maxg

Thanks for posting that - certainly made interesting reading. Just a few comments really: You have not had these speakers very long. IME Heresy's take a long while to settle in. I am not talking about burn in - I am talking about finding the ideal setup for them including source, amps, room treatments, positioning etc. etc. You will know when you get it right and it will affect both the soundstaging you think you are not getting now and the accuracy. Remember accuracy is a function of speaker and room together. From the picture in your avatar it looks like you have the Heresy's on risers and therefore, I would guess, on the floor. I have always been of the opinion that this is not the best location for Heresy's. If you can place them on something to gain a little height you will notice a dramatic change. In a room with 9 foot ceilings I found the ideal height to be about 18 inches - YMMV. I can say that at that height the whole soundstage improved dramatically and there was very little, if any, cost to the bass. In fact the bass appeared to clean up dramatically - probably through reduced reflections (or changed reflections from the floor). Other than that - enjoy them - they are a great speaker for the money.

Paul, Thanks for that - it was brilliant!!!! And actually Rachmaninof did have extraordinarily large hands - it is one of the reasons the Rach 3 piano concerto is supposed to be so hard to play. Sadly I never learned the piano so I cannot comment directly - just reporting what I have read.

The ML's? Not all that impressed - although I need to check it was the Summits we heard. Kinda disconnected from the rest of the sonic picture as I recall. For me the 802N blows them out of the water - but not for soundstaging of course.....[]

Hmmmm..... So you like the Heresy 2's but not the 3's - odd. I used to own the 2's as well and have heard the 3's on a couple of ocasions. I rather liked them, ah well. Am I to understand the B&W's you listened to were the 802N's? Yup - they are absolutely FANTASTIC speakers - but not really comparable as others have pointed out. I actually prefer them over the newer versions - the 802D. If you do go that route try them out with the Yamaha MX-D1 amp (500 wpc digital) and you will be amazed. Mates very well with a tube pre-amp (I have the Klimo at home). Add a decent source to that combo and you will have as good a sound as anyone has a right to. As for the reference speakers - I will assume you heard either the 83's or the RF7's. I have heard the 7's many many times. Most of the time they sounded poor to my ears, but, once, at the high end show in Athens in 2005 they sounded absolutely fabulous. This tells me that that are a pig to get setup correctly but, if you manage it, you will be rewarded with truely excellent sound and soundstaging to die for. On the one ocasion I heard them play well they produced one of the best soundstages I have ever witnessed - far, far better than the 802's in my experience (and the Heresy's for that matter). The only thing the 802 has that cannot, IMO, be touched is the bass. Simply put - properly setup they produce the most realistic bass I have ever heard. No RF - with or without a sub - will touch them for that. Otehr than that - I kinda like your approach. Buying an audio system one should always aim to get the best you can afford. If the 802N's are 5K budget another 5 to 8 for amp and pre-amp, 5-10 for a decent TT source and another couple of K for cables, power and so on. For as little as 15-25 K you will have a sound that can compare to anyone's.

Phil, Lets start with the basics and work up from there. First off - properly setup this TT with decent vinyl will outplay CD player sonically. It is important we know this before we start so we know something is wrong with the way it is right now. I am not a huge fan of Rega's persay - but I am certain it can sound better than a denon DVD player. Possible problems: Faults. The cartridge or the phono stage could be faulty. The motor could be faulty. All your vinyl could be trash. Cabling. the wires to the back of the cartridge are crossed(miswired), broken, paritally functioning. The installation of the cartridge/arm is horribly wrong - from overhang to vertical tracking force to azimuth - even antiskating. I think it is important to note that it has to be very wrong to sound as bad as you seem to be implying. In other words - you have aligned the thing so badly that the bottom of the cartridge is dragging along the vinyl surface (just an example - one I have seen). Problem is Phil - without more information it is very hard to go further - could be many more possibilities besides what I have here - there are just a few of the more likely candidates.

