Islander

All amps have some kind of tone. Many years ago, a roommate and I each had a stereo. One had a Technics receiver driving BIC Venturi speakers, the other a Yamaha receiver driving Dynaco A-25s. Just for curiosity, I swapped the components back and forth and was amazed to find that the receivers differed more in their sound than the speakers did. Higher-end gear may have less variation in tone than low-end or mid-range stuff, or does it? Bottom line is buy what sounds good to you. As in many things, there are no absolutes or ultimates, or how could this year's model be better than last year's "ultimate"? Pat on the Island

Forget Spoons, there's only one. But add Deep Purple. And Television? This is fun! Pat on the Island

Spoons, Symphonic Splash Pat on the Island

Prince Pat on the Island

Scissor Sisters, Jets Overhead, Cornershop... Pat on the Island

ka7niq, thanks for sharing your story of meeting PWK and telling about your granddad. It was a pleasure to read. Where did his Klipschorns finally wind up? Pat on the Island

Stuck on Vancouver Island? Hah! This is the Florida of Canada. We don't want a bridge, cause it'll bring even more tourists than we already get! Seriously, thanks for your hospitable offer, the invite is much appreciated, but I'm north of Seattle, and can see Port Angeles from my south windows, across the Juan de Fuca Strait, so it would be one heck of a long road trip. It would be great to see and hear your Jubilees, but for the forseeable future I'll have to satisfy myself with imagining how good they sound. Thanks again! Pat on the Island

One basic concept that's often been mentioned is that all three dimensions of the room should be different from each other, and should not be multiples of one another. Some examples follow. The worst shape would be a room that is literally cube-shaped. A square floor plan is not good, nor is a room that's twice as long (or half as tall) as it is wide. If you're designing from scratch, you might consider making the walls non-parallel. I'll let the more knowledgeable take over from here. Pat on the Island

Perhaps I should add that both speakers are about 6 feet from the side walls. Pat on the Island

Last night, I was listening to some music (Berlin, SSQ, Buggles, Steely Dan, it was an '80s groove night...) and got out my SPL meter. The level was around 85dB on my sofa, 8-and-a-half feet from the speakers, but I was surprised to find that it was also around 85 dB only a metre (39.37in) from the speakers. Only when I put the meter within a few inches from the speakers did the reading go up, to 103-105dB. The listening room is 18 feet wide and 19 feet long, but opens toward the dining room, making the left half 26 feet long. The right Scala is a foot from the front wall, while the left Scala is about 10 feet from the "other" front wall. The sofa's about six-and-a-half feet in front of the back wall, and the speakers and sofa are placed at an angle to the walls. Big sound in a big room? BTW, DrWho, have you ever heard Big Electronic Beat, by SSQ? It's on the Playback album. ('80s synth-pop stuff) Pat on the Island

coytee wrote: For those who think a LaScala is big... the HF horn on the Jubilee is actually LARGER than a LaScala, so imagine a LaScala turned on it's side, as your tweeter alone Yeow!!! (But I think a pair of Jubilees may be in my long-term plan...) Pat on the Island

Go Heritage!!! (If you've got the room...) Pat on the Island

There's a big article in this month's The Absolute Sound about Class D amps, comparing around 9 or 10 of them. The "D" is a class designation. One of the writers in the magazine mentions that they are not digital amps and are actually analog in nature. The switching type operation doesn't make them digital. Pat on the Island

About $100 extra to get the current model? Sounds like the better bet. Pat on the Island

Colin posted: In general, the older the receiver and the heavier its construction, the better the quality (NOT quantity) of the sound. Not so sure about that. I've had 4 Yamaha receivers, a CR-600 (1975), CR-1020 (1978), RX-V392 (1998, still have it) and an RX-V750 (2005, still have it), and found that the newer ones, although they are lighter in weight, have much cleaner and more transparent sound. At high volume, the CR-1020 would often cause the tweeter protection breakers to trip on my pre-Klipsch speakers, but that never happened with the 392 or 750. I'm not sure if that means the new ones don't start clipping at any volume I'd want to listen to, but they seem to have audibly less distortion than the '70s units. Just my experience. Pat on the Island

Amy wrote: FREE 60th KLIPSCHORNS TO THE PERSON WHO CAN COME UP WITH THE MOST INTERESTING THREAD, MOST VIEWED THREAD, AND MOST REPLIES IN A THREAD!!* *Some restrictions apply, such as I alone am the judge of this contest, and I alone decide on the deadline, if there really is one. The Klipschorns will actually be given in jpg format. Hmm, jpg, eh? Sound like the guy who caught a picture of a mouse after he put a picture of a piece of cheese in the trap... Anyway, my entry is Real and Imagined Sizes of Heritage and Jubilee Speakers. It's in the Technical Questions section. By the way, how do you change font size in this new-look Forum? Pat on the Island

You can measure the size of a speaker, but what you measure is not always what you see. When I first saw my La Scalas in the vintage hi-fi shop, they looked huge. When they came off the delivery truck, they looked enormous. When they were positioned in the livingroom, they looked really big. Now, after a few months of living with them, they just look sort of large. Does this happen to everyone? Pat on the Island

