Tag 1.7

The Wadia's remote is very basic - just play/pause and skip basically. I just make up lots of playlists or hit shuffle when using this so it works great for me.

Hey Beta, If you have a Cambridge 840C then what would work great for you is a Wadia 170iTransport iPod dock. This is the only dock in the world that can extract the digital signal from an iPod and send it to be processed by an external dac, in your case the 840C. The crappy iPod internal dac is completely bypassed which means that as long as your music is ripped in a lossless format, your iPod becomes a CD quality music server. You can get these for around $350.

Spot On! The CD format is unfairly blamed for all that is wrong with sound quality. CD's CAN sound awesome and I've got plenty that do. The format is fine but the problem, and it's a big problem, is the lousy way so many CD's are now recorded. Kind of makes you wonder if there is a conspiracy designed to kill off the CD.

Hi Tom, All my volume measurements are based on the calculations of J Cullison who has posted a lot on this subject and also on the Cornwall III. The bass is like my LaScala II's.

Hi All, I've built myself a pair of Cornscala towers using Bob Crites tweeter, woofer and midrange drivers and his Cornscala crossover. I have used ALK's trachorn for the mid horn. I don't think the bass is as deep as it should be and maybe if the port size/vent opening was altered it might improve performance but I'm no speaker designer so I need some expert opinions from you guys. The internal dimensions of my Cornscala's are: 17.52 in (w) x 18.19 in (d) x 38.78 in (h) for a 7.15 cu.ft internal volume overall less approx 531 cu.in for the trachorn/K55, 467 cu.in for all internal bracing and the port shelf plus the volume of the woofer, tweeter and crossover. I have lined three sides with 3/4 inch damping material. The vent openings are 49.64 cu.inch in area and the volume of the port from the back of the port shelf to the internal face of the front baffle is 724.96 cu.in, allowing for a slight decrease owing to internal bracing. That makes the port shelf 9.06 inches long and port height 5.31 inches and width is 16.10 inches. To improve bass, should I get my saw out and alter these or should these sizes work? Also, would ALK's crossovers be a worthwhile upgrade here? They cost a lot more so they should be better but in what way? Thanks in advance.

I can understand if people can not tell any difference between biwiring and single cable connection but with my new DIY Cornscalas I can actually hear an improvement in the single wire connection over biwiring. I'm using Bob Crite's Cornscala crossover and I initially removed the jumper wire between terminals 2 and 10 to biwire. Two weeks later I put the jumper wire back in and hooked up the speakers for single wire connection and was astounded by the all round improvement. Is this possible or are my ears playing tricks on me? On this experience I would have to advise to not waste your money on extra speaker cabling.

Hi jc I have a 120g iPod Classic which can hold about 4000 songs in Apple lossless, more than enough to keep me going indefinately. I rip my music into iTunes and find this simple for a low tech guy such as myself! What I have done is only rip my favourite songs from my collection and to keep my listening less predictable, I select shuffle on the iPod, in effect turning my system into a 4000 song digital jukebox with only my favourite tunes coming up. Being able to make up custom playlists is also another great feature of iTunes. When I want to hear an album in its entirety, I just play the cd. I consider the iPod great value when you think about what it can do so if I need to increase storage capacity then I would buy another iPod. But the true wonder product for me is the Wadia 170iTransport. This is the only product in the world that can extract the digital signal from the iPod, completely bypassing the cheap internal iPod dacs, so the iPod becomes nothing more than a server, with the sound quality being 100% dependent on the quality of your dac which as you would know with the MDA1000, is about the best there is! If it wasn't for the Wadia, true high end sound from an iPod wouldn't be possible.

I use my ipod as a high end music server. All music is ripped in Apple Lossless format and my dac is a McIntosh MDA1000. The ipod sits in a Wadia 170 iTransport which extracts the digital signal from the ipod and bypasses the cheap ipod dac. Couldn't be happier.[]

Hi There, I'm planning on building myself a pair of Cornscala's. I'll be using drivers from Bob Crites and a pair of Trachorns from ALK. For the crossovers, I'm trying to decide between Bob's Cornscala crossover or a set of ALK's AP12-500 & ES5800 networks. Can anyone offer an opinion between these two choices? I know that the ALK's are three times the price so they should be better. Any opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks Crossman. I found the Iink to the volume calculator (thanks Speakerfritz). What I need to know is what should the enclosure tuning frequency be with the Crites woofer?

