maxg

Yes - you got me with low impedance speakers, or rather with speakers with vicious impedance curves that can throw any calculation into the dust. However, from what I remember the original poster has Klipsch speakers which, if anything, suffer the opposite effect in that in parts of the spectrum the impedance goes well above rather than below the nominal 8 ohms specified. I seem to remember reading that my own Heresies reach levels of 30 ohms in parts which is why - despite the high sensitivity - they are still a bugger to drive. On the reverse side I will raise your Apogees a pair of Final 0.3's. Frankly I dont know how low these really go but it has to be the wrong side of an ohm. Ask Tony - his Accuphase just died whilst trying to drive them (170 wpc into 8 ohms) whilst a 50 wpc Electrocompaniet played them fine (if not particularly beautifully). For beautiful the only amp we have seen drive them is the AudioNet Monoblocks with the same companies SS pre-amp that was at the last high end show here. Those Finals are probably the worst speakers I have ever seen for their demands on the amp. The sad thing is that properly done they create a simply exquisite sound.

Arco, Methinks you are having a problem with your posts. Two entries with only your name showing.

Missed that exchange - work gets in the way sometimes. Of course it's midday here so I suppose I have the advantage as Kelly says and you wont find me on here in the early hours... In the bathroom changing diapers - yes but not on here!!

"1) Speakers (yes, even the most sensitive ones...) transform the bigger part of amplifier power into heat! " This is, I think, one of the reasons you have to keep doubling the power for a lowly 3 dB increase, although I must say I thought it was amps that generated the heat rather than the speakers. Basically the more power you generate to drive your speakers (wherever the main loss actually is) the smaller the proportion of that power that is translated into sound. In other words - not forgotten - merely another way of saying the same thing. As regards a week on Sunday I think you are down to visit Tony's. Planning to pop over to me too?? I have a piece of vinyl you are looking for if you do (unless you want me to give it to Tony). See you soon anyway.

Well dont Kelly - Way out West is the vinyl I have too. It was driving me mad (almost enough to leave the office - go home and check!!) Phew!!

Sick? Not sure. Insomniac definitely!! Just as a matter of complete interest Kelly - what do you do for a living? Surely you havent figured out a way to get paid to be on-line till all hours. If you have you must be a multi-millionaire by now!!

I have Sax Colossus on XRCD - it was the first one I ever got. Really amazing recording - I listened to it for a full year before I realised it was mono!! I also have one of his recordings on reasonable vinyl but sadly like you my memory is going and I cant remember its name.. Will check it out tonight and get back to you.

I have noticed that these longer threads on the 2 channel forum seem to go haywire in the middle with all sorts of strange interjections coming up. Some of the figures quoted here are a little odd. I think I will stand by mine but the rest .... well - I think I will take them under advisement!! As long as we are all enjoying the music I suppose.

Nice one c&s - although I thought thread ending was my Forte, although it is doubtless Heresy to say so I have to blow my own Horn here to whatever Chorus of disapproval I get from you Belles of the ball. On the other hand I dont mind having the last word - it makes internet life so different from the reality of marriage!!

"When you go from a long run ( 15 ft per side ) of a high capacitance cable ( Goertz MI-2's with Zoebel's ) to a short run ( less than 48" ) of even higher capacitance cables ( Goertz MI-3's with Zoebel's ) and get poorer performance ???? I'm pretty sure that the MI-3's are not THAT much more capacitive to make up for 11' of similarly designed cable of a slightly smaller gauge." Kelly - that is a comparison of 2 different types of cables at longer and shorter length rather than a comparison of a single type of cable with varying lengths at which the longer length yields better sonics. I can see that if we are talking about extremes of length where cable resistance comes into play you could "help" the speaker by reducing the watts it is subjected to from an over-enthusiastic turn of the volume knob on an amp. For any other effect to come into play we would have to reason that the cable is flavouring the music and that therefore there is an optimum length required for the flavouring to take effect assuming that it is a pleasant addition. Possible I suppose...

"I have come to trust my ears somewhat in spite of others." Me too. Hence Sansui speakers in the living room and Heresy's in the Study... Just playing with you. BTW - never tried raising speaker cables off the floor. If it does make a difference it implies a problem with the cable shielding which would infuriate me bearing in mind what I paid for these damn things!! One day I will pull the stereo out and sort out the spagetti of cables behind it. Right now everything runs alongside everything else and it has all got intertwined in the evil way that cables do.

