Islander

Actually, having your La Scalas stick out past your entertainment center is a good thing, so that the TV and any other large object between the speakers does not affect/compromise the sound as much. Front speakers should be able to "see" each other so they can work best together.

Wouldn't that be sort of like young Elvis versus old Elvis? They didn't co-exist at the same time. Hmm, how silly is this getting? Oh, I forgot, it was silly to start with.

Mmm, twins...

And there's no "V" sound in Tagalog, so "B" is substituted, which is why one of my Filipino co-workers said to me, "What's your car? Mine is a Chebby ban."

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pauln, it's not a case of dumbing down or of anyone's ears being poor, it's a case of certain languages using certain sounds that other languages don't, so that speakers of some languages don't know how to make those sounds, nor how to recognize them. Since we all have the same vocal equipment, we can all speak any language, once we know how. For instance, "deja vu" is not pronounced "deja voo", as many English speakers say it. That sounds like "deja vous", "already you", which is sort of meaningless. "Deja vu" means "already seen". The French or Chinese "u" sound ("yu" is "fish" in Mandarin Chinese") does not exist in English, so most English speakers don't know how to make that sound. Another example is the "th" sound, which is used only in English. A French speaker (or someone whose native language is almost any one other than English) might pronounce "theater" as "tee-ater", even though they can clearly see the "th". Since there are no "L"s in Japanese (I think), "baseball" is pronounced "baseboru" by many Japanese speakers, just as "idol" comes out "idoru". The slow rolled "r" of Scottish and the fast rolled "r" of French or Spanish also seem difficult at first. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. To sum up, it's often overlooked that speaking is a physical as well as a mental skill, and if your language has never called for you to make certain sounds, you may be unable to even figure out how to make them until you are shown how.

This is easy. When you hear them spoken by the Japanese, to the American ear it sounds like "godzilla" "rodan" and "mothra." Here's what Wikipedia has to say: The name "Godzilla" is a transliteration of Gojira (???, Gojira?), a combination of two Japanese words: gorira (???, lit. "gorilla"?) and kujira (???, lit. "whale"?). At one planning stage, the concept of "Gojira" was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale," alluding to Godzilla's size, power and aquatic origin. A popular story is that "Gojira" was actually the nickname of a hulking stagehand at Toho Studio.[6] The story has not been verified, however, because in the more than 50 years since the film's original release, no one claiming to be the employee has ever stepped forward, and no photographs of him have ever surfaced. There is disagreement as to exactly how the creature's name should be pronounced. While purists tend to use the Japanese pronunciation [god??ira] listen (help·info), most favor the anglicanized rendering of its name, [g?d'z?l?] (with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god", and the rest rhyming with "chinchilla" or "scrilla"). Back in the 1950s when Godzilla was createdand Japanese-to-English transliteration was less sophisticatedit is likely that the kana representing the second syllable was misinterpreted as being pronounced [dzi].[citation needed] Had the more conventional Hepburn romanization system been used, Godzilla's name would instead have been rendered as "Gojira"

For any speaker cable runs over thirty feet, I wouldn't go with any smaller wire size than 12 gauge.

Heresies, like all Klipsch Heritage speakers, are very easy to drive and should sound fine with your Marantz. Of course, if you have the room and the budget, you'll want to think about some La Scalas at some point. They're even easier to drive than Heresies!

Don't high-end amps usually sound their best either on the floor or on something equally solid?

Remember Hipgnosis? They designed many of the most interesting album covers.

It could be worth seeing how the Scalas sound with the fronts raised, but in my room the sound became quite harsh when I raised the fronts 2 inches. After a day I put them flat on the floor again. In my listening position, my ears are about level with the tweeters, if that's any help. Perhaps Custom Audio set up the speakers to sound best to customers who were standing while listening. Slainte to you too, Hamish!

Most speaker manufacturers today recommend that the amplifier power is higher than the speaker rating so the amp is working in its clean operating range. A low-powered amp will be more likely to be driven into clipping if you run the volume really high, and clipping can really damage speakers.

I'm no expert, but shouldn't the mic usually be on-axis with the squawker, unless you're testing/voicing the speaker for a listener who's lying on the floor? The purpose of putting the mic on the ground is to keep any ground reflections from affecting the frequency response. If you're far enough way, you're inside the main lobe of all the drivers so it's not really an issue. The difference between the ground and 15 inches off the ground at 15 feet away is like 3/4" (pythagorean). The wavelength of 700Hz is 19 inches, which is huge compared to 3/4". Basically it shouldn't cause any noticeable phase cancellation. If we put the mic 15" off the ground, we would see a big dip in the response around 230Hz (1/4 wave boundary cancellation). If we wanted to get a more accurate "on-axis" response, it would be easier to tilt the speaker forward. But at 15 feet that's only a few degrees. That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up, Mike.

