JohnA
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Posts posted by JohnA
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Be sure to test the bass drivers for an open voice coil. It one coil is open, you'll get diminished bass, but that driver will appear to move because it is in the same chamber with the working one. I seriously doubt the crossover is bad.
John
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P=IxV and V=IxR Where P= power, I=current, R=resistance and V=voltage.
Rearranging the above, P=V**2/R (V squared). Power amplifiers are essentially voltage sources, meaning their output voltage is pretty much the same no matter what the load is. If V is held constant and R is changed power is changed. If the resistance is doubled, the power is cut in half. If the resistance is cut in half the power doubles.
Since we don't live in a theoretical world, there are limits, particularly in the power supplies of amplifiers. As the resistance falls, the power supply is called on to put out greater amounts of current until it just can't anymore. Below that point, the power doesn't increase linearly and the amp's output voltage actually falls further limiting power.
It appears your amp is current limited just above 4 ohms (it can't double its power from 8 to 4 ohms). Going the other way from 8 to 16 ohms, it won't be limited and the power will halve, i.e. 90 watts.
If your amp is underrated and can actually put out more than 180 watts at 8 ohms, it will put out more than 90 watts at 16 ohms.
John
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Those are Klipsch components in a home-made box. The squawker is the Heresy 1.5/ Heresy II squawker and the woofer looks right. That's some sort of Klipsch network. Only the tweeter is missing. It must sound rough.
John
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There is no ideal or "good" ceiling height. It is acceptable that the ceiling height is not an integer multiple of another room dimension (or close to it). many of the music halls of old that were said to sound good had what we'd now call a catherdal ceiling (a high, inverted V). I've had two houses with that ceiling in a rectangular living room that sounded pretty darn good. If not that, I'd next choose a sloping ceiling, falling to the front of the room.
John
This message has been edited by John Albright on 01-28-2002 at 06:21 PM
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That looks like superb in-room response to me! I'd look at some rugs or wall tapestry to help with the 8k bump, it it is still there after you correct for the instrument error.
John
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Hi, Bill! How ya dooin'?
Are you all busier since September? Is that a dumb question?
John
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In all fairness, the cat-5 cable to the KLF-C7 did make a small difference. I still have trouble describing that difference, sort of smoother and more detailed.
I had the wife and both kids helping. The boys didn't mind, Cathy thought I was "touched". i had trouble typing for a couple of days afterward.
John
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Standing waves are caused by the dimensions of your room. They are a resonance that occurs at some frequency (or frequencies) and every multiple of that frequency until the multiple gets high enough the room absorbs the frequency. An example might be 40, 80, 120, 160, 200, ..... Essentially, your room is resonating like an organ pipe. Other than changing the size of the room, thatr's nothing you can do about standing waves.
The effect of standing waves is that at some frequencies and at certian places in the room, the bass will be strong (peak). A few feet away, or at a different frequency you'll have no bass to speak of (null).
I can assure you, your room has standing waves. Hopefully, they are not too prominent. You can adjust the position of your speakers so that your listening spot is not located in a null or a peak. Another trick is to use 2 or more subs in different locations. Since they are in different locations, each one will excite standing waves in different places. With any luck at all the peaks from one will hit near the nulls from the other and you'll have fairly even bass response throughout the room.
John
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"Just because I'm paranoid, ...."
Thanks, John, I needed that!
John
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I twisted 3 pairs of 4-pair and then braided the 3 twisted pairs into a single cable. That means each front La Scala got a cable made from six 4-pair "runs". The solids became + and the dashes became -. After all of that work I couldn't hear ANY difference AT ALL!
My La Scalas are '81 models with Type AA networks.
John
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They are DIY grille covers, but nicely done. I chose not to do that to mine because the bass horn is so striking.
John
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mace,
Yep! It's Cat-5 network cable with teflon insulation (plenum rated). Twist 2 runs of 4 pair, braid 3 of the twisted runs, seperate the solids from the dashed conductors and you have about 11 gage equivalent. It's an attractive rope that's about 1 1/4 inch in diameter. The twisting and braiding of twisted pairs is supposed to cancel inductance and the teflon insulation is supposed to have such a high dielectric coefficient that capacitance is small. The result is a low R, low L, low C wire that is supposed to sound great. It's pretty cheap and doesn't seem to hurt anything.
