maxg

Thanks Paul - I can hardly wait to get hold of it. $5 for the album, $16 to ship it to me!!!! Typical I suppose. what can yu do if you live in the boonies??

Interesting. Just tried playing an album without anything on the platter - except the album itself. I dont know - maybe it is better - certainly looks cool with the all silver platter showing - and I can now use the clamp although the records dont seem to slip except when I first drop a heavy vinyl album onto the spinning platter and then only for about a third of a turn or so. The best thing is - no static. In other words all the static I has was down to the felt mat. Anyway I will leave the old rubber mat to the side for now and we will see what gives...

Tbabb, You got the whole ring of the Neibelung for $14!!! Wow - that is a bargain. (I am trying to build up the whole collection on RCA from the 1960's. I have a couple of albums at the moment (Tristram and Isolede and another ones whose name escapes me. It is a really difficult thing to do as a few of the albums are very rare and command silly prices.)

Wow this thread is getting big. I took my eye off it for a couple of days at it is well into page 8!!!! All of the fuss over TT mats and I forgot to ask Tony to borrow his - busy weekend all in all. Anyway - bit worried about using the clamp in conjunction with a mat that doesnt extend all the way in to the spindle - I think that might put something of a strain on the vinyl. As it happens since using the unmentionable mat I stopped using the clamp anyway - this mat is slightly higher than the felt mat so it doesn't screw on comfortably. I think I had actually stopped using it with the felt mat come to that. It seemed to make the static problem worse.

Actually Wolfram the steps forward were all with the Sansui's. When I got home on Friday night I removed the wicker speaker covers and also the metal diffusers that were screwed in over the twin horn loaded tweeters. This has added a much needed edge to the highs but it is still a little lacking IMO. Arco has offered to come over to assess the crossover and tweeter (in fact all the drivers) - as indeed has another ACA member (one who puts music first - would definitely get Kelly's seal of approval). These horn loaded tweeters are very small - I am begining to think it might be an idea to disconnect them entirely and run a separate tweeter box atop the main speaker - but we will have to get the input of others before I do anything drastic. I will try to get a picture of them to show everyone. They look hilarious in contrast to the size of other horn loaded tweeters I have seen. Interestingly the horns are also conical in design, which, in some ways is more logical than the Klipsch squared off approach (at least to my mainly vacant mind). Anyway - feel free to keep plugging the LaScala's - who knows - you may even convince me to arrange a home demo...

Well congratulations!!! I barely remember 18 - must have been great!! OMG - I just realised you are less than half my age. Now I am depressed - congrats again though....

Well I have been bidding on some vinyl recently on ebay in the UK - just to see what I could pick up. So far I have bid on 7 auctions, won 5 with 2 outstanding (which I expect to win the wya things are going). Best buy to date has got to be: "Boxed set of twelve 12-inch LP`s exclusive to Reader`s Digest by RCA. Entitled "Festival of Light Classical Music", the set covers all favourite classical works by 42 prolific composers. The set comes complete with it`s own guide featuring the history of each composer and their music. It is in absolutely mint condition, never been played!" If it plays at all well I can be found on cloud nine - I got the above for 5 pounds sterling (about $7). Not bad for 12 mint, never been played records!!! Seems like a nice guy too - I got a personal email from him congratulating me on the bargain.... If the Greek postal service doesnt destroy it that is.....

"Just curious. Are there FEES involved with this club? How much does it cost to host a single page for your gear? How do the hits involved from hotlinks affect the membership as well as the stature of the site?" There is an annual membership fee which includes the page. As far as I know there is no correlation currently between the number of hits and the costs of that page. On a further note Kelly, whilst I share some of your reservations on the approach of the club members to audio I do find it a fascinating insight into this hobby of ours. It also gets me the opportunity to listen to some systems that I would never normally come across in someone's home rather than in the sterile environment of a show or a high end retail outlet. Last night we all went round to Christos' house to listen to his system. Sadly there were just too many people there - all chatting away to really be able to hear his system (it doesnt go that loud) but it was an interesting opportunity to see some fellow audiophiles and gain input on my own speaker quest. I will post in the near future on my conclusions. suffice to say that I have made some steps forwards over the weekend and now have a path mapped out for possibly further improving the sound.

NOS - glad it is not just me. Dean - I have a sneaking suspicion you might be right although I have never heard the Cornwall. Where on Gods green earth am I going to find one? I would be surprised if there is one here in greece (let alone a pair)

Wolfram, Dont panic about the effects on your copy of DSOTM. I will find it for you - it is just proving to be ludicrously problematic. Actually I should have kept it as an excuse - but that wouldnt be fair. Bear with me a little longer....

