JohnA

Generally speaking, a vaulted ceiling is a good thing. It breaks up standing waves (resonance). I like the double sheetrock walls, can't be much more expensive and will greatly stiffen the wall, plus reduce sound transfer into and out of the room. Multiple block bridges between the studs would be a good idea, too. The "blocks" are usually made from scrap lumber. Stop adding blocks when the cost is noticible. Just one is a satisfying improvement. I'd say 3 or more, all around the room, is overkill. jmon's corners were a special case. John

Hi, Bev! The first thing is to change the room size. 20 x 20 will be great to set up a resonance (standing waves) in the bass that is equal to the 20 foot length; about 55 Hz. You want to avoid any dimension that is an integer multiple of another dimension; like 8 x 16 x 24 (1:2:3). If you will make one wall out of square, you will just about garauntee no resonance. Try a room that's 18 x 20 x 22 x 20.4 feet, for instance, that's one non-parallel side wall. Two non-parallel side walls looks even cooler, like an auditorium and works better. The triangles made by the angled walls become closets. Insist all 4 walls of this room, plus the ceiling and floor have at least one row of "block bridging" per 8' of stud or joist. Block bridging is a 2-by whatever brace nailed between the stud or joist about in the middle of the 8' span. It stiffens the wall a lot without costing much money. Don't accept steel straps, they don't work much. Make sure the 2 x 4 studs get covered on both sides with sheetrock or some sort of paneling (normal) to further ensure their stiffness and insulate all of the walls, ceiling and floor of this room with fiberglass (only abnormal in the interior wall(s)). You want to make the room as non-resonant as reasonably possible and use carpet and wall treatments (curtains, acoustic panels or Persian rugs) to control reflections. IMHO, more than this, like diffusers, is getting obsessive/compulsive, but can improve the sound of your room. John

I would think flexible walls and floors would make the bass muddy by setting up resonance at some frequencies and not others. Placement in the room and its dimensions will cause peaks and nulls in the bass, so that some places have too much and others have none. John

Use C weighting and slow response. Sit in your favorite spot and activate the pink noise generator. With the meter pointed at the TV and slightly up, set the output of all channels to the same level. Since you are not using the LFE outs, set the sub by playing music and adjusting the sub so its output is the same as the main speaker's woofer. Hold the meter close to the drivers to get a reading. Then tweak by ear. John

That turned out very nice indeed! The TV up high is striking. John

It does not look like there is mych difference. You will want a rug covering either one. John

I bought "Tricycle" used through Amazon.com after hearing the clips. It is recorded well and has HUGE dynamic range. It caused Cathy to jump, startled, in the first cut. However, the performance is weak and there are several mistakes left on the release. The whole CD sounds like there was no rehearsal done beforehand. It's still a neat demo disc. John

The ACT-3 has about a dozen available crossover frequencies. The crossover can be applied to the sub only or to the sub and the other speakers. There is no "Large" and "small" setting for theother speakers. You just select the crossover frequency you want, or none at all (the equivalent of "large"). John

Here's a picture of one: http://www.cdc.net/~colt45/klipsch/50th.jpg The innards were standard K-horn. John

TTK, Yes, I am quite happy with my ACT-3. It is a Class A preamp that sounds very good. I've heard some magical stuff come out of it. It has one flaw; noise. All signal processing, like volume control, is done in the digital domain. In addition, the analog gain is very high in order to meet some DD standard. The result is noise that would go unnoticed on lesser speakers. Mondial has been eager to modify my unit to cure the noise, but I'm not willing to do without it. I have done the same thing they would do by turning down the input gains to my power amps. The noise is not inaudible unless my ears are almost touching the grilles. I use a Parasound HCA-1203A for the front channels and a Parasound HCA-1000A for the rears. I use an Acurus A-250 for my sub amp. The A-250 was bought used and is several years old. The ACT-3 seems to be made as well as the A-250. It has been perfect. I wish it had tone controls, just simple ones at +/- 6 dB would be fine. There are too many poor recordings and difficult rooms to be without them. John

Needing 100 watts is just a rule of thumb. If you had inefficient B&W speakers, that might be 1000 watts, instead of 100. For K-horns at 104 dB @ one watt, 10 is likely enough. 104 dB is really pretty loud. You won't talk over it easily. John

