philipbarrett

File 1 - Obvious L/R phase cancellation shows it was probably recorded with a coincident pair technique (X-Y or M-S) rather than spaced mics. It was hard to get past this flaw while listening. It's a type of piano sound more typical of rock recording where it needs to cut through the mix & not clutter the center image (Toto - "Rosanna"). Mics are close to or even over the strings, piano sounds like a Yamaha or a Steinway. File 2 - Less phase cancellation but still present, same mic technique further from the instrument. Large capsule condensors, maybe tube and/or vintage? Noisy recording. Image shifts a little to the left during high register notes. Nice room ambinece although the piano itself is voiced a little soft for my taste. My out there guess would be a Baldwin or even Bosendorfer but I'd be safer to say it's a Steinway again. Are you going to tell us it's a Kurzweil? LOL

As for wireless streaming equaling the sound of CD playback, I'll think it's best we just agree to differ. :-)

You're streaming wirelessly & are worried about the quality of playback? You know that your bitstream is probably limited to around 128Kbs? As for the "noisy psu" I don't follow that argument at all. As I type this I have my Mac connected via a FW interface to over 48 Meyer line array sound reinforcement cabinets with not even a hint of back ground hiss.

You miss my point, none of the formats except FireWire have the clock included in the bitstream. The Meridian addresses the sympton not the problem. A FireWire PC card should cost way less than $50 so with the Behringer you're still looking at >$150. Much less than even $500 for a far superior solution.

I think by now you've spent your money already. But anyway here's my 2 cents based on personal experimentation & a recent thread from the Metric Halo users group. Without getting too deep technically, outboard DACs via toslink or USB do not clock to the incoming bitstream, this is not good & a dark little secret carried by everything from the cheapest to the truly esoteric boxes. This is not a prefered way to interface digital audio & will generally manifest itself as a harshness in the upper mids. Often the blame for the sonics of compressed audio files lies not in the files themselves but in just such an interface. Your best bet is to use FireWire, a format specifically designed to handle high quality audio (& video). Now the good news. Although the very best FW interfaces (I have the Metric Halo) cost many $1,000s, for your use, something as basic as the Behringer FCA-202 (>$100) works & sounds great. Imagine, a cheapo little box outperforming DACs costing 10x as much? This is the very device I use to get audio from my Mac to my system. If your computer has no FW interface, a cheap PC card will do the trick. Just try to avoid a cable run longer than 15' and you'll be golden.

If you're computer has FireWire I would recommend an FW based interface (or a PC card FW adaptor). Without getting deep into the subject of clocking, even the cheapest Behringer FCA202 (about $98) beats out DACs costing 10x as much. I'm listening through one now & frankly, with many recordings, a good (>256kbs) mp3 can deliver a pretty good performance.

I find that hard to believe from a company that cranks out Klipschorns? So, court is back in session. Box #2 is complete, here they are prior to finishing - And with the La Scala (ports are backfiring) - So far my impressions are that 2 is better than 1. Once again, the lift is subtle but very pleasant. This is not pants-leg flapping low end but it is very articulate and musical. I am planning to strip & re-oil the LS's, once I get on that I will laminate & match the bases.

I'm in impressed with what I've read at SVS' site. A refreshingly low BS count (like another brand we love) and a good dollop of realism. I liked this statement - "Measured with high resolution instrumentation via "ground plane" technique, outdoors, at two meters' distance, a minimum of 70 feet from reflective boundaries."

Thanks for posting these numbers, I hadn't seen them before. Looks like he has a null at around 40Hz which repeats itself as a harmonic at 80Hz? Without knowing if this was done with Pink or Sweeps, averages or peaks make it hard to compare with my results. A 7dB difference at 31.5Hz seems too good to be true but his plots do show (like mine) that above about 55Hz the curves basically combine. Certainly, for a $26 piece of MDF & $10 worth of 4" pipe it's a bargain however you look at it. I'll hopefully report back with a pair plus better construction (I'll rebuild numero uno) and sealing tomorrow. How confident are you in the side bracing? It seems that it would have occured to PJK and been there if he thought it warranted.

And just for grins I jammed the Scalas back into the corner they belong in. Here's the damage. Now I'm packing away for the evening before the missus starts calling divorce lawyers. Never understand women, what's not to love about swept tones?

