JohnA

I've got 3 of those hand-woven, garden hose, CAT-5 speaker wires. I did them myself and probably have no more than $50 in them, plus sore fingers and a wife that thinks in certifiable! They improved the detail or clarity on my KLF-C7 a little and did nothing for my La Scalas. My theory is the relative reduction in DCR vs speaker impedance is at work. The La Scalas are 32+ ohms in the midrange, where differences are easy to hear; 1 ohm less in the cable in not much overall change. If the -C7 has a typical impedance curve, 1 ohm less in the cable vs. 7 or 8 in the midrange is a lot of relative change. I have always been a doubting Thomas and continue to be one, but I have some fairly expensive Vampire Wire interconnects because I heard the difference and I liked it. It could be nothing more than better mating of the preamp to the power amp, but it works for me. I don't believe there is anything but $$$ mojo in the truely high-end. John

My '81/'82 La Scalas have square magnet woofers labeled K-33-E and my '87s have round magnet woofers labeled K-33-E. The '87s have a 15162 ink stamp on the cone. I can't remember the square ones having anything on the cone. Since buying the '87s I've wondered what's up. John

Sure we do! But, maybe I'm not a full-grown Libertarian! John

I don't have large or small, but I cross over my KLF-C7 to my subs at 60 Hz. That is sort of like a "small" setting. Sending the center bass to the subs improves the impact of sounds in the center. John

I use my Sony DVP-S3000 as a DVD player and CD transport. I chose it initially for its dual lasers. It is not designed to pass DTS and will only do it if there is nothing but DTS on the disc. So, I've been thinking about a transport and/or a new DVD player. I don't doubt the Theta sounds great. How can I slip that into the house? John

The correct voltage is 2.83. 0.283 is 10 dB lower than 2.83. It looks like your speakers are spot on. Both the EQ and the 3BX can cause clipping in narrow ranges at SPLs that normally wouldn't cause alarm on a meter measuring average outout. I fried 4 sub drivers (at the same time) about the same way and paid a $400+ stupid tax for it. I didn't hear clipping and MAY have overpowered the drivers with my amp. It turns out it was capable ot that. The bulbs are a variable resistor with power, the more power the more resistance they have. They have wire loops on each end making them easy to solder leads on. DJK has found a really neat, unobtrusive sonically, way to save your tweeters. John

I don't have a problem at all with the lack of an LFE channel. All of the Pre/Pros and Receivers I've had contacts with have a sub configuration that will send low bass to a subwoofer. I did not see the article, but if the DVD-A can't essentially equal the performance of vinyl, I'm not interested. I think that means a very high sampling rate to ensure near perfect waveform reproduction (much better than CDs' 16 bit/44.1 kHz). John

Klipsch is very easy to work with directly. Your damaged drivers probably can be reconed for less money. When you talk to Matt or Trey ask about that and ask about exchanging your damaged ones for a pair that are already reconed, like the auto parts store does. John

BobG has said the KLF-C7 turned long axis vertical would make good rear channel speakers. They are obviously M-T-M configuration and should work pretty well. I like mine as a center. They absolutely will require a sub. How far are you from Canberra? John

That looks like just what YOU need! John

The brands I listed are all SS. There are a handful of tube designs, but I can't recall the names, now. The Aragon preamp is all Class A. John

Your power figures won't be too far off IF you measured the SPL at 1 meter away. If you were 2 meters (10 feet) away, like my speakers are, the speaker is putting out 6 dB more SPL. 6 dB is 4 times the power required. Clipping at any frequency adds huge quantities of harmonics (you have to add lots of highs to make a flat-topped, or clipped, wave). Many of those harmonics are in the tweeter's range, adding lots of power that shouldn't be there. So, a bass note at 125 Hz that's clipped can produce enough highs to kill a tweeter that can only absorb 2 watts continous. The tweeters in my La Scalas have been said to have several different power ratings, but 2 watts continuous comes up frequently. I'll bet yours is the same. "No clipping Aloud" John

My La Scalas benefitted HUGELY from Dynamat on the squawker horn. The horn itself has small resonances within its frequency range that color the sound. Dynamat or rope caulk just about kill all of them and the sound is a lot smoother and more relaxed. My favorite electronics dealer said he hated La Scalas until he heard mine and he had to allow they didn't sound like horns. John

Before you say you can't hear a difference try to pink noise to calibrate the speaker levels. If you still can't hear a diffeence, it doesn't matter. John

There are many good add-on phono preamps from Acurus, Aragon, Parasound, and Creek, to name a few, you could use and keep your current preamp. I use an Aragon 47K, but could be happy with the others as well. The 47K is a great phono preamp and has enough gain for moving coil cartridges. John

Try it in the cabinet. It can't hurt anything. John

The boy can play and sing, huh?! John

Your HCA-1500 operates in Class A up to almost 3 watts and uses MOSFET outputs. I'll bet it sounds really nice! I can't justify trading my 1000A/1203A for an even bigger amp just for MOSFETS. John

The RSW-15 is better than good, it's great. Lots of output. Follow the white rabbit. John

Two Heresy centers won't hurt. The center rear is a new inovation. I believe it's called ES and EX, basically using ProLogic to make a rear center out of the 2 rear channels. The disc has to have the encoding for it to work well. I like to see an amp that can put out nearly 2x the rating into 4 ohms and I think 100 watts/channel is plenty. I like to see distortion ratings at or just below 0.1%, too low implies too much negative feedback and much more implies too little. I like simple designs, MOSFET output devices, high damping factors (>300) and slewing rates (>100). Knowing that an amp can pass a clean square wave at more than 1 watt is good, showing good power supply, current capacity and wide bandwidth (you won't se this info much). Finally, you have to listen to it, because all of the specs in the world won't describe how it interacts with your electronics and speakers. If the amp has a "character" or sound of it's own, other than the ability to tightly control the speaker, I don't like it. Boy, that sounds erudite, didn't mean to get that far out. John

If you want a lot of seating, La Scalas in all 4 corners, TV in the center of the short wall, 1 Heresy for a center channel, another for center rear, 2 more for side surrounds. Sell the rest of the gear and buy better amps than Adcom. Look hard at an Aragon Soundstage and 8008 amps. John

There is NO reason a passive radiator must be different in compliance forward to backward. That some are is a fact of cost and manufacturing. Earthquake passive radiators are unusual in that they are VERY stiff. The earthquake components I have handled have a spider and are almost identical to the active driver, just like every other system. The passive radiator is part of a system. The Earthquake passive is so stiff, it could not be used in anything else. John

I was going to jump in on the economic recovery statement brought on by our "National Embarassment", but I see I don't have to. John

I'm not sure. I track the La Scala series and pick up bits about the others. I thought I had an AL-2 schematic, but can't find it. The AK-3 is in 2 parts, which helps bi-wire/bi-amping. I'm unaware of other differences. John

Power is voltage x amperage. Your amp is spec'd at 180 into an 8 ohm resistor. It might do a little more. More than likely its power supply amd cooling capacity are designed for just that and have little "reserve". The protection circuits are designed to prevent exceeding the amperage that equals 180 watts to prevent overheating. Also the speakers probably dip to 6 ohms in the bass, drawing 50% more current at that point than they would at 8 ohms. That is more current than you amp's cooling and power supply can tolerate. Shutdown. BTW, 3/4 "throttle" on every amp is well beyond clipping with most sources. 10 to 12 o'clock in normally full output