Colin
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Posts posted by Colin
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used furnture stores, resturant supply stores for the steel racks, yard sales ...
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I want to see a high end, gorgous model to compete with the Advantguarde Duos - something that will make audio snobs notice becuase of their looks and price tag and will put the market leader of horns at the top of the audio snob heap, smothing along the lines of a professional movie theater model, downsized for the average living room might a cool idea!
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WoW! the guy has more hits than many small business sites!
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when I see someone selling such efficient and dynamic speakers I always find that they are powering them with oodles of noisy SS watts, or they never played at tweaking audiophile and got the speakers set up to create a holographic image, but this guy has a very nice Mac rig, so my only concern would be - why is he going back ward and not forward? A couple of sub-woofers and a rear pair and he will be ready for six channel sound ...
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I first heard Khorns in Ralph Karstens living room (maker of powerful Atma-sphere OTL amps, http://www.atma-sphere.com/). Like everything I ever heard in his house, it was always better, cheaper and often uglier than what the slick stereo store had up the street. But I heard these babies hum with the vibrations of a cello and I have never forgotten it. Picture a guitar strummed quietly in your living room now imagine a guitar played over a stereo system. Quite a different sound, and feeling. To me, those big old horns were musical instruments. (Sometimes I think we get off track trying to replicate the live experience we are still so far away. Instead I think we should be trying to create a musical instrument in its own right. Imagine trying to compare specs then!)
Anyway, I had a sweet system that Ralph provided for me. NAD pre-amp (1020?) and two rusty old Dynaco ST70s with a pair of Robert Fulton 100s (yes, Fulton) speakers (the ones that had the midrange tweeters arranged in a diamond pattern anybody know them?).
But I wanted more bass and separate powered sub-woofers were not on the market yet. I wandered off course when I bought the big old Cornwalls over a dozen years ago. The guy selling the big old horns had plenty of space in his living room he was going for the Bose 901s instead. Go figure. I knew nothing about impedance, efficiency or ohms, but I knew their frequency response. So I built my system around them. Besides, where am I going to get $500 speakers that sound better?
An audiophile snapped up my system, I brought home the big old Cornwalls and my roommate bought a Carver pre-amp and Carver 1.5 amp (that peaked about 750 watts per side). It has taken me years of sifting through the hype to learn some fundamental truths about super-efficient speakers, harmonic distortion, the distortion of speakers, amps and musical instruments.
I will never part with a piece of tube equipment again.
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you won't tick them off at all - just play the music they lover at the volume they like at the times that they want to hear it ...and find out when they are going to be out again!
congrats
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The Mac amps are hunks of junk - that is the only reason why people all over the globe have been collecting them for decades - better send that thing my way and get yourself a really good amp, like say a 3 lB. Pioneer, yeah, that's the ticket
I do not know that model personally, but I would be very surprised if it is not a great peice of equipment at the price - the Miracord is also another collector's peice of history - if it works, don't sell either one ...
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I think it was quite a smart move actually,
first, every store I have ever seen that sold Klipsch also sold Monster cable - so the customer base (and it ain't us, guys) recognizes the name, plus putting a brand name on something like the internal wiring adds to the impression of quality construction -
it was a smart move, expecially when you look ahead and see what other HT products will be coming from a speaker company that now owns an amplifier with a brand name ...
I do not know who owns the cable and interconnect segment of the home theater and audio market, but if you told me it was a high end brand like Kimber, I would be surprised,
my guess is that it is Monster and that their thick copper cables are a perfect match for Klipsch's copper colored cones ...
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If this helps you ... on a pair of big old Klipsch Cornwall horns, with a 100 decibel/watt/meter sensitivity, in a 17 by 27 carpeted living room with cathedral ceilings at normal listening levels, the 9:00 position on the pre-amp dial measures about 67 dB at the arm of my listening chair (11 feet away from front of horns) with a 1 KHz tone.
Average music, on the slow setting, is a few decibels above that. On my B type (B? or is it A?) pre-amp dial, 8:00 approximates ¼ of my amplifier output. At 9:00 on the dial my 3.5 watt amps push out coffeehouse SPLs; levels slightly above normal conversation.
Fast music peaks at that level are 10 to 15 dBs higher. 9 o'clock on the dial is about 70s dB area, 10 o'clock is loud: about 80s, with the fast peaks no longer measuring quite as wide, therefore high noon on the dial averages about 100 dB at three meters away and consumes an average of perhaps 1.75 watts, with peaks only 10dB above that.