John
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I've always matched the length of the Left and right speaker cables for one reason, DC resistance.
I'm currently using braided CAT-5 for speaker cables to the front 3. I could not detect a difference between it and OLD Monster cable on the La Scalas. I heard a difference on the KLF-C7, but I'm hard pressed to describe that difference; cleaner mids and highs, maybe.
I know the theory behind the CAT-5 and many of the other cables. Trouble is it's only theory and there is no evidence that it's not just marketing, instead. Buy large, cheap wire.
John
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If you hear it in your headphones, its not the drivers. There's no need to take them apart.
John
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Randy,
You've been surprisingly analytical and honest. Most people, including me, want to prove something to themselves or somebody else with their tweaks. So, the tweak always sounds better, regardless of the truth.
I have always tried to address a physical and audible problem with my changes. For instance, I changed caps in order to make the original Type AA and the Lab-built Type AA match in value and cape type. the happy coincidence was the tweeter caps smoothed the sound. The Hovlands on the squawkers wasted about a $100. The same thing was behind Dynamat. I heard a ring with some piano notes that I could feel with my hands a well. I had read about Dynamat being used for vibration damping in cars and tried it. Later I found out Altec built some of their horns with tar-filling.
It is my opinion that a vibration in a cabinet or horn, no matter how pleasant or "involving", is undesireable and unwanted.
John
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I have La Scalas for mains and rears and a KLF-C7 for a center channel speaker. It works very well and has a good tonal match, though not perfect. Heresies from about the same year your Belles were made would be the optimum, but they could be hard to come by. Conventional rears that should be good would be the RS-3s or RS-7s.
Your Belles deserve better than a mere reciever of any ilk. I recommend seperates. I'm very pleased with my Acurus pre/pro and Parasound amps. For the money they are hard to beat. B&K also makes good equipment at a step up in price. Then, there is Aragon, Proceed, and McIntosh at a bit higher. If you are willing to go into the Aragon territory, start looking at good tube equipment. If you can find a good tube technician, used tube equipment can be a good deal. I don't know enough about tubes to be confident buying used.
There is no reason to have your Belles serviced. The way PWK made stuff it still operates after 50 years. We have some guys on the BBS using mid-50s K-horns that are completely original.
John
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Great!
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If you like it LOUD, do not substantially modify the factory crossover. The factory crossovers have tweeter protection built in them and it's required. The tweeter can handle about 2 watts continuous and 10 watts peak. The spec varies a little depending on where you hear it, but this seems to be a reliable set of ratings.
Here is the crossover upgrade you're heard about: http://www.alkeng.com/klipsch.html. Al's crossover's don't have any tweeter protection. However, they do sound superb.
La Scalas won't go as deep as your 30s do, but the bass is clean and "quick" and obviously natural for the frequencies the bass horn covers. Sitting in a corner, on the floor, the bass horn begins to roll off below about 55 Hz. Be sure to listen to them before you buy. OTOH, La Scalas can comfortably reach 120 dB at 1 meter and the pair easily hits 110 dB in my 16' x 18' x 21' x 19' room.
If you like deep bass consider a pair of monster subwoofers.
John
This message has been edited by John Albright on 01-21-2002 at 08:52 PM
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Those are designed for spade lugs, not banana plugs.
John
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I have a new Panasonic progressive scan DVD player hooked to my non HDTV-ready RPTV. It works Great! I cannot view progressive scan signals, but it will also output a very good standard NTSC video signal, too.
John
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Not switching to Ac-3 mode is a common problem with the ACT-3. Part of the problem may be with your DVD player. Can it be set to default to AC-3 (DD 5.1) rather than Pro Logic (4.0) or DD 2.0? Sometimes a DVD will have all sorts of different sound tracks on it.
John
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You can buy diaphragms from either Klipsch or through a local pro sound shop from Atlas.
John
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Not being made shouldn't be much of a problem unless it has some exotic tubes that are hard to find. I don't think it does. Seems like it uses EL-34s. They're common.
John
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$3000 is twice too much for decorator models; maybe more. Keep looking for another pair.
The K-horn will have noticeably deeper bass than your Belles. The squawker horns in yours will also have wider dispersion at higher frequencies than the K-5-J.
John
Do you want the bad news first?
in 2-Channel Home Audio
Posted
It takes time to flush out all of those bad electrons.
John