Mike, I would never cast aspersions on your choice. I am sure that in your room it sounds great and gives you exactly what you are looking for. Believe me I wish it was the solution to my problem - it would have made my life easier (notwithstanding the WAf issue)... As it happens I am a total doofus. I just realised that I haven't tried listening to the Sansui's without their covers on. I got so used to keeping them in place with the Heresy's to further soften the sound it quite slipped my mind. As the covers on the Sansui are a heavy wooden lattice work I have the feeling that their removal should boost the treble response significantly. Will let you all know on Monday.

Ok - so I got 42. Kinda makes me a balanced individual and I can live with that. Can anyone tell I am not working very hard today - I have lost count of my own posts since work started!!

Wolfram and Mike, I think this is one of those never ending debates. Yes - I probably could audition the LaScala in the comfort of my own home and over a significant enough time period to make whatever changes are necessary to get the sound close to what I am looking for. On the other hand they lack something that the Heresy provided in spades. The very first time I heard the Heresy was in a shop in their audioning room, alongisde a bunch of other speakers with a Sharp SACD player playing a CD and connected to the Sharp all digital amplifier with cheapo cabling. The Heresy just had this sound that was right - it still does. There is something about the highs and mids of this speaker that just screamed "Buy me now!!!" The LaScala, by contrast, never did this. I should add that a near neighbour also has the LaScala (which I thought for a long time was the Belle as it was all in Black with the cloth covering on and I didnt know too much then (and what has changed?). He has his mated with a Luxman amp. On first hearing it sounded good, not great but good. Going to their house recently it just didnt. My ear is changing, what I craved before is not what I crave now. Only the Heresy keeps sneaking up and biting me with its touch. There is a magic in that little speaker that is quite beguiling. If it were coupled with some of the strengths of that damn Sansui that got me all shook up we would not be having this discussion.

So I take it you are not a big fan of Sony then.... I kinda like their TV's and video cameras. No experience with their audio side however, except on one receiver that seemed to do a good enough job on a surround sound system with KLF30's.

If mummy wants a Bose radio then get her one. Not everybody cares that much about sound reproduction but every mother wants to feel loved... Trust me - that Bose radio sounds a heap better than the radio my mother listens to. I wish she would ask for such a thing. Last time I bought her an all in one integrated CD player thing I found out that she gave it to my brother 6 months later. Music reproduction ranks fairly low on her list of priorities.

One of the drawbacks of being a married man with a small child is that it somewhat limits the volume you do most of your listening at. For me a huge proportion of my listening is done at the minimum possible volume (my pre-amp has volume controls that are stepped - it is a real pain in the *** for my wife as there is a genuine minimum level!!) Anyway the point here is that whilst you certainly get more of the music as the volume goes up (to a point anyway) there are some aspects that suffer as a result. Last night, for example, I was listening to DSOTM at the aforementioned minimum volume. I dont usually do this as I always felt this was one album that benefited most from higher volumes. To my surprise there were hole parts of the sound I never really heard (or at least listened to before). As the first track, Breathe, comes in there is the heartbeat that usually resounds through me as the full force of the sub comes into play. This is a truely wonderful start to an album, possibly the best there is of any album in my book. However, with the volume so low the bass is more subdued in relation to the other parts of the music and as I listened last night I found myself concentrating on other parts of the whole. There are a whole series of effects going on that I was essentially unaware of (typewriters, voices and so on). I am not saying that I hadnt recognised them to be there but merely thatthey were not the focus of my attention. As the album played on I found more and more parts of each song bringing a whole new way to enjoy an album I have listened to countless times before. Surprised I then replaced the album with the Wall. Guess what. Same story. I only heard the first side of the first record last night (it was getting late) but now I can hardly wait to get home to hear the rest of it as I did last night. So whilst my volume choice in enforced for those of you with the luxury of choosing your volume I would heartily recommend giving some of your favorites a spin at lower than normal levels just to see if there is a whole other side to the music you didnt know about. It certainly works for Pink Floyd...