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Good Deal!
Okay, I paid $500 for my big old Cornwalls 15 years ago, think I overpaid?
I guess I can brag about getting a 19' sailboat and trailer for $100 instead
the best deal in speakers are big old horns sold cheap, the next best deal is used, the nest best deal is re-conditioned (lots of used speakers need new cones)
otherwise I would look at PSB Audio in Canada, depending the amp you are using
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First, Prana, tube watts are not SS watts. The saying is that tubes watts are twice as powerful as SS watts. Now it turns out that Tubes Do Something Special (Peter van Willenswaard, Stereophile, September 2000, http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?357). They put out a lot more voltage than we are aware of. Willensward measured recorded music on a 9 watt amp with 300B tubes. He found that You'd need a 50W transistor amp to realize the same peaks my 9W 300B launched without wincing at my speakers.
Second, I think most full range speakers need a powered sub-woofer for the music range below 40 Hz. I believe that one reason we are seeing a rise in the popularity of tube equipment is three-fold:
1. The recommendations of tweaking audiophiles on the Net are without the practical constraints of retail stores; they can freely give their opinion whether they have product to ship or not
2. The growth of home theaters has made the sub-woofer an accessory, just as accepted in suburban ranch homes as they are in multi-story apartment dwellings
3. The long cycles of deep earth notes, like the low throbbing techno-bop of Sades new Lovers Rock jazz CD, require not just lavish quantities of amplifier power, but also the military discipline of a Sargent-major to control the bass cone excusions and driver impedance swings - this means Class D and H SS amps
Even a low cost $250 sub can make a big difference in your system. Especially if it frees up your choice in tube amps. I know that buying my subs before my tube amp allowed me to consider micro-watt 2A3 tubes for their delicate sound and details, otherwise I would have leaned towards EL-84s or 300Bs for their additional power.
Power, however is probably not all that you need, if you have super-efficient horns and/or an SS powered sub-woofer. Your horns are not just efficient compared to the average speaker (8590 dB/w/m), they are even more than superefficient (90-95) they are ultra efficient (95-100). This puts them into a different league for normal power requirements in typical settings. Remember an ultra-efficient horn speaker needs just a few micro-watts, most of the time. Even multi-channel Macintosh amp can drive two large electrostatic Martin Logan Prodigys, along with their two ML rear speakers, at conversation levels in a large room, with a sum total of .2 (or less) watts on its blue meter.
I do NOT know the VTL equipment personally, except that they are renown for their powerful amps. Whatever you get, however, you need to give them a long listen. Although the minute differences in tube sounds are readily apparent, the significant differences only become apparent as the enjoyment of the sound never diminishes and the sound remains pleasing. I only know of one confirmed horn lover who has gone back to SS amps from bottle power: http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0701/volksamp.htm (The Volksamp Aleph 30 SE Power Amplifier by Dick Olsher).
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I will take a shot at this one;
I personally do not know the VMPS woofers, but I am a fan of the powered sub-woofers sold on clearance (both Klipsch) especially if they are big and ugly (you can get great deals on big and ugly speakers),
I think that you will need way more power for the low end, try to find out how low the VMPS will go and if you can what frequency it is most efficient/effective at,
the Chorus have good Freq. response down to about 45Hz (in my guess) so that you want a powerful sub that can reach down lower than that, you need very little response above 100 Hz, in my guess, yet that is where a good many moderate price subs extend there frequency range, instead you want most of your sub output to be lower than 100 Hz - that means a powerful and deep reaching sub
I am far happier with my 500 watt LF-10, (which has a bump in its freq. response near 40Hz) with my big old horns than I am with my KSW200 (which has 200 watts and a bump in output near 60Hz). The more powerful sub does the better job - it goes deeper and plays more solid, with 700 watts RMS (not counting peak power).
I am happy with the sub-woofers that I have. I use a SPL meter and a Test Cd to dial them close to flat response from 250 Hz, down to 25Hz
I would look at powered subs with cheap SS amps that can give oodles of cheap power quickly - the output is not as important to me (I never play the stereo much over 100 dB/3 meters) but the depth of the sub-woofer is important: there is a lot of signal down below 100 Hz that requires a lot of amp power - gop to the HSU and SVS sites to see what I mean ...