Hi All, I've been lurking at this forum for a couple of years now and have not contributed much myself but the knowledge I have gained has been priceless so a big thankyou to all who make this forum what it is. I started out with a pair of RF63's then progressed to a pair of Cornwall III's and I now have a pair of La Scala II's. But I can wait no longer. I must build myself a pair of Cornscalas! I want these to be more of a tower than a box and I plan on building them as one box, like the Cornwall. The parts I will be using will be from Bob Crites - Cast frame woofers, CT125 tweeters , Atlas mids and his Cornscala networks. For the midrange horns I have a pair of ALK's Trachorns. The internal cabinet dimensions I intend going with are: 18.11 inches wide x 19.69 inches deep x 32.82 inches high which gives a volume of 11,703 sq.in. This is 287 sq.in larger than the Cornwall III which I have done to allow for the larger volume of the trachorn, though I am only guessing with this size. I plan on cutting a port slot across the bottom which will be 17.91 inches wide x 2.80 inches high which is 50.15 sq.in. Now my question is: Can anyone tell me how high the port shelf needs to be off the inside bottom of the cabinet and how deep into the cabinet from the front it needs to extend? Also, if my planned dimensions look suspect to any of you people who know a lot more about this than me, your feedback is more than welcome! Anyway, as I'm in Australia I'm off to bed now so I'll catch up with this post late tomorrow. Many thanks in advance. John

Hi Guys , I can add my 0.2c to this debate as I own a pair of 2007 LaScala II's paired with a McIntosh MC352 amp and MDA1000 dac. I may be the only guy thus far who has bought a pair of ALK extreme slope networks as well as a pair of trachorns and compared them directly to the stock LS II's. To my ears, the klipsch networks are better sounding. I found the ALK's to be dark and electronic sounding compared to the more musical and natural sounding Klipsch networks. My advice is to stick with the stock LS II networks - they can't be bettered. I recently sold my ALK's on Audiogon without any regrets. It may be a different story with older speakers but I've never heard an old pair of LaScala's so my opinion only relates to the LS II's. The trachorns are another story. They are a great improvement over the K401 horn and I highly recommend them. I remade the front baffle and grille to accomodate them and my speakers sound absolutely awesome. But an even better improvement has been adding the two best subwoofers I have ever heard, the Whatmough-Whise Impulse. Whise merged with Whatmough a few years ago now and they may not be that well known in the States (they are local to me in Melbourne Australia) but they use patented technology (PAM) which results in an enclosure radically different to your standard driver in a box design. They produce no audible distortion, just tight, deep, musical and extremely easy to integrate bass. Just plug and play and if you point them towards a wall, the bass response goes through the roof. If you read the specs you wouldn't look twice at these but the sound is truly unbelievable and my previous subs included a Velodyne DD-18 and a JL Audio Fathom F112, which are not in the same class in my opinion. And to think they only cost me the equivalent of US$800 each - unbelievable. Google Whatmough-Whise to get the lowdown.

If you don't want to use subs it is CRITICAL that you choose a pre amp with tone controls and preferably also with loudness. I have a pair of LaScala II's and a Velodyne DD18 sub. When I had a pre amp with no tone controls (the standard audiophile straight wire with gain), Bass was non-existant. Then I got a great pre amp, a McIntosh C41 with bass and treble and loudness and when listening with the sub off and the bass turned up to full, the sound fills right out with plenty of quality deep bass. I actually now prefer this sound. If I were you, I'd seriously think about getting a new C41 for $2000 from www.audioclassics.com and a new pair of RF63's which lack very little compared to RF83's. If you buy a used McIntosh C42 pre or the current C46 (though cost may be a bit much) you get an inbuilt equaliser for complete tone adjustment and being McIntosh, it's high quality all the way. That'sd my 0.02c

Eucalyptis Oil is perfect for this. Glue just dissolves away.

Not everyone loves The Beatles either!