DaveWJr

I don't know why you're so amped up about this. It's not exactly an electrifying problem. In seriousness, some little SMD likely wasn't protected from overcurrent, and got fried. Take out the amp and see if you can find which one by sniffing around. It's likely a cap or small inductor connected to ground, so that spot is now floating. I've popped many a PCB component, including amplifier SMDs, so it's not uncommon when said current is coming from an external source rather than an internal short.

Literally used 1 32GB CF card, and had 900 shots left. I've only got a Canon 20D to work with, so 8.2MP pix don't take up the space that my forthcoming (in my mind...we'll see if the wife agrees ) 7D MK3 does :D The problem with the 20D is its autofocus scheme. These days, it's just outdated, nowhere near quick enough, and can't maintain the focus even under servo mode if you do a burst (which of course, to catch a bird in flight, you do). I was shooting everything handheld with no IS lenses, but the good thing about being on the equator is light! I could shoot easily at 1/1000 and not have to drop below f/4.0 unless I needed to. I in fact had to put a 3 stop neutral density filter on my 70-200 because everything was just getting so bloody overexposed on sunny days. All of those minus the B&W of the Galapagos cotton flower were shot with said lens and ND3 filter.

Some shots from my trip to Ecuador 2 weeks back. Took 3241 shots in RAW, ended up with 214 that I liked

No problem! In fact, Jay L was so dedicated to this line (I am not exaggerating or joking), that he went into our primary theatre listening room, ripped off the ceiling acoustic treatment that had been there for years, climbed up over the room, and cut 4 holes through what seemed like 8" of drywall, acoustic foam and insulation, and installed a false ceiling that replicates an average consumer's living room. All of this was to install permanent in-ceiling speakers to make sure that the upfiring module and integrated towers give at least as good as an experience as proper overhead speakers. They do, and many of us (myself included) believe it's more convincing than the discrete in ceilings. All of this effort, just for this one project. So if anyone is wondering why a few pages back he was seriously defending this speaker, there you have it and a bit more.

Guys, we don't expect you to just take our word for it on anything. What I can tell you is that the Atmos spec is extremely specific, because if you were to just copy the angle and fire a speaker upwards, you would not get anything but immediately localizable speakers. Jay L worked his absolute *** off for good over a year on meeting that spec. For those worried that it can't keep up with their larger mains, don't worry: that's also part of the spec. The passive filtering inside one tiny 140SA module is about as complex as that in your front mains and center combined. This is necessary to meet the directivity and frequency response requirements. The result Jay came up with was so good that at CES this year, Dolby was sending people to our Atmos demo because it showcased their technology better than what they brought themselves. For those of an audio inclination, this is similar to a passively beam-steered speaker, which is typically done only with active electronics. The upward rake is merely the starting point. So please everyone, doubt if you will, but take it from me given that I wasn't involved in it, but the Atmos line is easily one of the most complex and involved developments we've done in a very long time. It is definitely a game changing experience. As you were.

I know you aren't saying all amplifiers sound the same? Was your tongue planted firmly in your cheek? Like I said, it's expected of you to say these things. I would be bewlidered if you said anything different. Most people who share your sentiment have never seriously listened to better stuff. You guys just dismiss it out of hand with no real world experience. That's ok, you don't know any better....... Shakey Here's the issue from a technical standpoint with power cords. The only way that a power cable can improve anything is by: 1. Filtering extraneous gunk (which they don't) 2. Having lower contact resistance 3. Having lower overall impedance The point really is this: if changing a power cable drastically altered the pressure waves coming from your drivers, then the cable you swapped out was not doing its job in the first place. When you think about it, that is what's happening: you've somehow managed to get a significantly different signal to the drivers' VCs simply by changing a cord to the mains power. If that's happening, then you didn't really upgrade. You simply fixed a problem.

No one needs to know that! OP I suggest you try whatever your wallet says is best. The science is not in favor of super expensive cables. If you expect and want to hear a difference, then you will. This is old, OLD science. That is completely separate from there actually being a physical difference. It's this effect that runs the high end cable market, the perceptual bias brought on by expectation. The only case I can give you for spending extra on your Palladium's cables is so that they simply look nice next to them. Whether that's important is 100% up to you.

Mike, welcome to the forum. The cable debate, as you can tell, has been going on for a long time. There is a huge reason for this. It comes down to two things. First, is everything that's measurable perceivable and is everything that's perceivable measurable? The answer is: we'll never know. Perhaps at the moment we just can't measure everything we're able to hear. That brings us to problem 2. If that's the case, then how is it that the high end cable companies somehow are able to reliable produce cables which give a "clear sonic improvement"? If they can, then they know the mechanism, and then by definition it should be measurable. You never see these measurements. Now, there is a load of concrete evidence showing that different cable making techniques can cause different effects to lessen or amplify. I myself have made "audiophile" cables and measured them to be lower in inductance, DCR and capacitance than standard zip cord. The differences we're talking about, however, are laboratory differences. Things which are literally beyond human perception abilities. It's these sorts of differences companies like to throw on their websites and make it seem like they have made some monstrous leap in science. Here's what I recommend you do: choose a pure copper, high strand count speaker wire, terminated in non-corrosive contacts. i prefer gold plated bananas, some prefer spades, it's all preference. Make sure that the wire gauge you choose is large enough for the run you have. I would say that 14AWG is perfect in almost every typical situation. Anything larger than 12 is overkill. The DCR will be low enough that you don't have to worry about it. Parts Express has great supplies to do this yourself, or you can buy some ready made. Final and most important note: any audio component after the source can only make what you hear less bad. It cannot improve the sound quality. Any claim to the contrary is false. Many people tend to get caught up in what "improves" the sound of their system. The reality is that the speaker is at its maximum ability already. What you put before it can only make it sound worse, not better. So, instead of spending lots of money on wiring, spend that money on a nice amplifier which will have good control of your speakers, have good headroom and not impart its own distortion. Best of luck.