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You really have to read between the lines when you read Consumer Reports, well I like their long repair records on automobiles, their values are not the same as mine,
for example, sometimes cars with bad rpair records sell for less than cars with good repair records, if the problem is already fixed, you can get a good deal in a fixed car with a bad record ...
CR also sees no difference in CD players (remember, the specs on CDs are flawless, so that means there is no difference in the sound ... yeah, right)
They do tell you which system gives you the most bang for the buck, which receiver, for example, has the best combination of power and features, with little emphasis on the quality of the sound
size is a very important criteria for them, as it is with many of my friends, so small white Jewel cubes, from that other horn company, rank very high, not only with CR, but also with many of my friends
for me, size and looks will become important when I have the best sound I can afford and the winning numbers on tonite's lotto ...
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I like the new copper tone and think that it is a really smart move for a compnay that does not make fancy wood cabinets, just like the sharp looking yellow drivers of B&W, it is a signature of the brand, one that is more recognizable by most of the general public than the horns
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it is a measurement of amp power now, but I remember the days when amps were measured by IHF standards (Institute of High Fidelity ?) but the new style of amps with flat little chips did mot measure so well by those standards, after much debate, the new standard was adopted ....
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any links?
I like the alerts and I always look ...
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ditto what James says,
subs are speakers, with speakers buy the best you can afford, not the biggest, but the best,
the power seems to make a very big difference, for normal listening levels a lot of the low end is inaudiable anyway ...
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I am embarrassed to admit the number of times I thought the sound was "off" or needed improvement only to find out that one cable was not connected properly or the speakers were not equidistant from the walls ...
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I like the alerts that notify me of good deals at other sites,
lately the growth of the Net seems to be more useless than useful, a Trading Post feature would keep the Klipsch forum my first site to surf
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make sure that the surge protector has EMI (electromagnetic interference) and RFI (radio frequency interference) at the very minimum - these do not cost much and they make a noticable, slight but noticable, improvement for the money
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I am going to take my refund - if I ever get it and if it is as much as you guys say and spend some on the fish tanks - two of them need new hoods - maybe get ALK's cross-overs - fix my headphone amp - clean up the new house and have a housewarming party - and if someone comes along who needs some of it - I will give them some too - the older I get the more liberal I become ...
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Love my Stax - what did you do with the old amp? why not use that to power the Stax? How does the Mac sound on the Cornwalls and the Stax compared to the previous amp?
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Sorry I didnt see the post or I would have penned one of my long replies:
The best speaker I ever had are at my mothers and she wont give them back. I bought a pair of triangular dark wood church statue pedestals the kind that adorn the sides of the alter. They are hand made, unique, solid and beautiful to look at and they just happened to be about 30 high which put the center of the speaker at 36 ideal for my couch position - I think they were about $100 from a antique store and I dont think they will ever leave the family
I see used and new wood night stands that are solid, the right height and look attractive I would seriously consider those
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I have two subs, the KSW200 and the LF-10:
By testing each sub at multiple combinations of the volume and equalization settings (about 14 tests each) with a Stereophile test CD and a Radio Shack SPL meter, I was able to measure the response curves of each sub. The tests were measured at the sweet spot, at armchair level, 11 feet away, in a 17 by 27 carpeted living room, with furniture and sloping cathedral ceilings. Although not actually bright, I would describe clap tests in the room as mildly reverberant, especially when compared to the bedrooms or study.
Both subs share the same 40 to 120 Hz cross-over range, but the LF10 rolls off faster (36 dB vs. 24 dB) above 120 Hz. It is this roll-off that clearly shows the difference between the two subs. The frequency response curve on the older model peak at 63 HZ on all EQ settings, while the LF10 peaked lower 40 Hz.
When playing quality CDs, I initially set the subs to their flattest overall response. When I did that on the KSW200 it filled in the bottom octave, but it also added boomy upper bass. Dialing back the volume and/or EQ settings removed the boom, but also reduced the output below 60 Hz, down to the point where the lowest frequencies were not audible at normal listening levels. In order to hear the low bass, one has to dial the volume level so high that interferes with the mid-bass. So the LF-10 ends up being the one to fill in the lowest notes and it is ppowerful models like this one that you need for organ music and action movies.
If you love organ music you must have two or more powerful subs, you are missing much of the low end of the music!
What's with all the hostility
in General Klipsch Info
Posted
Monty Python, right Ray?
(reading that long post made me feel hostile, maybe I will childishly take something pewrsonal and go flame somebody ...)