I will lay odds that this album will never be played by the owner. We are out of the territory of buying music here and into the collectibles area fair and square. My guess is that this album will be lovingly stored for posterity and if it does re-appear on the market it will be in a few years time for even more money. I dont know but it may well be a very good investment - as long as it is not played.

Yes - a lot off questions - and it is a bit difficult to answer them all. I suppose the best place to start is how watts translate into db. The basics are that for every 3dB jump in volume you need to double the power. Starting with your speakers as the basis (99 dB/w/m): 99 dB - 1 watt 102 dB - 2 watts 105 dB - 4 watts 108 dB - 8 watts 111 dB - 16 watts 114 dB - 32 watts 117 dB - 64 watts 120 dB - 128 watts From memory your speakers in common with most Klipsch models can handle upto 100 watts continuous / 400 watts peak. Therefore the maximum continuous volume your system is capable of producing is theoretically about 118-119 dB which is ear damagingly loud for exposures beyond about 10 minutes. I should add that these are the ratings in an anechoic chamber at a distance of 1 metre. For every metre further away you can reduce the dB by 6. Therefore if you are sitting 3 metres from your speakers with 32 watts comming from your amp you should be listening to music at something around 102 dB or thereabouts. In my language 102 dB is plenty loud - far louder in fact than I would ever listen to music. The highest figure (continuous) in my listening position I use is about 90dB and then only when the wife and baby are out and only for rock music. (Note - there are others on this forum that will laugh out loud at that figure but I am keen on retaining my hearing for the foreseeable future and imho they are taking a risk). As most of my listening is done at about 84 dB, even taking into account I am 3 metres from my speakers you can see that with your speakers I will be running at 96 dB from a distance of 1 metre or 0.1 watts from the amp. This is where the advantage of tubes comes in. At outputs of less than 1 watt it is generally accepted that tubes are less distorting than SS amplification. The issue is not that a 3 watt tube amp will play louder than a 3 watt SS amp (if such a thing existed) but that for the majority of normal listening the tube amp will suffer less distortion that the SS amp. I should add that some makes are notorious for over-stating their outputs. Just because a given make of receiver is declared to be 100 watts does not mean that it actually is. There appear to be a variety of tricks the manufacturers use to make these numbers look bigger as watts sell amps. In summary a 3 watt tube amp will not play louder than a genuine say 30 to 70 watt SS amp. At 104 dB it will probably clip like the devil on the peaks, but, at levels of, say 95 dB it should sound gloriously better.

FWIW I have found that silver speaker cable (Synergistic in my case but they are now out of production) works the best with my Heresies. Actually I picked this up from Tony who had tried dozens of cables for his KHorns before alighting on these. Warning - they were not cheap (although I suppose that depends on your relative valuations of things). Suffice to say the cables cost me 50% of the speaker cost. Having just switched over cables on the Sansui's to these as well (from cheapo monster) I can tell you they have made a significant difference there as well. I concur with Kelly that speaker cable selection is highly dependent on the equipment being used. The same synergistics used on a pair of 989's really fouled the sound up no end (bad news for Tony as he is still hunting for a proper match and he has had the speakers almost a year now). I should add that I am mystified as to why a longer cable should sound better than a shorter cable having always worked on the basis that with cheaper cable the shorter the run the better and with more expensive cable the only difference should be that it is less sensitive to longer runs (i.e. there should be less degradation of the sound - not an improvment!!). Funny thing this audio business. BTW - what is with all the name calling all of the sudden?

