JohnA

It's not misleading if you spec the tolerance. The Heritage line has almost always been spec'd at +/-5 dB.

Good on ya, Special K!

Hi Steve, I had the same reaction as your reviewer when I heard the RF-7s in Tweeter. Yuck! I believe it was the room. Tweeter had the the RF-7s less than 3 feet from each wall of a corner. It was boom city. Someone hinted maybe that was why Tweeter no longer sells Klipsch. There is no such thing as a good classical speaker or a good rock speaker. If it is not good on everything, it is not good.

Home Depot sells Monster cable, in bulk.

Aragon is not discussed for the same reasons Conrad Johnson of Pass Lams or Mark Levinson is not discussed; most people cannot afford it. http://www.reliableaudiovideo.com/aragon.html http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1047250910&read&keyw&zzaragon

Easy, " I had to get a big speach from MIL about how I waste all my money on the stereo and tv stuff." I don't mean this to sound critical, but you don't have to stand still and listen to that stuff. You could even say something polite and leave the room/house for 10 minutes. After you do that 3 or 50 times she'll get the message and stop. It's passive/agressive and prevents a direct confrontation.

You should go listen to some Aragon products. Of your list, only Krell has the potential of exceeding the sound and quality of Aragon. Paraphrasing, I have Parasound, Parasound is a friend of mine and Parasound is no Aragon! Outlaw is the odd man out and not worthy of your list.

I would wait until the tweeter fails to replace the diaphragms. Removing the diodes (unbolting one and letting it hang) is an at your own risk thing. With one low power tweeter, I don't think I'd do it. Partsexpress.com sells polyswitches. Klipsch uses them now, with a resistor in parallel. It's a gentler sounding tweeter protector. Search the BBS for an AK-3 schematic.

Rick, The above is sound advice. The K-55-X is NOT an upgrade without the AK-4 network. While it has essentially the same output as the K-55-V, it cannot reach the 6000 Hz crossover point of the Type AA tweeter. The K-77-F has less output than your K-77s As for upgrades, from your description you must have K-77s with the hair thin leads. These tweeters are rated at 2 watts continuous/20 watts peak. The replacement diaphragms surely have ribbon leads and carry a 5/50 watt rating; a nice improvement. I have these and have disconnected the diodes that protect the tweeter. Disconnecting the diodes removes some "hashy" sounds at high dB (the reason your tweeter blew). I have not had any trouble with tweeters and my 140 wpc power amp. If you want a further upgrade, look for K-77-Ms. They are supposed to be flatterabove 10k Hz. I have had a pair of each tested (in non ideal conditions) and cannot see a difference in response. Your Mileage May Vary. An excellent upgrade is a set of "Z" brackets from Klipsch. After you enlarge the tweeter hole in your cabinet, the brackets push the tweeters forward to be flush with the front of the cabinet. I guarantee you can hear and will like the difference. I do not know how much work this is on a K-horn; I have La Scalas. I received a nice improvement in clarity by changing the tweeter caps to Hovland Musicaps ($$$). I changed my squawker caps and could not hear it. Changing the woofer inductor to an air-core inductor of 16 ga or larger will stabilize the woofer crossover point. Al K. tested the stocker and found it's inductance changed at alarmingly low power levels. If you have K-77 tweeters, you also have spring terminal K-55-Vs. The solder terminal K-55-Vs have an improved phase plug that smooths and raises output from 4000 to 6000 Hz. I have several of each type and *I* cannot hear a difference, but others can. That frequency range is not often found in music, so my program material may be why I can't hear the difference. If you haven't, cover the K-400 squawker horn with Dynamat or rope caulk from Home Depot. You'll get a calm, relaxed, smooth sound. I love that mod most. Cost: Many people will swap drivers with you, so this may cost a little as shipping, or about $20/driver. Bought outright, used, expect about $100 each for the tweeters and $75 each for the squawkers. The tweeter cap change will cost about $50/crossover. The inductor change will be $20/xover, or less. The "Z" brackets are roughly $15/pair, 2 pair req'd. Rope caulk for each speaker will cost $5 or so. I have done all of these mods. They do not change the character of the speaker, but improve it. Some argue this is sacrilege. I argue Mr. Paul *might* have done it if he built a special cost is no object version. Being a consummate engineer, he was as concerned with cost as he was with performance. All are reversable except the "Z" brackets, but Klipsch does that to all K/B/L these days.

