 squawker and K-77 tweeter horns. When you're making the front panel, you just make a single cutout to receive the single horn instead of two cutouts for the two stock horns. If you have a router, you could make a 1/4 inch relief to accept the flange of the 510 horn, so it would be flush with the front panel, for a very tidy job. You could even add a grille to make the modification invisible. Finally, JubScalas are all Klipsch and the crossover is programmed using settings provided by Klipsch and arrived at after tests in their lab. There's no guessing around, since the project follows a proven Klipsch recipe.