Kelly, I didnt feel attacked - the coming to my defense line was tongue in cheek (never comes over well in a forum). Just one thing though, the Sansui's are rated at 98db/w/m which is higher than the 96 of the Heresies so I dont think sensitivity is the issue. Initially they just needed to go loud to play properly (ignoring where the dial is on the pre-amp - how much actual power is going in) and I would guess they were playing nearer 95 db at my listening position and at that level the sound really fleshed out. As I said above this level required to flesh out the sound is falling (thankfully) as they run in and I play. Ultimately you are correct (reading between the lines of what you say) in that these are not perfect speakers by any means and are as flawed as are the Heresies, but in a different way. All that matters to me, ultimately, is how well those flaws are dealt with (compensated for) by the surrounding electronics. The remarkable thing is that despite the fact that my entire system has been built around the Heresy (tubes to drive them, positioning (including height), a sub to make up for the bass and so on the Sansui's benefit more than the Heresies and therefore appear to play better in my setup. I would also agree with you that almost any monitor can be made to sound good with a proper setup behind you. In fact you have just nailed what has become the cornerstone of my philosophy. I firmly believe that the importance of what speaker you have is over-exaggerated in audio and that it is matching of components to it that is key, within certain limits at the extremes. You cant make an Aiwa speaker play as well as a KlipschHorn but you can make a KHorn play badly or well to the point that a well driven LaScala (for example) sounds better than a badly driven KHorn. Finally I have never heard a Proac speaker. If I find one I will try to take a listen. I was also considering sourcing Dynaudio speakers as I hear good things about them, time and budget limits not withstanding.

I am the first one to accept that there have been precious few speakers in my living room for me to try. On the other hand of course the same applies to amps, TTs and the rest of the components (no more than 4 of any item has been in my house). As Dean states (thanks for coming to my defense) I have , however, heard a great number of other systems. A few of these have been via the club whilst others have been either in other people's homes, at shows and of course in showrooms. A week on Sunday the club descends on mass on my house. I am waiting their response. All I can say is that the last thing I expected was for these speakers to sound as good as they do. I should add that I would have been far less confident in my assessment were it not shared by Tony (my long suffering, longer time serving, audiophile friend). As he has had speakers ranging from KHorns to Quad 989's and amps ranging from Cary's to Accuphase in his house alongside god only knows what else (I dont think even he remembers them all) if he likes them I am probably on the right track. Further, Tony heard them on Sunday. Since then I have repositioned them, changed the speaker wires and played them almost incesantly. They are running in for sure (they were played that little previously that the woofer is still tight) and I think I am going to really surprise him when he next comes around. As an illustration of what is happening when we played them together I needed to turn the volume knobs up to 12 o-clock to really get them to play properly. As of last night they now "come on song" at about 9:30 and I expect that figure to drop suitably over the coming days. This is the most important development for me. Almost all my listening is done at fairly low volumes (demands of a baby and a long suffering wife). If I cannot get these to respond at, say, 84 db at my listening postion (max) then they will sadly have to go. As I think Justin said - for the money.....

What Kelly - you want the full list??? Well - none really. That is not exactly true but everything before the Heresy was, shall we say, crap? Or at least not up to this level.. Ignoring the early speakers (the integrated Sony, Aiwa etc. bundled jobs) there were the quintets with the Klipsch 10 inch sub, the KSB 3.1 monitors and then the Heresies. A pair of RF3's were in for a day or so just for playing (boy did they go loud!!) Other than that I have Tony's home made bookshelf horns but nothing else springs readily to mind. Basically I heard the Heresies in a shop demo and that was that. Never moved an inch from there on in, till the weekend that is. Of course I did add the REL Strata 3 but do subs count? If they do there are a few of those I can add. Why?

"Polydactl Children of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Fume Purveyors " - Wow!! Anyway if I remember correctly having read through this entire thread the post was about keeping pets away from the subwoofer. Methinks the solution lies in the subwoofer itself. Cue up the loudest bass Cd you have and leave it on pause. turn the volume up high and wait for said cat/dog/whatever to approach the speaker with malicious intent. Then press "play". Even a particularly stupid feline will find somewhere else after 4 or 5 goes. I am lucky in that my dogs are only ever in the living room when I am, and therefore almost always when the stereo is playing. They give the sub a wide berth - even at very low volumes. I dont think the majority of household pets like deep bass.

Not 50lbs for the pair - 50 lbs each!! That is 100lbs plus the weight of the packaging. Reckon it would be better to pick one up from near you when it comes up - shipping could bankrupt you.