Well you guys all sound like professionals to me. I am more of a snapper. About 2 years ago I picked up a Sony DSP A1 (I think). Anyway it is a small camera that takes 3.3 Mpixel shots in its best mode. I bought the optional 64 Mb smart stick thing as well (the biggest there was at the time) and that fits around 40-45 of the best quality pictures on it (in JPEG format). It also can take pictures in a very high quality mode (TIFF I think) but I never use that. For me digital had a bunch of advantages the main ones being: 1. I already had a computer and a nice printer (Deskjet 930C) and both paint shop pro and a few other photo editing packages. 2. I am one of the world's worst photographers - about 1 in 5 of the photos I take are actually any good - the digital camera lets me delete the bad ones on the spot. This means that whilst my capacity is only 45 shots that is 45 good shots or about 8 rolls of film for me. 3. By taking all shots at the highest resolution I can then create cut down shots for posting on the web. All the photos of the baby (http://groups.msn.com/BatMax1photos/thebaby.msnw) were taken with this camera. As you can see if you visit the site some of them arent half bad considering my skill level, with the added bonus that I have high quality printable ones at home on the hard disk and backed up to CD for emergencies. 4. Automation. I can allow the camera to make all the obscure decisions for me (like aperture, shutter speed and so on) to maximise the chances of getting it right, but, if I am feeling adventurous I can turn some things off (like the automatic flash) and take a bit more of an active role in messing up a shot. There are still some issues. The first one is paper. The best photo paper for my printer is not a silky smooth one but one that feels a little grainy to the touch. That paper is a bugger to find here so I often use the smooth paper which is not as good. I generally print my photo's full page on A4 (slightly longer and very slightly wider than letter) and they can come out great although not always as I expect them to appear from what is on screen. The other issues surround the camera itself. The flash is a bit weak for indoor shots and in fact generally the camera takes much better shots outdoors in daylight. Repeated shots with the flash take a while. One major benefit of the digital camera is the ability to take quick video's (320 * 240 @ 15 fps). I do, now, have a dedicated digital video camera, but I caught the birth of my child with the still camera as I didnt then. Later on - when I got the digital video camera and all the software that came with it I managed to put together a half hour video CD incorporating video from the video camera, video from the still camera, stills from the still camera, a bunch of transitions and effects and a soundtrack (MP3 ripped from a CD of the Rach 3 piano concerto). I must say I was very proud of the result!! Whilst the quality of the video from the video camera was slightly better quality there wasnt much in it. Right now I am planning on getting a faster computer for the video stuff. My trusty 500 MHz Pentium 3 is creaking at the seams trying to cope with gigabit video stream editing and I am seriously short on diskspace!! Frankly as disappointing as some of us find digital for audio it is absolutely the best thing when it comes to video and photos!!

Why do you think that it is the source that is at fault? Do you have a Cd player or other source? Does it suffer from the same problem? I must say that from the description of your problem is sounds more like a room issue than a source issue - but I could be wrong.

I think you are describing biwiring as opposed to biamping. On my old Accuphase which had speaker A and speaker B outs you could, with appropriate speakers, connect the A to the upper connectors of the speakers (treble and mids) and B to the lower connector (bass). As my speakers only have a single set of connectors I never got to play with this but I am fairly sure the manual described it as biwiring. I have never understood how the amp managed to differentiate the possibility of biwiring from the possibility of connecting 2 separate speakers, in which case you want all the signal to do down each pathway. To make things more complex too I think that if you do connect both sets of cables to a single set of speakers then the impedance that the amp sees is halved. I remember on the back of my old Yamaha receiver that there was an impedance switch. Set to 8 ohms it required 16 ohm speakers to biwire. You had to set the impedance switch to a lower setting (4 ohms?) in order to biwire with 8 ohm speakers. Of course I may have that entire thing the wrong way around. I am working from my befuddled memory here.

Justin, A couple of things: 1. A pre-amp's volume control is not supposed to affect the tape out. The tape out is designed to run at constant volume into a recording device so that the said recording is made independent of the volume you are listening at. This is how it is supposed to work. 2. The most simple pre-amp is a passive pre-amp. Basically that is a volume pot and a bunch of inputs and doesnt require power. I would suggest a hunt around ebay for one - this may be your best bet! Unfortunately I have no experience of passive pre-amps myself but I am sure others can advise on good ones to look at. Good luck in your continuing quest!!

