Quiet_Hollow

My Dad's 30 year old stereo...."Hi-Fi", at its loosest interpretation, didn't exsist in the household until I bought my first cassette walkman with headphones in '96.

"Nevermind" Dropped this into the player tonight...figured I hadn't listened to it on over 15 years. I had never heard it on anything larger than a 90's boombox either. The majority of the album is compressed to high heaven like most rock, but this is honestly the first time I've ever been able to discern what the bass player was doing. "Polly" was a pleasant find as it isn't compressed as much and sounds just like Curt Kobain is singing front and center. "Something In the Way" also has that up-close sound until the drum set comes to life.

CNET..... Like they know what they're talking about. [:^)] Trolling with a title like that.

If you are trying to listen exclusively to digital sources, then the Panasonic SA-XR series are your LaSacla's best friend. There's an SA-XR50 on eBay right now. ...and a big +1 to what tragusa3 was saying about the room. You need a throw rug at a minimum. A hardwood floor between the listener and a LaScala is going to sound tough at anything above peaceful levels.

You betch'ya!!!!! I brought my SPL meter with me to Milwaukee Summerfest 2011 the other night to see what some of the big line array rigs were putting out at FOH. Today, I crunched some numbers and looked over my system's specs. The math said it "should" be possible to put 110-115dB SPL across my couch with the La Scalas and my horn sub. How would it sound? I'd never listened to my home system that loud before. It would be a maximum effort run for the XR57. Curiousity got the best of me. So I placed the SPL meter, dropped in some Black Eyed Peas, covered my nuts, and gave the volume button a nice long push. Holy F****! That-was-loud! What an experience!! I was scared, giddy, surprised, assured, laughing, crying, nauseous, bouncing off the sofa, thanking the maker, looking for cops, and crapping my pants all at once. My heart was skipping beats. WOW! So yep, if I ever want a no-kidding concert level test run of a particular song at my home...it IS possible. Who needs 911? LaScalas at WOT will get the fuzz to your 20 much faster. When provoked, these things will rip your guts out.

TELARC and Eric Records

Faded?? I guess I never got that that memo. Really good things are always hard to find, even when they're right under your nose. Lot's of broad generalizations going on in this thread. Interesting.

Kinda like, "Ten out of ten people die."

The volume knob means nothing in terms of power. The source actually dictates how hard the amp works. If the reference settings on the receiver haven't been tared, and you fed the Onkyo a 0 dB signal (very unlikely) with the volume set at -20 dB, the amp would be putting out 1 watt to an 8 ohm load. *edit* For listening to TV and music, my receiver is typically set to -60 dB. When watching Blu-ray it's usually around -43 dB. THX reference levels on my sofa are reached with the receiver volume set at -32 dB (no provision to re-scale to 0). I've confirmed with meters and white noise that at that setting, the La Scalas are using 2W and my sub is using ~10W.

You have a powered subwoofer...so try setting all of your speakers to small, leaving the crossver point where it is, and see how you like that sound for home theater use. Number 1 tweak with a subwoofer is, just like real estate, location, location, location. Enough cable permitting of course, try placing the sub as close to the listening position as possible, Play a 40-80Hz warble test tone (Google Binks) then crawl around to all the places in the room that you think you can get away with locating the sub, and listen for where the warble sounds the smoothest. That's just a few tweaks, involves no money, and could lead to better sound.

ROFL!

It could be easy to fault Tron Legacy, until you watch it back-to-back with the original. The first one didn't have much of a plot either if you'll recall. I own both, and liked the first one as a kid, but there's no denying that Legacy on Blu-Ray takes home theater audio to whole 'nutha level.

twu, I've got the CD of that album. Don't have the "S" harshness problem, but Chris Martin definitely has a lisp that puts out more air on his S's, which is audible even in his interviews. Don't have the MJ song otherwise I'd have checked that out too. I've got AL-3's being powered by an Equibit amp firing into a plush room.

First and foremost is the room. NEVER trust the opinion of a proclaimed audio nut packing a several thousand dollar rig in an untreated, rectangular room sporting a hardwood floor. Same applies to someone that turns green at the mere suggestion of EQ. Second is the electronics, but only to a certain extent. Schlep a mass market SS amp onto the butt end of a so-so DAC (ie. your home theater receiver) and it's Klipsch's instant breakfast graininess. Hook'em up to an Equibit, ICE or Tripath getting fed S/PDIF and it's strawberries and cream. Analog die-hards typically default to using DAC's, so don't expect them to know how to pull off a good digital setup. The high sensitivity of the Heritage help extract every ounce of performance out of the modern relatively low-power chip amplifiers. The final thing to become noticeable is the phase response of the system. Mainly the characteristics of the tweeter and squawker horn alignment and how the crossover handles traffic in that region. If you ever listen to some heritage speakers back to back with good headphones, you'll appreciate what I'm talking about. I've got my AL-3 equipped LaScalas sounding as good as I possibly can given my room, velvety smooth with top to bottom definition, but they still get me sleepy from time to time when I listen to them for more than an half hour or so. On the other hand, I can stay plugged into my earbuds all-day-long and well into the twilight without a hint of drowsiness. The La Scalas are not harsh in any way, but they are not quite as coherent as a true point source. Some can not sleep at night knowing that. To each their own. I believe for the price, a used pair of Heritage speakers (especially the full horn ones) represent incredible value if you have the floor space for them and simply shake my head at those that say otherwise.

only.... That's still good for over 100dB.... ie. nice loud bass. Just saying, until the subs come in, he could let the La Scalas stretch their legs a bit, sans movies of course. Between six cabs I can assure you, he's not coming even close to what the cabs are capable of down low in terms of displacement. If there's a doubt, bust out the multimeter with a test tone.