Heresies will blend with most good subs. Klipsch has a good one or 2 and a nice RSW Series coming soon. Be sure to get one powerful enough to operate without strain and therefore excessive disortion. This is one of those "you'll just have to listen for yourself" things. John

Deoxit D5 is a very good contact cleaner. The maker is Caig Labs. John

I did emphasize output exclusively, but I did it because it is an easy concept to explain. Low distortion comes from lack of strain (engineering definition) while reproducing a particular sound. A system capable of La Scala output should not be under much strain at typical levels. Since the highs are filtered out of subwoofers, I'm not convinced "quick" even applies to a sub. A waveform with a steep rise and fall has lots of high frequencies in it to create that steep (quick) slope. A sub will never receive the highs that make the sound seem "quick". Distortion is another matter. I chose my subs because they looked capable of the required efficiency and low distortion. If the Manufacturer's specs are to be believed, and he's not hiding anything in them, they do the trick, at least in the distortion department. John

The Cornwall has very large impedance variations. It has a 4 ohm woofer and the midrange gets up to about 64 ohms or so. If you're concerned with the impedance curve and it's effect on an SET amp, the Cornwall must be almost as extreme as it gets. John

The No Sub setting on the Acurus ACT-3 sends LFE to all 5 speakers, but since it is a mono track, I wouldn't think that would help much. John

The T2A is an autoformer (transformer) that is used to reduce the output of the squawker and tweeter in a Heresy. The tweeter's efficiency is 104 to 105 dB@ 1 watt and the K-55-V squawker is 107 dB@ 1 watt. The autoformer drops the voltage at the driver's terminals to make their output match the woofer's. A side effect is the squawker and tweeter appear to the amplifier to have very high impedance. John

The notch I saw was not THAT deep. It was 5 or 6 dB max. I don't remember a suggested sweet spot at the rear wall. John

I still don't understand, Ed. If you want low bass coming from 5 directions, that's what DD & DTS do now. If you have a room with standing waves, treat the room. My Acurus Pre/Pro seems to be able to direct low bass and LFE to a sub or 2 (or more?) that *could* be optimally placed in any room. It seems everything you want is here, except main speakers that can actually operate from 5 Hz to 20 kHz. I run my 4 La Scalas full range, cross the center to the subs at 60 Hz and have the LFE channel set to SUB & LFE with a 60 Hz low pass. As I understand it, all 5 channels are blended into the SUB signal below 60 Hz and that plus the LFE goes to both subs. In addition, the center has a 60 Hz high pass filter on it. Is this not what you are asking for? John

There are lots of good subs out there. The coming Klipsch RSW-15 has an MSRP of $1700 and I believe it will do the job. I spent an afternoon listening to it play The Matrix and it can ROCK. HSU makes a pretty good linr of subs that are similar in design to SVS. I've heard HSUs and they are nice at normal listening levels. The Earthquake sub may be enough, be sure to check max. output levels on whatever sub you buy. All decent subs can play with La Scalas up to a point. when they max out you'll have to turn them down if you keep turning the La Scalas up. John John

I don't think I follow your logic. The DD and DTS standard is 5 full range channels (5 to 20k Hz) and a Low Frequency Effects channel; no "sub channel" at all. That may require six subwoofers to actually implement. Sending low bass from other channels to the LFE speaker is NOT part of the plan. That said my Pre/Pro can route low bass from any of the 5 channels to the LFE speakers and set the level of the LFE and each speaker individually for each Mode (Stereo, ProLogic, DTS, & DD). The LFE can be LFE, Sub or Both. As best as I can remember, the crossover frequency is the same for each Mode. It looks like what you want may be out there, but not in a receiver. John

The K-77-M is nominally 8 ohms. They will measure about 6 ohms DC resistance. John

That 50 to 80 Hz notch is a characteristic if the K-horn. You may not be able to eliminate it. I have seen it in at least 2 graphs of the K-horn's response, but it was not in the 3rd. John

I did quite well with just one sub and a 350 watt monobloc at normal listen levels. It's when you want to crank a little Collective Soul, that you need 2 subs and lots of power. John

I believe Klipsch DID, at one time, own Pyle. I'm not sure they still do. The woofer supply for the Heritage line is not in question, at this time, it's the squawker driver and perhaps the tweeter. John