Islander

jt1stcav, which mark and year SL-1200 (MK2, MK5?) is that, and did the record clamp improve the sound? I've got an SL-1400MK2 (probably '78), and was wondering whether a record clamp might be worth trying.

Here's a few you might want to check out: Rickie Lee Jones, especially the self-titled album Holly Cole Patricia Barber Kate Bush, especially her earlier stuff (Aerial is not that interesting) Ofra Haza (different but good) Lee Aaron (jazz or rock (she was the Metal Queen)) Shirley Manson (with Garbage) Gwen Stefani (with No Doubt or without) Dolly Parton is also really good

Light waves are transverse waves, while sound waves are longitudinal waves, or compression waves. Using light as an analogy to sound is tempting but can be very misleading, since their behaviour is similar in a few ways, but very different most of the time, depending on wavelength. Obviously, I'm not directing this to Roy, who works with these concepts every day.

I'm not sure about the satellite issue either, but your Yamaha should have a learning remote that will let you control the TV. With my system, the music is on most of the day, and when it's time to watch TV, I just hit the TV power button on the Yamaha's remote and switch the input to DTV. I almost never listen to the TV speakers anymore.

Jubilees aren't ugly, they're functional, like a Jeep or a truck is functional. They're not meant to be furniture. If you park a Viper beside a Ferrari, it's easy to say which is prettier, but is that the point of a high-performance car? Jubilees are uncompromised (relatively) machines for reproducing music. They're basic, high-performance units, at a bargain price. If putting veneer on the bass bin and a box over the 402 horn with a grille cloth to hide the "bat-cave" makes them prettier to some eyes, fine, they'll still sound nearly as good, and still be priced lower than many high-end speakers that can't match their sound. There are ways to dress up Jubilees, but they'll always be really big speakers. Wilson Audio makes some really big speakers, too, and so does Montana, with really big pricetags, but people seem to find the room and the money for them. We all have our opinions, but I wouldn't call anyone's pride and joy "plug ugly".

Making sure the squawker horn is tightly screwed to the motorboard makes sense, but it's easy to strip the holes in the plywood. One of my La Scalas came with two stripped holes with chalk arrows pointing to the holes, I suppose to caution the final assembler not to overdo it. It was easy to repair the holes by gluing in a piece from a disposable chopstick cut to the size of the hole, then drilling a pilot hole a little smaller than the screw's minor diameter. My furniture refinisher buddy suggests that when tightening a screw into wood, snug plus a quarter-turn is as tight as you should go.

The letter "P" represents 1976. You can see the date codes at: http://www.progressive-engineering.com/klipsch/klipsch_date_codes.htm The label looks like the mid-70s style. The labels on my 1974 La Scalas look like that. Pity only the tester used a pen with black ink, as the red fades badly. All the red ink on my labels is almost invisible now. Don't know why the serial numbers on the labels wouldn't match the numbers stamped into the rear panels. There should be a different number on each speaker, of course. Ideally, the numbers would be consecutive (like 8P943 and 8P944, for example), but they're often a few numbers apart, since La Scalas were likely to be in stock in shops at that time and the dealer would just grab a pair of boxes, while Klipschorns were often special order and would usually arrive with consecutive numbers.

Bill Lear (the LearJet guy) got the idea for the 8-track while he was taking a shower. He soon realized that having the tape rub over itself would cause it to wear out pretty soon, but he figured it would be good enough for automotive use and would make him some money.

And this is how it looks with Dynamat Xtreme applied:

Dynamat does the same job and may be less messy to use. Just peel and stick (after making some heavy paper templates and cutting to size, of course). There's original Dynamat and the new Dynamat Xtreme, which is thinner but claimed to be more effective. The shiny silver foil also makes it easier to dust (yes, I dust off the horns and crossovers whenever I dust the house, plus the rest of the cabinets and, well, all parts of the system).

