Marvel

While down at Emory last week, I was browsing through one of those fancy, smarmy upscale decorating mags, placed all over the hospital waiting rooms. The mag is Altlanta Style and Design. One of the ads looked like it had Klispch HT gear in the ad, so I "borrowed" the mag and made a lousy scan. The pick is from the Klispch website itself, showing the RVX42 series. They do Klipsch ceiling mounted and so on. Businesses in New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. http://www.linkyourhouse.com Oh yeah, I am not affiliated with these guys in any way.

You mean I was right? [H] It took me forever to even understand that much. There is a LOT more to it, and you usually explain it quite well. Bruce

A friend of mine thought this was a bit too extreme!

His Mono 10s (PP 2A3 maps) look pretty nice. Not too pricey either. I'm sure not as nice as the JFL PP2A3 that Tony has though. It's kind of a one-off. Bruce

I think Kelly is correct that better albums get made when there is less multitracking. Or at the least, less recording one track at a time. He mentioned TapeOp, one of the best recording mags out there. The last issue had an interview with Ethan Johns, the son of Gyn Johns. He mostly does live tracking in the studio, even sitting in the room with the musicians (as Who points out). You hear how the band is supposed to sound that way and the musicians play off each other more and perform better. Bruce

JulieHKlipsch, If you were asking about Erik changing output tubes... Tubes have two different voltages connected to them. What Erik is talking about are the heaters. For a tube to work, the cathode is heated up by running a low voltage through it. As it heats up it will allow the electrons to boil off the surface. This is part of what makes tubes work. Those electrons are then attracted to the anode because of the difference of potential between them. A screen or grid is placed between the cathode and anode. A varying voltage there (your input signal) varies how many electrons get from the cathode to anode. The voltage between cathode and anode is higher than the grid, so you end up with a small signal being "amplified", as the voltage or signal goes up and down on the grid, the higher voltage between the cathode and anode goes up and down. This is where the term "valve" comes from when applied to tubes. Different tube types use different heater voltages, but the common voltages are 12, 6.3 , 5 and 2.5 volts. You usually get that from a small tranformer or seperate winding on the main power transformer. Since Erik was replacing a tube with one that requires a different heater voltage, he had to get the proper voltage from somewhere else. That is it in a nutshell, and I'm sure that those more knowledgeable will correct me if I am wrong. There are other things going on as well. The phase changes, etc. but we won't go into that. Bruce

If this outlet is on the same circuit as the other gear, you may want to get a circuit tester to see if it is wired the same as the other outlets. They only cost a couple of dollars and will usually have L.E.D.s that light up to show you reverse wiring, no ground, etc. If it isn;t correct, the best thing to do would be to have it fixed. If you are a renter, the landlord should have it fixed. A landlord or homeonwner would want to have it fixed as it could mean 120VAC live on a chassis, etc., and be very harmful to your health. Bruce

Wisconsin -- Cool! We later moved to Waterloo, home of Trek Bicycles. I used my Dynaco for about 15 years and never even checked the bias on it It worked great. Had a babysitter melt an album on it one night while we went out for dessert and coffee. They don't require constant attention, but some are more touchy than others. And Michael may be right, it's a guy thing to collect this stuff. Bruce Madison history and politics -- My wife and I moved there in 1980. We almost rented a house south of the beltline a ways, that had been the home of one of the Armstrongs or Fine. Not sure which. It was a pretty neat house, but the owner wanted too much money for it. I don't know if they had any of their bom making materials there or not. We moved there to help start a church, pretty radical in its own right.

Julie, I'll put it another way. Right now my main system that my wife and I listen to has a tube preamp and ss power amp. Since my wife has been home recuperating from visits to the hospital, this is easier for her to deal with during the day when I am not home. It's not that she couldn't normally deal with the watching out for the tube power amp, but the other is just a turn on and leave on all day without having to worry about it. Both power amps seem to work well (that synergy thing again) with the preamp and speakers (Heresy IIs), so it doesn't really matter which one is in the system. I like the tubes at night because it is a little city with lights when all the other lights are out or turned down low. But I'm more interested in listening to the music. Bruce btw Which Madison are you from? Iowa, Wisconsin, Alabama. etc. We used to live in Madison, WI. I loved the area, it is so beautiful there.

John Warren also used two JBL 10" drivers for mids on each of his KHorns. I was looking at a B&C 6PEV13 (a 6.5") to put in a tractrix, but I've never gotten around to doing it. Dennis had also suggested their 8PE21 (an 8"). Bruce

Got the call late this afternoon from Emory. The IL-2 infusions are not helping Barbara and the cancer is spreading. The IL-2 infusions scheduled for next week are cancelled, but we will meet to discuss other options. Scans now show lesions on liver, lungs, increase in bone lesion, and perhaps some others, but they are open to interpretation. Not the news we wanted, but we are doing alright. Thanks for the continued support. Bruce

fini, Try the analog connection first and see how it sounds first (probably great). Which version of the Audigy2 do you have? Is it the value, ZS Platinum, Gamer, etc. For the digital out to work, my quick guess is that you have to turn in on in the Soundblaster software. Bruce