I'm no expert, but shouldn't the mic usually be on-axis with the squawker, unless you're testing/voicing the speaker for a listener who's lying on the floor?

The extra 20 watts of power may not be all that noticeable, but going from .7% THD to .04% THD should be very obvious, plus you'd be going from 6.1 to 7.1. I'd call it a worthwhile upgrade. For prices, you could check Canuck Audio Mart at http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/search.php?submit=1&keywords=Yamaha

Most A/V receiver manuals recommend placing the surround speakers about six feet above the floor. Makes sense, since a lot of what they'll be asked to reproduce will be "fly-over" effects, echoes, thunder, applause, etc., all of which logically originate well above floor level. Besides, if your Heresies are on the floor, most of their sound will be aimed at the back of the sofa. As for 5.1 versus 7.1, I'd say it depends on your layout and listening position. If you're relatively close to your back wall, 5.1 is all you need. If there's more than 6 to 8 feet of room behind you, it could make sense to consider adding rear surround speakers. I'm using a pair of La Scalas as fronts, a Paradigm CC-370 as a center (but I'd like to eventually replace it with a single Scala or Belle) and a pair of Heresy IIs as surrounds. They're a really good timbre match for the Scalas and the two Heresies were an immediate improvement over the four smaller speakers I had been using. The Heresy IIs are a similar distance from the listening position, but one is upright about 5 feet above the floor on a wooden box, while the other one is upright on a 6 foot tall bookcase, because that's the most straightforward setup in my room at present. I'm dubious about wall-mounting a 37-pound speaker and I haven't seen any 6 foot tall speaker stands. The ceiling is 8 feet high. I originally had the Heresies pointing almost straight forward, but when I toed them in at 40-45 degrees, the midrange and highs became much clearer and the volume went up around 2 dB, making it easier to match levels with the front speakers. The sound is quite good now. If your room dictates that your rear speakers can't be more than 6 feet apart, they should still sound pretty good.

Did he sell you a t-shirt, cap and coffee mug too? []

Have you heard Toccata and Fugue by Vanessa Mae? It's on her CD The Violin Player. There are many videos of her performing it, but this one is my favourite so far:

Nice turntable, Max! Is that a Clearaudio? I thought they were somewhat different from that.

You have a 30' x 30' bedroom? And you like to play loud? I'd guess 100 watts per channel would be a good starting point. La Scalas make plenty of volume without a lot of amplifier power, but you want plenty of headroom so the amp's not working too hard. Heritage speakers like Scalas are very revealing, both of what's in the music and what sort of noise your components are feeding them. A clean-sounding amp is more important than a powerful one, but power doesn't hurt. As for the year, check the label. If they're pretty old, it may be faded and hard to read, so look for some numbers and letters stamped into the top edge of the back panel near the crossover. You can check it out on this list: http://www.progressive-engineering.com/klipsch/klipsch_date_codes.htm

I just measured the PlatterMatter and found it to be 4.35mm thick. When I was setting up the suspension last year, I wasn't sure how to measure the VTA, so I followed the advice of the shop that installed the cartridge for me and set the tone arm to be level. The plinth and platter were already level, of course. As it happens, the SL-1400MK2 service manual says to set the tonearm to be level with the record surface. You can download many manuals at http://www.vinylengine.com/library.shtml and the homepage is http://www.vinylengine.com/news.shtml It sounds fine to me. If some "golden ear" type stops by, I may try setting the tone arm a little higher or lower. I don't think there are many arms that allow the VTA to be adjusted at the cartridge end, except perhaps a Dynavector.

Not insurance fraud. People, not just those in bands, may have dodgy acquaintances, who may know actual crooks, who keep an ear open for any theft opportunities.

That shelf liner stuff comes with a warning that it can leave marks on wood surfaces if it's on too long. I don't put it on or under anything of value. When you tried the 3mm thick mat, did you reset the VTA to compensate? 3mm sounds like it might be enough thickness to make an audible difference. On my Technics turntable, I'm using the PlatterMatter mat that came with it. It's pretty thick, but I adjusted the arm height accordingly.

Try just listening to your new speakers for a while. You may be totally happy with them as they are.