Well-written, Max, but it's neat in an odd way that we can have two types of snobbery: "I'm cooler/smarter/better than you because I spent more money than you!" as well as "I'm cooler/smarter/better than you because I spent less money than you!" Equal-opportunity snobbery! Personally, I think "hi-fi enthusiast" has less of an ivory tower connotation, but it doesn't really matter. It's a multi-faceted hobby, like many others. When I rode a motorcycle, I wanted mine to be the fastest for the least money and to ride it every day. I didn't understand why some folks would build expensive fast machines and polish them rather than ride them, or bolt every chrome gewgaw they could find onto their machines. The custom crowd would decry "catalog customs" that were built by ordering everything in the Drag Specialties or Arlen Ness catalog and (horrors!) paying someone to build their bike, feeling that hand-built with machining and welding skills was the only "real" way to do it. Eventually, I realized that all hobbies are supposed to be fun, and there are many ways to have fun, even if I mentally roll my eyes at what some folks find cool. They're having fun, so they're succeeding in their endeavor. Snobbery just makes the snob look bad.

Check out Tripp Lite. Good stuff, not expensive. Pat on the Island

No offense taken. I haven't been exposed to (or spoiled by) any really high-end tables, so what do I know? My Technics sounds better than most CDs, makes me happy and impresses my friends. Works for me. As a former mechanic and millwright, a turntable that some DJs have nicknamed "the wheel of steel" for its reliability appeals to me, as well as the sound. Does anyone suggest or recommend an upgraded arm for the Technics? Something I may look into down the road. Glad you enjoy your Basis 'table. They have a good rep.

The movie Fight Club was so against the IKEA lifestyle that the hero actually flipped out and started a revolution. Pat on the Island (we have no IKEA on the Island, and few people miss it)

Here are some basic tips that you might not be aware of if you're not familiar with vinyl playback. First, a cheap turntable will sound worse than a cheap CD player, but a really good turntable can sound better than any CD machine, so don't go too cheap on your turntable. If it's a half-decent T/T, it could be worth upgrading to a modern cartridge. A good shop will install it for you, as it's definitely more complicated than changing a lightbulb. Your Yamaha RX-V2600 should have a phono input (I think all models from the RX-V750 or RX-V659 on up have one). You'll also need to ground the turntable to the receiver, by connecting the ground lead from the turntable to the GND terminal on the back of the receiver. The phono input is needed because record cartridges put out their signal at a much lower voltage than CD players, so the phono input normally has a small phono amp built-in, to bring up the volume. Even so, you'll need to turn up the volume knob fairly high to get your music loud enough. With my RX-V750, I listen to CDs at between -22 and -32dB on the volume, but with LPs it's more like -8 to -16dB to get the same sound level. That doesn't make the amp work any harder, since it's amplifying a lower-level input to get the same output. The tech on the customer service line at Yamaha confirmed this to me when I called to ask why the volume seemed low. There are two types of cartridge, Moving Magnet (MM) and Moving Coil (MC). The phono input on your Yamaha will have adequate boost for MM cartridges, but not enough for MC cartridges, which have a lower output. This should be mentioned in your owner's manual. MC cartridges require a step-up transformer or a phono amp, plus they are more expensive, so you may not be looking at an MC cartridge anyway. As for why records are "better" than CDs, analog recording preserves more of the detail of the music, but it takes good-quality equipment to retrieve it. Better quality equipment also causes much less wear on records. Records are much less convenient than CDs, typically only having 20-25 minutes of music per side and no skip or random play feature, plus it's a bit a of a ceremony to clean the record before each play and perhaps demagnetize it after, but that's cool in a retro way, and good records can sound more "live" than CDs. As well, you can pick up good used LPs for not much money. Finally, avoid any temptation to call a turntable a "vinyl player" unless you want to sound like a knob... Pat on the Island

I have a 7.1 system (with 2 La Scalas) in the livingroom and a 5.1 system in the bedroom, and here's my take on it: it depends where your listening position is. If you're sitting with the back of your chair very near the wall, 5.1 is just fine. If you're sitting more than 5 feet or so ahead of the back wall, 7.1 is the way to go. The rear surround channels may be matrixed, not discrete, but they definitely help the sound in a large room. Also, some may disagree, but I don't think the surround speakers need to match the fronts. Having 7 Heritage speakers in the room seems logical and looks great if you have the space, but in most material there just isn't that much surround content. Applause, thunder, shell casings and broken glass bouncing on the floor, a knock on a door, that seems like most of what I hear. "Good enough" speakers seem to suffice most of the time. The main disadvantage of not having Heritage (or at least Klipsch) surround speakers is matching the levels. In my case, even with the furthest surround speaker at +10dB, I still had to set the Scalas at -4dB. But that's no big deal, and the system sounds fine. I should pick up House of Flying Daggers again, though, and have a listen to The Echo Game scene with the Scalas in the system. Pat on the Island

