russ69

I listen to commercial radio at times, I like being connected in real time with another human and the commercials are often local events. This, but Heresys and a sub rock out pretty good.

A tuner.

It's hard to find a house with 5 music rooms and a 5 car garage in a retirement community. I had to settle for a 4 bedroom and a 3 car garage. I'll manage somehow.

Kevin S has it right.

I just bought a new house and I'm thinking about where all my 5 systems will go? Looks like I'll only have room for 3 systems inside the house. The good news is my wife says she would like my custom Heresys in the living room (a place of high style). Maybe it's time to get rid of some of the overflow?

Not sure if this helps or not but I have never heard a studio monitor that I would like in my home, horses for courses.

My point is that to get any output at low frequencies you would be adding a lot of gain, much louder than normal levels but you are right the woofer can only take so much and it is asking for a lot of power that you may or may not have. .

The system has a level where things start to get linear and recordings have different levels that will change when that occurs. I know this is an old post but I had to add my thoughts.

Far field is multiple wavelengths away. The wavelength at 20 hz is about 60 ft long IIRC. The higher frequencies are less than an inch. So we are not exactly near or far field if we are talking about the full frequency of sound. My generalization is that if you sit near equal distance or less you are in the near field. If you are approximately 1.5X or so back as your speakers are apart you are in the far field, with a little fudge factor for smaller or bigger rooms.

If it was me and I didn't want to go with separates, I'd get a good tube integrated (perhaps a PrimaLuna) and work on getting the rest of my system to exploit the sound I wanted. (Sorry but I don't have much love for the sound of vintage SS receivers).

A 2 inch excursion woofer is not unusual, and I'm reading there are products with 5 and 6 inch excursions. But let me be the voice of caution. If you want to play loud, you will have to pay. Finding your system's limits can get costly. Blow fuses, smoked drivers, and destroyed diaphragms/cones/ribbons are in your future. I learned this early and I don't play loud anymore, just reasonable satisfying levels. You'll hate your life when you blow an extremely expensive or irreplaceable driver. Moderation usually means your drivers will last multiple decades.

In most cases my understanding is that the woofer response just rolls off. The curve is pretty steep. I'm sure the designers would let the speaker go down to 0 hz if it still had some response down there, but they don't, they roll off. I'm not sure how you would over drive a speaker that is 20 db down unless you have the gain set to crazy levels.

Santa Claus has come early.

Mostly it's twice the cost for the same sound. I have never tried tailoring the wires to the drivers though. I could see some possibilities for tuning the high end with a different cable set but it would take a lot of experimentation and a lot of different cables. (Easy for me because I have stuff sitting around) but if that is not your situation, it would be an expensive experiment.

A pre-amp is the heart of a system. It's very important to the overall sound of a system. My experience has always been that a good pre-amp sounds better than no pre-amp (a passive). Some of this is system dependent however, it's entirely possible that some combinations might work best with certain passives.

I already have more amps than storage space. I'm going to cure that soon...bigger house should do it, lol.

A lot of value for the price but they are at the bottom of the food chain. They lack a certain amount of fullness and power.

UPDATE: Well I jumped the gun a bit, no stroke or reason to suspect a stroke (that was really good news). I have have a blocked eustachian tube, unknown cause. I'm on heavy steroids to reduce inflammation but the ENT doctor says; "Give it a couple of months and we'll see what happens". So all hope is not lost...yet anyway. I also got a hearing test and that was pretty disappointing. You wont believe this. I am 70db down at 8Khz in my bad ear. Seventy db! Holy crap that's a lot. I guess my "golden ears" are retired for now. You guys will have to come over and tune my system for me, lol.

To quote from the 60s, "If it feels good, do it". I know what I like (I don't have any tone controls) but just do what sounds good to you, it's your music, enjoy it the way you like it.

I think I heard that down in Green Valley. Hey buddy, long time no see.

Well, things got interesting. I'm not one to share my personal health information on a public forum (mostly because it's boring) but you guys might have a little more sympathy for my situation than non-audiophiles, so here goes. I had a significant wax build up in one ear, so I went to the ENT doctor and the technician vacuumed out the wax and then the doc took a look around. Everything looked OK, he said. I gave it a couple of days before I wanted to accept my hearing loss but there was no change, I still have a significant loss. I'm going back to my regular doctor but I think the most likely cause is that my artificial heart valve threw a blood clot and took out my hearing while I was sleeping. It fits with other issues I'm having and my medical history. Pretty bummed. I'll thank you guys in advance because I know you'll post some wise words for me. Life is funny, you never know what's in store for you.

Thanx guys. The doctor says I have some wax build up. Trying to flush this out but no luck so far. I'll go back to the doc if it doesn't get better. That ear had some high frequency loss already but I have adjusted as most of you guys have recommended. Currently the loss is more severe, I hope it's not permanent.

I have a hearing loss in one ear (it may not be permanent). I'm thinking a mono set-up might be a workable solution if this turns out to be the way things are. What is a good solution? Two LaScalas pushed together in the center? Any ideas? Thanx.

I have a number of power amps from 25 watt mono-blocks to a 400wpc Big Mac. With horn speakers the 25 watt amps are completely satisfying, maybe even my favorites (Quicksilver mini-mites). My Big Mac is an overweight pig of an amp that I use with very inefficient loudspeakers, it very seldom uses more than 40 watts, probably closer to 10 watts average.

Certified aircraft solderer at one time. When I'm sharp my joints are perfect but I'm just not as good as some of the talented guys/girls.