JohnA

That Vb equation was what I was looking for. Gil, I didn't know about the selection wizard. PE does recommend 3 drivers, but the Eminence coaxial full-range they recommend would be too expensive to put in the garage after you buy a horn, compression driver and build a crossover.

Skip the Type AL and go for a pair of AL-3s. They'll sound lots better!

Ken has La Scalas, so running without the woofer inductor might not be such a good idea. The woofer to squawker crossover point is about 380 Hz, but the La Scala bass horn has useful output to 1k. Ken, your problem HAS to be related to one of 2 things: the K-55-M or a wiring problem you are just too close to to see, yet. What guage is the inductor? Could the taps on the autoformer be mismarked/misread? The tonal balance between my k-55-V/AA La Scalas and my K-55-M/AL La Scalas was not much. The type AA is a Type A with a steeper tweeter high pass. The Type Als had more midrange and, in particular, a howling ring in the range of a French Horn and an incredible screech from the tweeter when loud (another crossover resonsnce, I think). In fact, my original pair were mismatched, one with the Type AL and -M and the other with a Type AA and -V. The -M (1982) version stood out slightly for it's extra midrange.

I found some HDPE woofer enclosures at Parts express that are made for 8" woofers, cheap. I want to use them to build a pair of garage speakers. How do I use T-S prameters to find a driver that will work well enough with a 0.3 cu.ft. box? I would ask if I hadn't loaned out my Loudspeaker Cookbook.

No, that's not them, but I'd forgotten about digjr's "babies". It might have been Phil Hauck. I was thinking how impressive a mini La Scala center would be.

Ken, The Type A has less losses in the tweeter section making it a dB or 2 hotter. That is all you should really notice. Try to post pictures and a sketch of your actual networks. If we can see it, maybe we can help. The K-55-M's impedance at 400 Hz may be different meaning you will have to change the squawker cap or add a resistor. The DCR of one of my -Vs is 10.5 and another is 10.3, though. I've always thought the -M was more efficient than the -V, but there is little hard evidence to support that conclusion. I had a pair of '87 La Scalas with Type AL networks and K-55-M squawkers. I cannot imagine calling them "fantastically engaging and musical".

I found this on ebay, but it is in PWK's hand. Ignore the red line, it is *his* suggested mod to create a 2-way crossover. He called it a "bridge" and suggested it would not help. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3071298235

Who built the mini La Scalas and posted pictures here a couplae of years ago? How did they turn out?

Well, I try to be Civil! Tennessee Tech, 1979.

An H/K USP will *definately* improve that Sony!

"I'll bet the phone repair people get to see some intersting stuff too." Gil, I KNOW they do. I have a friend that is a phone company residential installer. All of his good stories are pretty creepy. Nothing dangerous, except to his marriage! He's had at least one proposal. A lot of the houses in the stories are too rickety to walk in. I think he left one job because there was a snake in the crawl-space where he needed to be! He's never mentioned any cool audio gear.

Khorn58, Dave got the last one on ebay. I missed the one before that by just a few $$. Had I only known...... If you decide to build another Cornwall, let me know. I'm sorta concerned about the appearance of a bare Shorthorn, but we'll see.

Aw Gil, It was FUNNY!

"what the hell are ya'll doing?" "I'm takin' what they're givin' cause I'm workin' for a livin'!" -H. Lewis The TI is WAAY faster than a PC for most of my engineering calculations, unless I have to do them over and over. I can calculate runoff for one basin in about the time it takes to get Excel running and the equations written. It was $225 in 1975. That was almost a week's take home pay when I went to work in 1979.

This is what I use every day. I have two of them. The second was for parts, but it works as well as the original. I got it as a graduation present to take to engineering school.

Hey Dave, You don't know where there's another Shorthorn, do you? When I wasn't looking they seemed to show up!

ROTFLMAO!!!

Also, the input to the T2A should always be 0 and 5. The output of 0 and 4 is -3 dB. Each lower numbered tap is an additional -3 dB, i.e. Tap 0 & 3 is -6 dB and 4X the impedance. With the Type AA, you will have to add a parallel resistor or change the 13 uF cap to correct for tap changes.