That's because you're not paying attention to those of of us who actually use our subs opposed to glossing over charts. Tragusa3, CECAA850, and myself all have had exposure with horn subwoofers. You cannot go wrong with any of the horn subwoofers mentioned so far. BUT, size and money will be a factor. Power handling, not so much. So don't read them because I will tell you the THT get's stupid loud and low for it's price point. It also sports very low harmonic distortion (not in the charts) and has very linear phase response (also not in the charts). You can pay to have one built for you too. DTS-10 chart is here: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/DTS%2010%20spec%20sheet.pdf at just over 1k for the kit. It's hard to beat. [Y] Just boils down to how much money you think you need to throw at your system and what sound you want. If you want something as hi-fi sounding as your LaScala's, stick with a high-sensitivty sub that has linear phase response. If you want to dig way-way deep, then go DTS-10. Another option I suggest you try, before spend a dime, is run all your LaScalas full range and just EQ them. Do the math, you have 6 x fifteen inch drivers at your disposal. Boosting the 30-50 Hz region by 5-6dB won't phase them a bit, and will make a world of difference in sound quality.

Double post please [delete]

[bs] Try hearing them first deployed correctly, then take a look at how much money you have left over in your wallet after the ordeal. Amplitude response by itself isn't the "end-all be-all."I like Danley too, but tapped horns aren't infallible either. The DTS-10's phase response in the 50-60Hz region is far from ideal. Hence transient response suffers bit, right where a majority of musical program energy lies BTY. The DTS-10 is great for movies and such perhaps, but for pure music, the TH-50 would serve you better.The BF product (or any other good DIY project) can put you online for lots less, if you happen to have the time and tools ...And 3000 watts RMS doesn't mean squat if can't suck it out of a wall without blowing a breaker.

I went on the road after school for some time and had to put my main system in storage. I resorted to a CD player walkman and earbuds for the next 3 years, never buying into the iPod craze. Didn't surprise me one bit they chose MP3 for space saving. That experience had taught and still continues to teach me ALOT about the differences in how music is produced in the studio and that source material is the other half of the pie. Spend 3 years listening to table-flat frequency and phase response and you'll catch my drift. To this day, I still spend about half my time listening to earbuds, even with my main Klipsch heritage rig directly in front of my living room. I don't need an uber-system to appreciate any differences in sources. SACD on headphones at the hi-fi shop, didn't sound any different so long as it was mixed the same and played back at the same levels as any other source. I'm not sold on DTD-HD or SACD either because DVD movies soundtracks and CD's currently have a long standing history of never being used to their fullest potential anyhow. Not everyone is buying into MP3's. Heck there's still a very large portion of the population that doesn't even listen to music critically, get a chance to, or claims they have better things to focus their efforts on. Pulling off a good audio system time and time again takes a fair bit of knowledge. Knowledge that not everyone can grasp easily or has access to. That, coupled with the aforementioned seemingly large proportion of relative apathy, is what I believe to be the driving factor in the bias observed from this side of the audio circle.

Drop a Telarc CD on my Panny XR combo and you'll be tossing your whole tube / vinyl rig out the window. Depth = dynamic range and or bandwidth; For the former, if the source material is compressed dynamically, it's gonna sound flat no matter what it's played on. For the latter, if your speakers don't extend to at least 30 Hz you can't expect things to sound incredibly deep music-wise.Punch = impedence matching/sensitivity, & phase linearity ; Horns match the impedance of the air load to a relatively small driver or having a line of drivers greater than 1/4 wavelength to greatly increase sensitivity. When the phase response of the drivers are linear to one another ie. when a transient is sent to the speaker, all the harmonics leave at the same time in order to sum up to the original signal...it's experienced as "punch". None of this has to do with, or is exclusive to tubes or vinyl.

~yawn~ First time my GF heard an 80K + Mac HT System she says, "Something's missing..." I had felt the same way for years. I grew up on 100k+ Mac über-2CH demo systems...taught me that I will never aspire to own one.

The GF picked up a copy of Tron Legacy on blu-ray. We both saw it in 3D when it hit theaters, but watching it at our place at -7 dB...holy crap!! I actually felt a little disorientated afterwards. Soooooo much gripping bass...in everything. From the first recognizer, to the light bikes, the End of Line club. Thing I took note of was that there was prodigious use of LF content in a lot of the ambient efffects and, of course, the score...not necessarily reserved only for explosions in this movie. It'll give your sub a heck of a workout and your whole house a thorough massage.[~][Y]

Used to run 3 miles a day listening to something along these lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBu5X3TvNw&feature=fvwrel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acsjD4HTLE&playnext=1&list=PL8AEDF678D111813F http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYAHEMH2Fwc

Hype. But a good standalone CD player can improve load times and usability. I used to have an older Sony that was faster than greased lightning at startup (on, loaded, and ready to play in under 4 seconds) and allowed me to program and store playlists for each disc. Now I've got a Panasonic Blu-ray player with gorgeous picture and sound, but is slower than turtle crap and has no CD playback features beyond the usual play,pause,stop, and cue. Only reason I don't go back to owning a component CD player is because it's 2011 and time for a Squeezebox or something along those lines.

No way, bro. You haven't even gotten started. Study the Physics all you want , but electronic design is in large part, MATH. Topics of interest should include, but are not limited to, Complex AC power and DC/AC network analysis to include familiarity with Kirchoff's circuit laws and Thevenin's theorem.See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0S-XV-BiUAAs evident from just this great video using phasors, you have to have a solid grip on algebra and trigonometry at a minimum. You'll know your getting close when you don't even think about electron flow and you can ascertain the general behavior of a circuit from the equations opposed to the physical topology.