JL Sargent

I wonder if a horn driver is that much different than a soft dome speaker really.

But if you gonna do like me and experiment with crossover points, speaker placement, or amp configurations, then by all means do it and have fun! Some of the best listening in my life was a kid with a noisy old tube radio with "Wolfman Jack" playing the hits.

"Heresy, the Little Big Horn" A smaller speaker with a BIGger sound" Ad slogan, what do ya think? I've been listening to my Heresy IIs and really do enjoy them.

Time alignment, my area of interest lately. With actives you do have the choice to pursue it or not. These speakers from the factory however are NOT aligned. You could also physically align the coils (some speakers easier said than done) vertically if you wanted to. Wow, 9ms seems like an eternity to push or pull a speaker, but what do I know? The actives I have won't even do a 9ms delay.

Oh I think your right. Although I suspect the engineering is about economics as much as performance. Of course it has to be. Anyway I'm looking forward to playing with my own version of the Cornscala at the present. I really prefer the direct woofer. Im building with eminence tweeter (similar to Bobs) and woofer. Atlas driver on the mid and a midhorn thats about 1/2 way between the 400 and 700 in size. I'll admit that attempting to better the original components or speaker ideas is what I'm interested in. I have built several speakers in the past and they were good performers so I have some expectations for myself. From the sound of it you have upgraded some Klipsch engineering yourself.[]

Thanks for the insight and knowledge about it guys. It'ss funny how our perception about what is and is not seems to always change when it comes to speakers. It's said we live our lives in circles and I keep circling around back to the first decent pair of speakers I ever bought. I pair of Technics SB 2680s if I remember right. I've still got em and they sure did sound good last time I listened to them, circling back around.

They look like they are ready for solder to me. I have put it to many similar pins for Uncle Sam in the USAF.

Looking at these speaker designs I can see where the folded horn is at a real disadvantage as far as timing goes. But a cornwalls 15" direct driver and its midhorn are probably very close timing wise. I was all about going active xovers and aligning the drivers. Now I'm not so sure its even worth doing since 99% of these speakers are not aligned and 99% of the users don't even notice or care. Its kind of a bummer really. IGNORANCE is bliss! Kinda like the relationship between K55 and K77 drivers. According to my studies the K77 is about 1/2 a good tweeter and the K55 is just a so so mid driver. I have not listened to all the offerings out there but it does seem there are upgrades available and reasonably cheap.

Coytee, I know you have Jubilees and I think you made some Cornscala type speakers. Have you played with time alignment on those setups?

I know when using active crossovers that electronic delay or driver placement can be considered. How do passive crossovers handle this, if at all? I think I found my answer: sfogg wrote: "Nope. The drivers are out of alignment. Like most things it is a tradeoff. The horns in that layout with the passives basically prevent you from being time aligned while on the flip side you get the distortion/dynamic benefits of the horns. Some are willing to make that tradeoff, some aren't." So if the above statement is correct for all Klipsch Heritage speakers then certainly an alignment impovement could be made. But is this even something the average person can hear? Interesting.

Thats basically it. I want to experiment with horns, active xovers, 15" or bigger woofers on the bottom ported. I want to build the bass bins and then play with the whole thing to see what kind of sound I can get out of it. I like the little tube amps and they seem to be easy for me to find and certainly cheap enough. I do not want it to be real noisy though. I want it have potential for a good sounding system.

colterphoto1 suggested I give this question a try here: My crazy idea is to use active crossovers to drive 3 stereo 5w amps (like the old Magnavox console amps) into long horn (400 mids) type Cornscalas. So I'm talking a separate channel for each driver. Setting aside the challanges of phase/delay among the drivers, seems like the 15w per channel would be plenty of power to make it work. What about noise? I'm under the impression that noise would not be bad because power is kept at low levels, is that wrong? Any thoughts on this idea appreciated.

OK, so its pretty darn involved. So a breakout box type deal from Radio Shack is probably the best way to go. Another thought would be a CD player or Tuner that would allow for AUX input there. I haven't seen one though. Or what about a splitter at the input of the preamp. Like if an MP3 player and CD player simply SHARED the Aux input on the preamp. Just gonna listen to one or the other at a time anyway....... Would that work?

Or, maybe there is an inline device that converts line level down to the low 5mv signal these inputs want. Surely I'm not the only one that would like to use these presently useless inputs on vintage gear. Is there an answer to this? Thanks.

Oh, that seems significant. It might need to be adjusted and it might just be less WPC too I'M guessing. I've really been enjoying my Sansui AU-70 driving a pair of Heresys. I think a pair of Cornwalls would do really well with it too though.[]

Yes, of course your right. 7189 it is. Just looked at em.[] Thanks. Let me ask this then. Doesn't EL84 = 7189?

"Raising the 100 ohm cathode resistor to 120 or 150 ohm would probably help with today's higher line voltages from the wall, where the 100 ohm R might run the 6BQ5's a bit hard." This certainly makes sense. I have 125v at the outlets right now. I'm guessing the circuit may have been designed for what, 115v? I'm thinking I'll install a headphone jack on the little console amp next. Should work quite well for that I suspect.

Groomlake: Mighty nice of you to go to that trouble for me. Thank you very much! Mark: I will check that. Thank you also. Common sense points to my tubes being happy. When at idle no heat, when getting a workout, heat not excessive and tubes "look" good. Still its nice to have the numbers to verify.

Hey Mark, thanks for your help. I have two amps here. The Sansui AU-70 which is EL84s in a push pull and a little Magnavox with EL84s single ended. I realized the little Magnavox output impedance was only 4 ohms with help here. My answer to that was paralleling speakers for now, which works fine. Just wondering about checking the bias on these two amps. Here is a picture of it.

Pauln, you have absolutely no knowledge of my elec. experience or previous exposure to high voltages. Just because I have not Biased a tube amp does not make me inadequate to do so. Since I have worked with high voltage (CRTs for one) for 25yrs with first the USAF/ANG as s sensor systems specialist and then as a high voltage electrical service provider, I am certainly no stranger to electricity or high voltage. "even when the amp is unplugged" on a tube amp? I don't thinks so, as vacuum tubes bleed themselves off immediately when power is removed, right pauln? Maybe I should be warning you sir about the dangers of high voltage.[^o)]

My Sansui AU-70 plays great, but I wonder, how do I measure and adjust the bias on this amp? While my Sansui is push/pull, what about the single ended amps. Do they need bias adjustments too? Lastly, can a person tell by tube type and arrangement what the bias should be?

Those are just cables that were hanging near my work bench. By the colors Id guess they were intended for video, but in reality they're probably identical to audio cables in function. They just have different colored covers.

This is what I ended up with. Sounds good!

"I wanted to prove to myself that you can take a ugly console pull amplifier and make it into something pleasing with regard to looks." I'd say you did it![H] Mine has what looks like a little adjustable pot on top. Whats that? Also my amp is an 8601-20.

That second picture has really jump started me this afternoon. I located the two primarys for my power trans. I pulled them and tested, ok. I then pulled the old socket and removed all the extra wiring associated with it. Well on my way here. Now I really appreciate how much work you have in that one. Geeze, you must of had those output transformers chromed! Mine will never look that good! What about impedance? Are these original transformers ok with my Heresy 8 ohm speakers?