Islander

I'm using a Paradigm PW-2100 with two La Scala mains, a Heresy II center and Heresy II surrounds. It has plenty of power and goes more than low enough. It's also not too big or heavy. The price is around $900CAD. The listening room is about 5.9m x 6.2m, plus it opens out to the hallway and dining room.

Auto is the usual setting. The sub will turn its amp on when it senses a signal and turn it off after a few minutes if it doesn't sense a signal (My Yamaha subs turn off after 7 minutes, the Paradigm after 17 minutes. Not important either way.). It's just a convenience so you have one less thing to think about when you want to hear some music.

The Bible also recommends Guiness, as in "Those who ain't with us is a Guiness!". Maybe that's the hillbilly Bible...

Top notch! Nice car, jb! Smart way to buy it, too.

Wasn't there a John Waters movie that had a primitive form of Smell-O-Vision? The audience members were given scratch-n-sniff cards with a number of scents and at certain points in the movie there were on-screen prompts to indicate which part of the cards to scratch. I think it was the only movie ever tried with that.

For some of those reasons, Paradigm publishes anechoic and in-room sensitivity numbers, eg. "sensitivity 89dB (91dB in-room)". Of course, Paradigm's room and your room are probably not identical-looking or identical-sounding. Since all the manufacturers seem to measure their speakers differently, it really seems like you have to hear them for yourself, or listen to reviews from people who have spent some time listening to the speakers in question.

Makes sensible people do senseless things...

So are you selling them or just wondering what they're worth? If you post the serial numbers or the crossover type, someone may be able to tell you what year they were built. There are lots of La Scala fans on this forum.

I bought a couple of 2-3-year-old Ontario Provincial Police (like State Troopers) cruisers at the monthly auction and was really happy with them. A 2-year-old heavy duty car with only 80,000 miles on it for $3000? Sold! The Impala lasted me 8 years and the Caprice (5.7L, fuel injected, 4-speed auto, bucket seats) served me for 3 years, until I got injured and needed a modified van. I had the Impala re-painted in civilian colours (black and iridescent silver blue in the stock pattern) and the Caprice was white, so that was okay. Those B-bodies may look like big iron, but they're half a ton lighter than my modified Dodge Grand Caravan, and come with much larger brakes. They're fast, fun and hard to break. The handling is really dialed in too, with the heavy-gauge frame and big sway bars and all that good stuff. It gets even better when you fit some V-rated Bridgestones. The parts cost very little as well. $17 brake calipers and $70 rebuilt alternators, for example (those are mid-'90s prices). Driving cheap (but fast) cars like that freed up money to buy sportbikes and audio stuff, plus make mortgage payments, so I've been mortgage-free for years. As a bonus, when you get pulled over for driving enthusiastically, you're not seen as a hot-rodder or the like, as used to happen when I drove a Corvette back in the '70s, so you don't start the discussion at a disadvantage.

Audis are well-built cars and fun to drive, but the parts are really pricy by North American standards. If you plan to sell it before the mileage gets too high, that won't be a factor, of course.

Sometimes you can even hear which musicians are sitting down and which are standing up. I don't know how that works, but with some recordings on some systems, it does. As for forward and back, the quieter sound will usually seem to be farther away. It's an indication that you have a good system when you can hear the softer sounds as well as the louder sounds at the same time, even when they seem to come from the same place.

Too expensive? You may say that today, but if you hang around here for a while, you may reach a point where'll you'll wonder if it makes more sense to put off replacing your old car or furniture for a couple more years, because this pair of speakers you just spotted are such a great deal. "Hmm, do I really need to buy more shoes this year?", she asked herself...

One day? Get on the case, girl! The horn itself can't really blow out. If the woofer inside the horn isn't working, it could be something as simple as a bad connection. In the worst case, a dead woofer, they're not that expensive to replace. A Klipschorn is a magnificent speaker. Fix that Klipschorn and find a mate for it and you'll be miles beyond any Quintet system. If your receiver is dead, you can get a new AV receiver for $300 or so, and a used one for even less. You'll need a 5.1 receiver, but a 6.1 or 7.1 receiver would be fine, too. Post a picture of your corner speaker if you can. If I'm not mistaken and it actually is a Klipschorn, you can get lots of advice about how to get it working again.