ROTFLMAO, Easy! She must be blonde like mine! I wouldn't trade her for all the coal in Kentucky, though. "Daddy won't ya take me back to Muhlenberg County, down by the Green River Where ......"

I've got Heresies and La Scalas. Heresies are bright. I reworked the crossover of my Heresy center and knocked the mid and tweeter down 3 dB and they sound much closer to my La Scalas. Close enough I'm happy. If I put my Heresies in a corner, on the floor, they become boomy. La Scalas in those same corners are not.

Flynn, Double the power is +3 dB. 10X the power is +10 dB.

Robert, Though I'm getting to the limit of my understanding, SET amps in particular, and ones without feedback, have high output impedance. This makes their frequency response track the impedance curve of the speaker. The cure is lowering the output impedance. At 1.5 Watts, you cannot afford more feedback or other mods that will reduce the amps output. The La Scala/Belle/K-horn impedance curves, while odd are not that extreme. Some panel, ribbon or electrostatic speakers have loads as low as 1 ohm that is mostly capacitive. That a terrible load for an amp. Mr. Paul always said the K/L/B impedance curve had never been a problem. I'd say it was not a bad enough problem to injure the sound of the speaker.

About June '99 for me. You can find the number of days you've been here under your name in the member directory.

I'm 185 miles away from my parents and siblings. It's a bit too far. 100 to 125 miles should be great. Enough distance to make pop-ins inconvenient, but not too far for a planned visit.

Most speakers do not have such an impedance curve. I believe it will indeed be difficult for your power amp, but you'll have to try and see. If you want a crossover with a flat impedance curve look at the ALK crossovers http://www.alkeng.com/klipsch.html or this one: http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/files/DHA2.jpg

try this! The Type AA is my favorite and is one of the best, if not the best. It really shines if rebuilt with premium components. I do not have a graph, but the impedance curve runs about 6 ohms up to 400 Hz, except for the bass resonance. At 400 it rises to a little over 32 ohms and drops to near 8 ohms above 6000 Hz.

Those are all symptoms of poor or *maybe* (not likely) failing electronics. The new speakers are efficient enough to let you hear the problems. I suspect the previous ones were not. The only solutions are to live with it or buy better quality gear. The diagnostic test would be to put the old ones back in, or any other speakers, and stand close to see if the noises are still there, but very quiet.

LOL!

As is normal Gil presents a well thought out reply to what's become a complex question. The "correct" way to biwire your speakers is to use the special cables you bought with 4 terminals on the speaker end and those cables alone. It will not stress your receiver more than a single pair of wires. Trying to use the mains channel and some of the surround channels to drive a single pair of speakers will result in, at best, what is known as fool's biamping (2 amps/speaker without an electronic crossover before them). Depending on how your receiver is made, it may do damage. Without detailed information, we cannot be sure what is going on inside to know what might happen. I cannot see anything good coming from using the mains and surround amps on one speaker. I would not do such a thing. In the stereo days, receivers/amps had A/B switches. Like Gil explained, Speaker A and Speaker B were connected to the same internal amp and the extra terminals on the back were purely for convenience. Initially, we all must have thought this is what you had. Using 2 wires from both terminals on this kind of amp would do no harm and would be as convenient and cheap as biwiring would get.

Ask Klipsch Parts anout the K-601 or K-604. One of them is a Tractrix from the Pro audio line and takes a screw-on driver like the K-55. If you are building new cabinets, you could use them.

Lynn is correct. The AL-3 is well after '83. Type AL was used then. Yours are late 90s through 2000. The serial numbers get screwy in that period. Can you fing them?

They will be on the paper label stuck on the back. In all but the last 10, or so years, it was also stamped into the cabinet in the edge plys of the wood near the crossover. If you cannot find any of that, we can collectively bracket their age my the components used.

What a Hoot! No wonder I've never been able to make one do something.