Dave, This is exactly why I responded as I did. THIS IS NOT AN IDLER TT. It has NOTHING to do with the legendary Thorens tables - NOTHING!!! You see Thorens TD1XX and you think idler wheel, quality of build, legendary tables. I have nothing against cheap belt drive tables persay - I had one for years - but this table is not only a particularly poor example (you have to see the insides) it is also something designed by marketing entirely to fool people. How the Thorens reputation survived this seriously nasty, underhanded, mutton dressed as lamb abomination is beyond me. What is worse - it continues to this day, fooling buyers all over the world again and again. However - Rick is right - it is not worth risking an SUV tire over - which is probably why most SUV's come with a decent tire iron. That is perfect for the job.

How do I put this? Not! Please dispose of this item carefully. The best way to ensure someone gets many thousands of happy hours of listening to music through your sacrifice is to run over this TT with a large SUV whilst uttering the words "be gone fowl odour that doeth destroy the music". How they ever dared to sell this POS (and the 170 and the 190) with a Thorens badge on it is a total mystery to me. Due apologies to anyone who will now write a reply extoling this things virtures and telling my they have had thousands of hours of happy listening to this bargain table....blah .....blah.....blah......buy a CD player (and you may never again see that advice from me).

Type Moving Magnet Output (1Khz 50 mm/sec) mv Freq Response 20Hz - 20kHz Output Impedance 660 ohms Load Impedance 47k ohms L/R Separation 1kHz > 30db L/R Balance 1kHz < 0.2db Stylus Tip Elliptical Cantilever Aluminum Dynamic Compliance x 10-6cm/Dyne Static Compliance ??? VTF 2.0-2.5gm Mass: 6gm Price: $800 USD If the table I just copied from the cartridge db worked than above I think this is the cartridge you have. The Aurum Virtuoso wood - same specs for both versions. Now does your arm look like this: Or like this: Or even: Basically these are variations on a theme of light arms. they appear to vary between 7 and 7.5 gram apparent mass. With the Clearaudio cartridge therefore: You have a resonant frequency of 11 - 12 Hz - which is ideal - so no worries there - what about the VTF? If: Bass notes are playing loud and strong. The arm is not skipping or jumping. The soundstage is properly formed and all spacial information appears correct. You do not have a problem. could it sound better tracking at between 2 and 2.5 grams - maybe yes, maybe no. I run a Denon 103 rather light at 2.1 grams. I do this because I think it is more tonally correct that way. When manufacturers quote a figure it is a guidline. This guideline will be aimed at users of the more common arms out there - in other words medium mass arms. For a lower mass arm like yours the optimal figure may well be different. You like the sound - spin that vinyl - enjoy. Only start to worry if you think you are detecting above normal wear on records you play regularly.

Well - as I never had much of a macho image to start with - yup I use that too (swiffer?) Works brilliantly and gets into all the nooks and crannies of your gear. I do actually use it on my TT too - but well away from the cartridge. I have even tried using it to brush a vinyl record prior to play. In theory it picks up all the dust that is there - but it seems to charge the vinyl a little so you end up attracting more. If you do clean vinyl with it the zerostat gun appears to negate the after effects quite well. I would recommend trying this with a record you are not too fused about to start with.....just in case.

Welcome back - your family kept us all entertained in your absence. Now just settle back and listen to some tunes with occasional visits to the keyboard to keep us all uptodate on progress. cheers!

Birch I think. See the link to the review on the ACA forum to see how we fixed the improper setup issue - quite a novel approach!! I have no idea what the wall unit was made of - it did appear to ring a bit with the higher volumes - although that may have come from other parts of the room - hard to tell. Dimensionally the room was quite odd. It is about 20 foot wide and only 10 deep or so. The Horns are about 12 feet apart. This room connects to an adjacent room through a wide archway and most of us were sitting on or around the border between the 2. Even when seated in the other room the sonics were staggering once we had created the false corner. If you have the details of the guy you put in touch with ACA please mail them to me and I can see if he made any contact.

http://www.aca.gr/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7655#7655 This is the first part of the review of the meeting with lots of pictures - including our clever "door modification" to the KHorn. Played astoundingly well after that - did I already say this?