With your speaker spacing, the degree of toe-in will be a compromise. As you toe them in more, the sound will improve, but you'll reach a point where the sweet spot will only be as wide as your head, meaning any head movement will cause the sound to be obviously coming from one speaker or the other. If you often listen with your wife, you'll want to go with a bit less toe-in than that. The laser pointer is a big help, but if you put it on the center of the speaker, it's hard to be sure it's pointing exactly the way the speaker's pointing, so it can be easier to place it on one side of the speaker, then on the other side, so you can see the straight-ahead coverage area and the center will be easy to spot. Toe-in is easy to experiment with, so try a few settings and listen to them for a while. There's no ultimate or absolute. See what sounds best to you. You might also want to move your speakers ahead a few inches so they can "see" each other past the TV and entertainment center. Having all that stuff between the speakers can cause some reflection issues, so it's better if it's back a little.

Many retailers over here like to promise "We won't be undersold!" It could be worth asking the distributor if they could try to match Klipsch.com's prices, plus shipping, of course. Would that cause a problem for Klipsch headquarters, Amy?

Getting back to the JubScala project, I picked up the second amp a few weeks ago, the Dx38 arrived 10 days ago and the K510/K-69A horn/tweeter combos are in transit. If all goes according to plan, I'll be listening to JubScalas next weekend! And to think this all started last month when a guy offered me a lightly used power amp to match the one I'm already using. "What do I need a second amp for? Backup in case the first one fails? No, I'm not worried about that. Hmm, he used a pair of them to bi-amp his B&Ws. Maybe I could bi-amp my La Scalas..."

No respect? Guitar Player (or it might have been another guitar magazine) devoted most of an issue to Billy Gibbons a few months ago. He's an interesting chap, with a lot more to him than you might expect. And yes, the man can play!

Not to worry, Heresies come up for sale pretty often. I understand that Klipsch made lots of them.

People might think I'm already in favour of this stuff, so I'll leave to someone who's considered unbiased. Maybe mas has some time on his hands...

Then there's Pac-Man performed live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UhPNUxqaOU

If you already have the sub, try it with the La Scalas and judge for yourself how good they sound together. The room is always a factor, so it would be hard for anyone to guarantee that their suggestion would be the best for your system, your room and your ears.

Although Peter Belt and Machina Dynamica may appear similar in that they both sell apparently overpriced stuff that should not do what it's claimed to do, there are a couple of important differences. First, Peter Belt's theories may seem ludicrous, but at least he offers some theories, as opposed to Machina Dynamica, who seem to rely on magic. Second, he tells you that you can make or perform most of his devices and procedures at home, without paying him anything. Isn't the test of a scientific theory not how plausible it sounds or how well it agrees with accepted theories, but whether the experimental results that it predicts can be replicated by other researchers. If it works for people other than the one who discovered it, it may well be valid, whether or not it can be fully explained at this point. To prove or disprove Peter Belt's theories, it seems like the most expensive item would be the Staedtler red marker, since most people have sheets of paper, aluminum foil and aspirin tablets already on hand. Does anyone have the time and interest to actually try some of his ideas before deciding how ridiculous they are? His site even suggested having an uninformed listener try to spot any improvement. That would seem to eliminate placebo effect. Who knows, maybe he has discovered something new.

stan asked: Are you satisfied with the Lascalas for reproducing the full orchestra or are the Jubs worth the extra cash for my listening needs? Based on what I've been reading on the forum, the sound of the LS IIs compared with the Jubilees might be described as "excellent" compared with "magical". If you've got the money and the room, the Jubilees should be the obvious choice.

I'm no speaker designer, but doesn't it make sense when building a pair of speakers that they should be identical twins? That means a 13 and a 16 in each, otherwise you'd have to design a different crossover for each speaker to try to make them sound alike and I don't know if even that would make the two speakers sound exactly alike.

Most of those cable size recommendations will work, especially with highly compressed music, but if the music has lots of dynamics, there will be times when much more power is being transmitted, even if only momentarily. It takes somewhat larger cable to pass the higher current those transients demand, so I don't think any serious system should use less than 14 or 12 gauge cable. You can hear the difference.