---------------- On 10/8/2002 6:30:31 AM justin_tx_16 wrote: would you say they are better than heresy's fo rloud bassy music, classical AND rock? i am a mix of all three hehe... i was going to get a pair of heresy's but these are so cheap... what do you think? ---------------- It is difficult to tell as I run both with a REL Strata 3 sub which handles the bass department rather well. I am guessing that with similarly sized woofers (12 inch) the Sansui should win out as it is a slightly larger enclosure and ported. It certainly makes the spl more obvious with the ports being front firing. Unfortunately I have been totally unable to find proper specs on these things so I dont know what the relative db/w/m levels are but these appear to me to go louder, quicker than the Heresies which implies a higher rating than the Heresy's 96. For the prices we are talking about I was working on the basis you can afford to make a mistake. If they dont pan out you should be able to get your $10 back and go for a pair of Heresy's (the wooden cabinet alone should be worth that). As it happens for rock music I find the Heresies a little lacking in bass anyway so I would always recommend a sub with them. Can you really go wrong?

The 2 low cost tube pre-amps that spring to mind are the bottlehead foreplay and the Decware ZTPRE. I have the latter and played for a few hours with the former. both very good value for money in my book. The ZTPRE is so adjustable out of the box it should integrate well with any SS power amp you care to choose. Good luck hunting!!

What is this - Sansui discovery week?? I just found out a friend has a Sansui tube amp, also from the 1970's. I have no info on it yet - will find out more and post it here on the Sansui appreciation forum. Has anyone ever heard of a little known speaker called Klispch or Klips or something - I hear good things about them.

Well it seems that these speakers are the bargain of the century. I just looked them up on ebay hoping to see them changing hands for silly money - and they are - but the wrong end of the scale for my liking: This pair is currently at around $20: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1386368465 And this pair are half of that!!! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1386138836 So if anyone wants to join me in evaluating them the entry price is about the same as a burger and fries with a large coke it seems. If o9ne of you out there could see your way to getting a pair to compare to some heritage speakers I would be very interested. As an aside I was hoping to be able to swap out the dreadful clip connectors for some proper binding posts. Sadly the way they are built seems to preclude that option. The crossover is mounted directly on the rear of the plastic cover on the back and I cannot figure out how to get it off as those funny controls are in the way and dont seem to be removable from the outside. Typically I have already gone out and bought the binding posts - maybe I can put them on Tony's home made speakers I have lying around...

---------------- On 10/6/2002 2:51:48 PM Khorn wrote: I had a lot invested in TTs arms and cartridges back in the 70's. Loved the sound. In the early 80's with the advent of 'CD' and "Perfect Sound Forever" I jumped right into CD and got rid of all my vinyl. Bad mistake. I lived with players, transports and DACs and grew increasingly dissatisfied with CD until just recently. I purchased a Sony SCD-1 SACD/CD player and WOW! has that changed things. I find that the CD repoduction through this unit is amazing. Much better CD sound than I ever hoped for. But, It doesn't, even with the best CD's, come anywhere near the experience of listening to a well recorded SACD. IMHO SACD properly implemented (recorded and mastered) offers the best of both vinyl and conventional CD and in some instances surpasses them both. It's hard to explain but as soon as you put on a good SACD you are aware of a much more "relaxed" presentation. I told you it was hard to explain The above are my own personal experiences so that's what I can relate to. If you do get the chance to plug an SCD-1 or similar player into your system do so, you might be in for a very interesting time. ---------------- Whilst you may be right for the higher end of the SACD player chain it is not my experience with the cheaper end. It seems that at $500 to $1000 price levels the SACD players do not match even lower end TT's and dont even offer that much over similarly priced CD players. If SACD's are only going to be appreciable at the rarified heights of the players you mention then they are unlikely to gain the critical mass they will need to succeed. The other problem is that there are already newer and better technologies in the pipe-line (such as blue-laser) that in theory offer many times more storage and throughput than either SACD or DVDa. This is the endless chain of upgrading the manufacturers want us to climb aboard. Frankly I am running out of patience with the whole thing.

---------------- On 10/6/2002 6:48:10 PM deang wrote: It seems many of the forum members are losing chromosomes. Old tubes, ancient amps, scratchy records, "obsolete" speakers -- What the hell is wrong with us? ---------------- Well at least I am moving forward timewise - the Heresy is based on an even older design than these LOL. Its a good question though - especially as my brother-in-law asked much the same thing - "surely speaker design has advanced since these were made - how can these sound better than my Sony's?" Therefore, purely in an effort to help fellow forum members out I am prepared (totally at my own cost) to swap out those dreadfull old corner Horn speakes some of you are lumbered with for a brand new pair of Sony's at no cost to you. Please apply to my email.