The tweeter on the HII is also different. In many ways, the mid driver in the original was overkill (my opinion). It was the exact driver used in the Khorn, LaScala, and Belle. They are all a lot more efficient than the smaller Heresy. Notice that I have the newer model. My son has the original model. They both sound good. I find that mine seems very smooth, but others find them to be too harsh. The mid driver in the HII was originally designed/manufactured by Hepner, and Klipsch bought the tooling. The original used the EV/Atlas driver. Bruce

I'll describe the three running systems I have at my house, and why I use them the way they are at the moment. Living room is a pretty cheap Sony receiver with a CDP, turntable and my JBL 4311 speakers. I have my vcr hooked up to it, along with my huge 13" tv. We can turn it on and play. No muss and not much fuss. The speakers are the best part of this system, the Sony works (actually very quiet and clean). The bedroom system is set up so my wife and I can listen to music. Her computer and my computer also reside there. I wasl using a Merlin tube preamp feeding my rebuilt Dynaco ST-70 driving my Heresy IIs. I am using a cheap CDP right now. The sound is very nice. However, I swapped out the Dynaco and put in an Alesis SS power amp. The sound didn't change much at all, but it also means that my wife doesn't have to worry about the Dynaco's heat. It can stay on all day, and the Merlin doesn't get very warm at all. She is comfortable with it. The Dynaco now drives my Alesis nearfield monitors on my computer, with a Biamp brand industrial mixer/pre providing buffering and feeding from the PC. I also have a small Velodyne sub on this (my Brother-in-law) gave it to me). SOunds pretty decent with the PC as a source, but I haven't even had it on in over a week as we usually have the other system on. For me it is more about the enjoyment than all the specs and details. They all sound decent, even good, compared to what most of my friends would have in their homes. So we have balanced convenience and low cost quality for what we have. The Dynaco I've had since the '70s, the Biamp we were tossing out at work, the sub was given to me. The Merlin was a gift, but everything else we bought. It works for me. Would I upgrade a few things if I had the chance? Sure, but we're happy at the moment. Bruce

The 1/4 inch combo connectors allow the use of unbalanced 1/4" as well as balanced. Go get some cheap Radio Shack rca to 1/4" adapters. Then you can use your regular rca cables. 10k unbalanced input impedance and 20k balanced according to their manual.

If you use the 1/4 inch jack (in the combo connector) you can use an unbalanced tip/sleeve connection and run unbalanced. This probably connects the - to ground. They don't explicitly say so, but you can probably do the same on the barrier input strip. Connect your shield to the ground terminal and the plus to your center conductor. You may need to connect the ground to the - (minus) connector as well.

Duke, I didn't even notice the wiring. Good eyes!

I thought that someone mentioned to Jeff that the D-45 is way different than the D-75. The forum software is new, doesn't work very well and the smileys are awful! Mobile, you been sailing much? Bruce

Tomorrow the wife and I head back to Emory to have MRI/Pet/CT scans done. This will let us know if the two rounds of treatment she has gone through are doing any good in this fight against Melanoma. If it hasn't done any good, they will stop the IL-2 infusions. If so, we then look for other forms of treatment. Since this has the best response (at only 16 percent), we hope and pray that it is working. We can't tell, but the scans will reveal far more than we can ever see. Would appreciate your prayers and thoughts as we make the trip. We don't know how soon we'll know the results. It's called scanxiety! Either outcome has its issues, but we want to kick Mel to the curb!! Turnin' down the Merlin and headin' for bed.... Bruce

Michael, Get the manual for this amp: http://www.qscaudio.com/pdfs/usausr.pdf Make sure the connections and settings are all correct. Make sure you are not running in parallel, and try turning off the limiters for both channel 1 and channel 2 (set by the DIP switches). Try setting the gain on the back of the amp to where they point straight up (6 db point). See if this makes a difference. Make sure you don't have it set to bridged mono as well. As a heads up, Sam Ash has the Samson Servo 170 and Servo 260 amps on closeout right now. No fans and a reasonable amount of power (especially for Klipsch speakers). $129 and $149 respectively. The bigger one is 90 wpc into 8 ohms. These are similar to my Alesis RA-100. Bruce

A lot of these ideas will change the impedance of the circuit. I posted a small program some time ago that calculates values for pads, three resistors for each channel. It allows you to choose the reduction in db and the input and output impedance. Isn't this what the stepped attenuators do anyway? Keep the impedance the same but pride the gain adjustment. I think Erik got this at one point. I have matched some things up with this and gotten very good results. I would be happy (as I said before) to calculate the values if anyone wants the info. Bruce

Please speak for yourself. [] Greg Okay-- They ROCK for a smaller speaker. For DR speakers, they are so close to Heresys. Especially since I don't seem to have Heresys with the dentist drill treble that Tom likes to point out [] . They made and make better speakers, but for that size.... they're great. Bruce

It is an older discontinued model. he newer ones would be well worth the price difference. Like the PLX series that Dean has. Or this model for $300: http://www.zzounds.com/item--QSCRMX850 Bruce

I sure wouldn't mind the Sovereigns, or the 4350s. Bruce

I'm not drooling, but I love that green. Bruce