Edit : after re-reading your post. Don't pay too much attention to anything above 100Hz, I had the analyzer bandwidth cut-off set pretty low plus the mic is on the floor in front of the bass horn. The advantage to this is less problems from 1st reflections, the disadvantage in La Scalas is you're not looking at the horns even with an Omni.

So, as the old adage goes; if you can hear it and not measure it then you're measuring the wrong thing. This time I set a 20 second sweep from 20Hz to 100Hz and captured the peaks. Once again, Green is sansBass Port, Blue is with. Now isn't that a lot more fun? Even allowing for measurement errors I think we do see a subtle lift at the low end (the dip at around 58Hz is probably a room node cancellation). As I said in the other thread, if you're looking to throw away your HT subs this is not going to do it for you. However, sonically my first impressions are favorable. Let me know if your mileage has varied.

Forgive me for repeating myself. This is a revival of the "add a ported low box to a La Scala" thread from a while back. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/104516.aspx?PageIndex=1 So, as I said, I built one. Opinions are on the tail end of the other thread but tonight I put the eating into the pudding. 'Scuse me while I whips this out! Time to drag the interface, calibrated mic & Spectra-Foo to the party. Picture below is Pink Noise at 1M, mic is on the floor (less muddying results from 1st reflections). Green trace shows La Scala without the Bass Port, Blue is with. Not too impressive I have to sayand not totally correlating with what I heard.

Just bass no music. In other words lots of thump but no actual musicality to it. IMHO of course.

I did it today, one channel only. Box is a bit crude, needs re-gluing before screwing but I'll fix that tomorrow when I build #2. Nothing there that can't be had at Home Depot, I used MDF which is so easy to work with, plus the sun was shining all afternoon which made for a pleasant build. Impressions? I'd say subtle is the 1st phrase that comes to mind. Obviously trance music will bring out more of the effect than say folk. It's certainly very listenable too and does not detract from the upper registers in anyway. That being said, if you're looking for subs this is not going to fit the bill. However, getting the LSs up by 10" puts them in a perfect place for couch listening which may make the mod worth the price of admission in itself. I did try a Crown DC-150 today to play around with the "Solid State gives more low end than tubes" theory. Those of us with glowing heaters in the listening room will be glad to know that the Crown (known for it's solid low end) failed to produce as much bass as my Pilot SA-260.

Because I didn't buy a pair of articulate & crisp La Scalas to add a dumpy down-firing sub & muddy everything up. What's the general opinion here on complimentary subs for a horn loaded setup? I'm very happy with DIY too. Haven't got room for the georgous Decware Imperial though :-( PB

Siouxsie Sioux, still looking great 32 years after her first record.

400 years of the Black Death will do that to your psyche!

400 years of the Black Death will do that to your psyche!

The Scorpion's "Virgin Killer" has been caused renewed concerns in Europe. Cover is certainly not suitable for showing here but the curious can read the stories at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer

Here's a piece of classic Meyer, the humungous MSL-10. Conservatively rated at 110dB continuous at 100 feet! Built for the Grateful Dead they weighed in somewhere around 700lbs each. Makes a Khorn look like a Bose cube.

I've never thought of UPM-1Ps for home use. They generally spend their lives under balconies or on the stage edge (time aligned to the main system of course). Since, in these applications they are fairly heavily hi-passed (18db/octave at around 250Hz in my case) I've never really thought much about their low end. The complimentary sub is the USW-1P double 15". Let us know your impressions against the La Scalas (I have Crites mod'd LS). Remember again that the Meyer's inputs are looking for +4dB to drive them, unbalanced is fine though.

So which one of you carpetbaggers is headed down from Nebraska to buy these today? :-)

Craig = NOSValves? I get some time later today so I'll probably go do this deal (if they're still available). This is not really a good time but it seems that if buyer's remorse strikes I'll have no difficulty breaking even on a resale. I'll keep y'all posted, thanks for everyone's input.

IMHO & fairly lengthy experience, the unit listed above will not deliver any sonic advantages over a decent Crites retro-fit. You'll get time-alignment at the expense of noise & that lovely cheap A/D-D/A convertor sound.