Good questions and points: The setup you see in the photo is not exactly the one that we got to play so well. We made a false corner for the left hand (as you look at it) KHorn by taking one of the doors of its hinges and jamming it in between the KHorn and the column that formed half a corner. The TT is a chinese high end TT called the Opera - there is a separate supporting table for it that was not in use for the meeting (his wife had grabbed it for a rubber plant - what can you say?). The Quads were the 988's - a modern day '63. Never been a big fan of them since Tony had their big brothers - the 989's.

OK - that is all for the photos for now. I only posted this as the setup was simply the best sounding KHorn implementation I have ever heard. I think this has a lot to do with the amp/pre-amp combo. The owner had explained how many years he struggled to get the speakers to this level of sound and now that he has - he wants to change - to the quads - which are a transistor radio in comparison to this sound. I dont know much about the amp but I think it is a parallel single ended implementation with 30 wpc. Those are 300B's driving it and for the first time in my experience it was a totally unstrained sonic result from this tube. We could not go loud enough to really test it - at 9 o'clock on the volume dial the thing was breathing fire. Probably says more about the potentiometer on the Cary than anything else - but it sure went loud. I am sure we swept past 100 dB average level. As a side note - this is the first ever Cary implementation I ever liked too. As ever my synergy theory proves itself yet again. This of course, did not help the case for the quads - which didn't go loud - at all.

Closer shot of the amp:

another...

More ..... Actually this TT was on the Quad setup sadly - we had to make do with a Rotel CD player on the KHorns.

Yep - there's more....

Surprise...

And another

Another one

Lovely evening. Just a few snaps of the KHorn setup (and maybe a cartridge / TT) I will keep them as small as possible:

Well this is one of the weirder threads on the forum of late. How does Meagain fit into the last 10 pages or so - I think I missed a vital plot twist somewhere. Talking of vital plot twists - are we saying in this thread that if the Jubilee had made it into production as a 2 way, no corner required top of the range speaker the KHorn as we know it today would have been withdrawn? I think I picked that up around page 8 - but I am so exhausted from reading all of this I really am no longer sure....

The things you find online: http://www.bswatch.com/index.html Now I would bet he could arrange a PWK memorial version of the watch for Klipsch to donate to their active forum community...... Just in case the link dont work: " Now you can make a social statement or political comment with humor any time, anywhere with this cool new gadget. The Universal Bullshit Detector Watch It flashes, it moos, it poops it also tells time! When asked, "Whats that sound?" Just say, "Oh, sorry, thats my bullshit detector." This satirical product is non-partisan and non-sectarian. In any language it sounds the same. Caution Use of this Universal Bullshit Detector Watch could get you in deep, uh trouble. It might irritate, frustrate, aggravate, insult and/or piss off whomever you are with. Therefore we must issue the following disclaimer and warning: We are not responsible for the results of your use of the Universal Bullshit Detector Watch whether due to your courage or lack of good judgment. Use of the Universal Bullshit Detector Watch may seem endlessly warranted. However, relationships may be adversely and possibly permanently affected. Also, the Universal Bullshit Detector Watch is not waterproof, so don't get thrown overboard before taking it off. You will probably find unlimited opportunities to use the Universal Bullshit Detector Watch. No worries, the battery is replaceable."

Mark1101, If you believe in syergy between components then you could easily argue that any choice attempting to match items together in a system is a form of equalization. Further, any rearrangement of placement can be viewed in that light. As for specific electronic equalizers I dont think parametric units ever got quite the negative reaction graphic equalizers did. I would suspect that, in the main, it was a simple case of not enough adjustments available. A 5 band graphic equalizer, for example, it probably not going to improve the sound beyond the negative impact of inserting it into the system in the first place.