OK - my take on the LaScala - PLEASE DONT GET UPSET!!!! Firstly a caveat : One of the major diffences between Greece and the US, for example, is the way that properties are constructed. Timber frame properties are almsot unknown in Greece. About 99% of properties are solid concrete constructions designed to withstand earthquakes. Floors are generally marble. One result of this, expecially in Summer when carpets are removed is that rooms tend to be excessively bright giving even relatively mild speakers / tweeters a shrill quality to their sound that can be quite unpleasant. For the record when I first bought the Heresy's I had them mated to a Yamaha receiver and then to a Rotel power amp with the Yamaha acting as a pre. Yamaha's tend to have a bright sound anyway but mated up in the latter configuration the highs on some recordings could cut cloth. My gradual move to tubes has been influenced as much as anything by the constant quest to soften the sound. This has been achieved so effectively that most people are astonished to discover that I am in fact running horn loaded speakers. Every audiophile comments, when visiting my house, that my speaker placement is strange, if not simply incorrect. The funny thing is that whilst under normal circumstances they are right, in my house they are not. I spent some considerable time playing with placement and came to the following conclusions for the Heresy: 1. Placing almost any horn loaded speaker on the marble floor creates such a harsh sound nothing can salvage the situation. 2. Raising the speakers and keeping the Tweeters below ear level helps but the bass reduces dramatically in intensity. 3. Having the tweeters at ear level re-introduces a harshness to the sound. 4. Having the tweeters above ear level works the best. The highs soften again whilst the bass becomes stronger as the woofer is now at ear level. With the LaScala the optimal solution for the Heresy cannot be applied, at least in my house. They are much bigger and heavier and would require a sizable, solid box to mount them on. This would result in 2 speaker columns about 6 feet high in my living room - i.e. slightly less acceptable than having a tree in your living room and a couple of dogs. I am interested to hear of Scala's mounted on stands - it is the first time I have heard of this option. When I heard the Scalas it was with a reasonable digital front end (separate DACS, jitter prevention devices and so on) with a tube pre and some kind of tube amps I cant remember. The Scalas were positoned well away from the walls and toed in properly, but they were standing on a marble floor. You want me to summarize the sound - Bass muddy and weak, mids indistinct (and weak) and chalk on a blackboard treble. The sound was incomparibly worse than my Heresy setup. The only advantage was image size. The soundstage was also rather too vague with images drifting around according to the note they were playing. Since that hearing I have spoken to several people here who have tried out the LaScala's and none have been happy with the result. The LaScala has something of a legendary status here as being difficult to drive well in our environment. In fact, various audiophiles from the club bought it for precisely that reason reckoning that they could tame the beast - to my knowledge none succeeded. I am quite prepared to accept that it can be made to work brilliantly in the right environment, with wooden floors and generally less bright rooms. Maybe it could even work well in Winter here - with the carpets down, but in summer? Sadly I haveto conclude that the Scala is not for me. If I had corners in my living room, and a lot more space I would try KHorns. The Horn is sufficiently large for it to be far enough away form the floor to sound right. The bass could still be boomy but it seems others have managed to control that so I see no reason I couldnt. Of course the fact that they cost $20,000 here new as opposed to $7,000 in the US doesnt help their cause.

So you're the one!!! Congratulations on being just about the only English Klipsch lover on the planet. FWIW I am also English, but living in Greece. Were I living in the UK still I guess I would never have heard Klipsch at all. How on earth did you find them?

Assuming you are right Dubai and I could tame the LaScala's I still have the problem that they are simply too big. I am thinking now that various people at the ACA event thought the highs too rolled off and a couple suggested that the Crossovers would benefit from some work. They seemed to think the capacitors could be fried, or at least not functioning correctly. Tony has an electronics guru friend that might be able to help there. It shouldnt cost too much to find out if more can be had out the Sansui's before I give up the ghost on them completely... If I can get the clarity of the Heresy out of them without losing their current strengths I will be one happy man - till the time comes for the next upgrade anyway.

Kelly, Were these speakers mine I probably would have done. As it is my brother-in-law gave them to me and would take a dim view of me selling them, expecially as these speakers were bought by her father way back when and are now viewed as something of an heirloom. Trust me - the thought crossed my mind. As it happens Heresy's dont do too badly here either. I had them up for the comparitive bargain price of $900 (here). I think you will find they are somewhat cheaper in the US 2nd hand... BTW - there was no way I was going to write about other speakers on this forum although to be honest the thought had crossed my mind. The high end show is coming up and I plan to do some serious listening to see if anything catches my ear. The problem is something often does but comes with a whole new set of issues of its own. Did I ever tell you about the Final 0.3's???

I am not sure on the comparison you are asking me to make. I have not heard the RF5, only the RF3 and the RF7. In simple terms comparing the Heresy to either of the RF's I prefered the sound of the Heresy on both mids and highs but they dont compete on bass. This is not a problem for me as I have a sub which provides even more bass than either of the RF speakers. It is an interesting problem when talking about a surround sound system. Ultimately the Heresy can be matched to a sub (as above) but more normally than in a 2 channel system (in other words it is more common to incorporate a sub into a surround sound system than it is into a 2 channel system). In that setup they would make great fronts and IMHO provide better highs and mids than the RF options. The problem is that there is no dedicated centre channel designed to provide a proper tonal match. This is not the case with RF speakers which have their own specially made centre channel. Of course there are options - like a third Heresy for the centre but it is less than ideally shaped to stand on top of most TV's. You could even do with no centre channel and rely on the sound staging to create the voices properly in the middle. This will work from the sweet spot but not off-axis. Reading what I have just written I can see that this is of little or no real help to you. Sorry about that - I have a mind that goes off on tangents sometimes!!!