When I replied to Dean, I figured I'd be in for a roasting. Though I *wanted* to be, I was not a tube fan well before I bought the Wave8s. Many praise them saying they sound better than tube amps costing thousands. There is ample scientific evidence that tube circuits perform better than similar SS circuits; see IEEE Magazine. I'm well aware of the price of the Wave8s and had there been a hint of anything beyond competence, I expected them to be stepping stones to better equipment. Still hate missing that C-J. However, all of the things tube fans say their amps do to or for a music reproduction system are things I don't want. Liquid and softer are not adjectives I want applied to my system.

Welcome James, Based on what you've said about your '82 K-horns (one of the BEST years, Type AA and solder terminal K-55-Vs), I'd recommend only a few things. Based on my experience with my La Scalas and ALK crossovers, I'd try: 1 - Damping the squawker horn with Dynamat or rope caulk (found in the weatherproofing section of Home Depot. I used Original Dynamat. 2 - Add Rope caulk to the back of the tweeter horn; might be little benefit, but it's nearly free. 3 - If you are really obsessing, place rope caulk or Dynamat on the outside of the woofer basket. 4 - Finally, and this is a toughie, buy "Z" brackets from Klipsch and flush mount your tweeters. This was quite a nice improvement for my La Scalas, but it is easier to do than on K-horns. The "Z" brackers bolt or rivet to the tweeter's screw holes and then push the tweeter forward until the mouth is flush with the front of the mounting board. It requires the opening for the tweeter be enlarged enough for the tweeter's horn to slide through. The K-horn and Belle have had this mod for many years, now. That will make your K-horns as good as they can be. The TAD compression driver most likely to be used in the $30k Hartsfield was probably $2000 each. TAD makes a suitable wood horn for $1200 each, I believe. That will get you a new pair of Belles!

Be polite, open doors and bring flowers!

It's printed on the board!

Dean, I have only heard ASL Wave8s in my current system. Eight watts was *plenty*. When it was cold, they sounded competent, but unremarkable. Over the course of several hours (5 to 8), they sounded fuzzier and less distinct. If I left to system playing and came back after a couple of hours they were often annoying due to the "fuzziness". I swapped in new tubes and that didn't make any difference. I was never able to get hooked up with my friendly Boutique owner to try a Conrad Johnson he had before he moved his business to Florida. I can't express my disappointment with this situation. I picked the 8s due to the praises on the Audio Asylum. I WANTED them to sound great and was planning to buy 5 for the whole HT. It would have been SO COOL to have a tube HT. I actually did a dance the day the amps arrived! The good part is that I sold them to a guy in Taiwan for what I had in them. That's ironic because the amps were made in China, shipped to Canada, then to me and finally to him. They were made just a few hundred miles from him, but likely he could not buy them directly and they must have been shipped 15,000 miles in their life! I'm actually going back into tubes, though. I've sent the check for a vintage Heathkit mono integrated to be used with a single Shorthorn and (EEK!) a CD player.

I guess I was depending too much on the reader deducing that a clipped signal that generated lots of HF energy, added to the original signal, would overpower (overheat) the tweeter resulting in its failure. I'm convinced they fail mostly due to heat. Perhaps some of Bob's failures are heat related as well as mechanical. The only drivers I've ever damaged were my sub drivers. All 4 went in about a minute one day when I was home alone rocking the house. After about 15 minutes of high power, hard rock (SPL Meter in use), the drivers signed off one at a time. By the time I realized it all 4 were damaged, but 2 were still making "noise". All 4 voice coils had unwound and were mostly in the bottom of the magnet structure. Two were open, as well.

I began riding motorcycles at 14, over 30 years ago. I don't have the miles Andy and some of the others have, but I've covered a few. In order to make a realistic recommendation about a beginner bike, we need to know how old and how big you are (O.K. we know you have to be 16-ish). Generally, I'd say get a 250 street bike. The only 250s built lately are "crusiers". They are sorry beginner bikes because of the poor seating position and ergonomics. I'd look for a used 500cc single like a Honda FT500 or a Yamaha SR 500(?), a 400 cc 4-stroke twin or an older 125 to 250 cc two stroke twin. A Suzuki GT250 would be great! You need something docile and forgiving to begin with. Two years on a 250 and then look at a Suzuki SV650 to take to college. Avoid all multi-cylinder 600s like the plague! The newest ones top out over 155 mph and would get you killed in the first month. They might get me killed. I'd say you need to ride 5 years and 25,000 miles before buying one of those. I'm on a Triumph Sprint RS now. It's a great sport-tourer without being high strung. With 120 HP, it is fast below 5000 RPM. Andy, I've put a mile or 2 on a TwinJet, too!