Here are some actual wire sizes, the better to compare them. Obviously, this is the wire itself, not including the insulating sheath. Noticing wires are soft and hard to measure exactly, I Googled and found this chart: http://www.rbeelectronics.com/wtable.htm The nominal sizes are: 18 gauge: .040" 0.8mm squared = cross section in mm. 16 gauge: .051" 1.0mm " 14 gauge: .064" 2.0mm " 12 gauge: .081" 3.0mm " 8 gauge: .128" 8.0mm " Pat on the Island

Just to make things clearer, or not, if a receiver is rated at 100 watts per channel and has 7 channels, that doesn't usually mean that the power amp can put out 700 watts, in spite of stickers on the unit that proclaim just that. In a comparison test, the Yamaha RX-V750 (rated at 100wpc x 7) produced 55 watts per channel when driving 5 channels, but 132 watts per channel when driving just 2 channels, i.e. in stereo. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can jump in, but it sounds to me like there may be a limiting factor, perhaps the power supply, limiting the overall power. Based on the two figures above, maybe only 45 watts or so are available when driving 7 channels. It's a good thing subwoofers have their own amps, or it would get even more confusing. There are a few higher-end receivers (yes, there are such things) that will put out their full rated power to all channels at the same time, but most of the affordable units perform as described above, including the SONY and JVC that were tested along with the Yamaha. The bright side is that there's plenty of power available when listening in stereo. Pat on the Island

Pulled out The Yes Album last night and gave Starship Trooper a spin. Yeah, there was that bass that used to make me think the tunes on that album could grumble along like a bulldozer. Unstoppable bass! Pat on the Island

Travis, thanks for your comments. pauln & Mike, thanks for some new listening ideas. I've only heard Patricia Barber briefly once, but her name comes up often in audiophile circles. I'll have to look for an album or CD by her. Another name that comes up often is Wilco. Never heard them, but I've seen lots of references to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born. Pat on the Island

Looks too much like a pulpit for me! (Watched The Da Vinci Code the other night, so churchy stuff seems sinister at the moment.) Pat on the Island

Many years ago, I was living in Toronto and inherited my brother's barn cat when he moved to the West Coast, but my gf insisted on getting him neutered. A day or two later, he took off and didn't come back. After a couple of months, we got another cat. Ten months later, Tigger came back! We weren't even sure it was him, but he was a neutered gray tabby and used his paw to pick up his food, just as Tigger had done. He became a great pet, and still went out every day. We had the second cat for a few years, but Tigger was with me for much longer. I insisted on keeping him when the gf and I broke up, and had his company for seventeen years in all, until old age took him. As you can see, I still think of him. Hope Macy Grey makes it home safe! Pat on the Island

I usually use these four CDs: Rickie Lee Jones (the first, self-titled one), The Essential Leonard Cohen, The Cure Greatest Hits and Hana, by Tak Matsumoto. On Rickie Lee Jones, there are a number of top musicians and every instrument is easy to hearand well-separated in space. Track 3, Night Train, has great vocals and delicate chimes. Track 4, Young Blood, has great percussion. Track 5, Easy Money, has an acoustic bass intro that lets you know if your system can realistically reproduce the sound of a string bass, plus some nice brass. Rickie Lee has a vocal style that's almost like mumbling, but with the La Scalas , I could make out almost every word for the first time, and I was pretty impressed. On the Leonard Cohen CD, I listen to Track 3 of CD1, Sisters of Mercy. It has some sort of odd acoustic instrument that travels from left to right and back again, which is not clear on all systems. Perhaps someone knows what it's called. Track 8 of CD1, Famous Blue Raincoat, has background singers that are clearly located in space and their intake of breath between phrases is well-defined. On The Cure Greatest Hits, Track 5, The Lovecats, has an acoustic bass and percussion intro and Track 7, Close To Me, has an electric bass intro. Both of these tracks show the clarity of any good system. The CD also has lots of brass and catchy rhythms. I usually wind up listening to most of this CD whenever I put it on. Hana is a solo instrumental project by Tak Matsumoto, the guitarist from the Japanese rock band B'z. He mostly plays Gibson Les Paul guitars and was the first Asian guitarist to have his own Signature model. Gibson has since released three more Tak Matsumoto Signature Models (one of which incorporates his new specially wound TM-1 pickups), setting the current record of four. Wikipedia has a good entry about him. Anyway, the CD has lots of subtle background vocals, as well as over-emphasized bass drum on some tracks. Track 1, Koi-Uta, sounding traditional and modern at the same time, seems to reveal more detail with each listening. Track 2, #1090 - Asian Sun, sounds like it was mixed to sound best on a Walkman. It will give you a few kicks in the chest, though, if that's what you're looking for. Track 3, Hana, has a solo piano intro and "outro"(?) that lets you hear very subtle details of the strings and the heavy device inside the piano (can you tell I'm not a musician?) that's operated by the pedals. You can hear the faint thud on a good system, but it's inaudible on a lesser system. There's also an erhu solo, which works better than you'd think (the erhu is a 3-stringed Chinese "violin"). Track 5, Midousuji Blue, is a blues number with very clear fingering that lets you really picture the guitar strings. Finally, just to confuse your friends, Track 12, 2011, is a short jazz-blues style piece that sounds like it's playing on a fairly scratched-up LP. Well, that's my test set. Hope this isn't too long. Pat on the Island

Another way to look at it is that those square corners and steps may cause localized eddying and unsmooth air movement. I'd think that would not help the sound, although the effects are probably minor. Pat on the Island