My '74 La Scalas came with pie-slice logos, one very worn-looking and the the other missing (but the glue marks showed where it had been). The worn one was on the left side of the cabinet, but the mark of the missing one was on the right side of the cabinet. I ordered a set of 2006 Jubilee Logos, as they're called (part number 070249, $16.50Cdn) and installed them as soon as they arrived last Friday. Now the speakers look like a dedicated "left" and "right" with pie-shaped cool shiny badges. Pat on the Island

Wintersong, the new Sarah Mclachlan CD, is pretty good. Pat on the Island

DrWho wrote: Lol, any decent quality TT option out there that costs under $500? How bout under $200? Although the high-end turntables probably sound amazing, you can find a deck that will make you happy for much less money. Last year, I picked up a Technics SL-1400MK2 ('78 vintage?) for only $140Cdn. It came with a low-end Audio-Technica CN5625AL cartridge, the yellow one, and the sound was nothing special. Then I had a Shure M97Xe cartridge installed and the sound was transformed! I hadn't realized that vinyl could sound that good. Better dynamics and clarity and reduced surface noise were very noticeable. Now my friends could hear why I started to prefer LPs to CDs. There's a much more "live" feel to the sound, revealing fine details, that makes CDs sound "canned". The owners of high-end belt-drive units may roll their eyes at this, but I really like the quartz-locked direct-drive concept. It's unfussy and very reliable, with dead-accurate speed control. 45rpm LPs? Just push a button to change the speed. In a way, the Technics DD turntables are a little like Klipsch speakers, in that they sound great and are built to last nearly forever, even in daily use by DJs. Pat on the Island

My "visual ruler" suggests that the top strip of veneer is 1-inch, while the other front strips are 7/8-inch. If the veneer is 1/8-inch thick, plus the 3/4-inch plywood, that would add up. They do look pretty good. Pat on the Island

If you're just starting to build a system, you might want to think about whether you may upgrade in the future. In that case it could make sense to get one component that's a step or two above the rest of the system in sound quality (and price, too, unfortunately), so that in a year or two, you can bring the other parts of the system up to that level. However, if you just want a system to enjoy and don't want to get on the upgrade ride, get a system that works in harmony (that's that synergy thing you sometimes hear about) and fits your budget. Happy listening! Oh, and contrary to what some people think, some Heritage owners do like to listen loud at times and like powerful amps (well, over 50 wpc anyway). Pat on the Island

Set them up and listen. Measure how much they're toed in. I use a string elastic across the front (taped to the outside corner of each speaker) and measure the gap between the inside front corner of each speaker and the elastic and note it. Use whatever method is simple and repeatable for you. If they're directly facing you, you may find that the sweet spot is really small. When I first set up my Scalas, the sweet spot was just the width of my head. Not too convenient. I opened them up and it got a bit wider, reduced the toe-in a little more and it got wider still. Reduced the toe-in some more, and suddenly the impact ("punch", "slam") was almost gone, so I increased the toe-in back to the previous amount and stayed with that. Less toe-in generally gives a wider soundstage, but you'll have to experiment to find what sounds best to you in your room. Pat on the Island

Not exactly, but sometimes I call them "the lads", as in "The lads are sounding good today." When I shut down the system at bedtime, I tell them, "Good work, boys!" Maybe I should spend less time at home... Pat on the Island

Good one, colterphoto! I thought of that later. I saw The Tubes live four times in Toronto, the first time in 1977, the last time in 1993. Fee Waybill rules! Pat on the Island

Briefly put, I choose an amp that has, first, realistic sound and pleasant tone, and second, adequate headroom to play at any volume I care to listen at. Pat on the Island