To answer your question, yes. Second only to carpet for non-purpose-built absorption. If you've got a bathroom with tile or linoleum flooring, just walk around talking or clapping with your towels hanging up and again with them removed. Seriously, just even 2 towels will make an audible difference in the bathroom. It sounds odd without them there. If you have bathmats and remove those too, the effect is stronger. Then imagine how large two drapes are in comparison.

Nope! That gap-like area is given the technical name of: gap. Technically magnetic gap, but close enough.

And no, you can't cause a fire from a loudspeaker unless you actually try to. Even if ported, voice coils cook so quickly that you won't get enough oxygen into the box to catch something else on fire. More importantly, any voice coil big enough to be a fire threat wouldn't be on a former that's made of a flammable material.

Are you positive that the speaker wasn't making a very violent sound at some point? The cardboard piece you're talking about is called the former. There's a little 1-2mm extension below the last winding of voice coil (what your thumb is touching in the picture). Did you crush that area, or was it like that when you removed it? It should be perfectly cylindrical. My theory is that it bottomed out very severely (where the cone moves so far that the former slams into the bottom of the motor, therefore crushing that part I pointed out), and became misaligned. The next time you turned on the system, the voice coil was stuck at an angle, so even if you kept going up in volume, it's just going to make a buzzing/rubbing sound and not be able to cool itself. Bottoming out happens for a multitude of reasons, hence it's important to know if you heard anything at any time besides a buzz. Let me know.

Massive, deep underwater explosion viewed above water...may I surmise this is the beginning of the main depth charge scene in U-571?

Are you sure it's chuffing? Chuffing does not sound like a rattle at all, it's unique. Can you roll your r's like you were saying arriba in Spanish? Chuffing sounds like you doing that without using your voice. It just sounds like air fluttering or flapping through something. The pressure multiplied by the velocity in a system is a constant when it's linear. You decrease the pressure, and the velocity goes up. This is what happens when you put your thumb on the end of a hosepipe: the pressure has dropped, but the velocity skyrocketed. Chuffing is when the above falls apart and becomes nonlinear. This occurs when the area is too small for the velocity to increase and stay in shape. Think about merging 4 lanes of traffic into 1: you can't break the speed limit to keep the flow of traffic the same, so you get a traffic jam. Chuffing is that traffic jam inside a ported box. Putting tape over the port is just the sound of the tape causing a disturbance, not the port. I would suspect a loose wire hitting a cabinet wall, hitting the port, or the leads on the driver slapping the cone. Again, chuffing is not a "hard" sound like a rattle. It's a fluttering, yet soft sound. Since you've only just now noticed it, I don't think it's chuffing. That would have been there since the first time you played it loudly. Can you confirm if it's soft sounding or hard sounding? That's the best I've got right now.

Nailed it. I can't confirm the release time, but can tell you they are coming soon!

The new Reference Premiere? Hopefully the 280's are pictured, not the 260's. The 280 (is only slightly smaller in width than the RF-7) at 10.5" wide vs. the 260 at only 9" wide. Still give a good sense of scale for the modules. Depending on the towers pictured, that would make the modules in the range of 10" x 17"... or 8" x 16" & that would fit nicely on my RF-7's. Tough to tell, but the woofers only appear to be around 5.25". Those are not RP-280Fs. Close, but a different model. But you are correct that they have dual 8" woofers. I'll let you guess what they are given what's sitting on the rear channels.

I used the above technique on this guy some years ago. All butt joints like your box, and just a rattle can paint finish. Standard Lowes MDF. Which, CECAA850, is dirt cheap in comparison!

Endgrain on MDF??? I've never had an issue. Bondo the seam, yes but I've never seen end or any grain on MDF. Latex primer works great on MDF if you're going with paint for a finish or Duratex. I guess grain isn't the right term, I mean the exposed cut ends rather than the smooth face panels.

What I've found to work well when wanting a painted finish on MDF is to forgo the normal wood sealants right off the bat. MDF wicks them up way too easily. Bondo all endgrain + about 1-2" over to the next panel to obscure that there was a joint. After careful sanding, you'll obscure enough to where it looks like a continuous panel. After the bondo, the best sealant I've found is fiberglass resin. It seals and hardens the wood surface, plus since it's not very viscous, it clogs all of the pores in the MDF which gives you a great seal + high build. After about two coats, you should be priming an ultra smooth layer of fiberglass rather than the sponge called MDF. Then, it's all about many light coats rather than a few heavy coats with even wet sanding in between. Goes for both priming and painting. Hope this helps

Skip that one, and move on! There is nothing inherently wrong with a "car audio" driver. They tend to have much stiffer suspensions than what you'd use in a home, primarily so they can be used in smaller boxes. More often than not, they're also designed for high mechanical and electrical (in that order) power handling more than high fidelity. This is, of course, a generalization. The driver you have there, however, is not really going to work well in any configuration aside from perhaps an IB setup...in which case I'd get a dedicated IB driver instead.

If only some of you could see the things deep inside the Skunkworks that we call the Klipsch engineering labs. Be assured, we take "real updates" very seriously. The goal is not to answer the question "so.... what's so different?" It's to smile and get the question "How did you do that???"

Don't know. Did you select dual voice coil? Was the Qts and Qes calculated? They look way off. I don't have winisd on this computer. Some of the information on their site was wrong. The biggest thing was the CMS. They had it as .73mm/N, which is way off. This caused the WinISD calculations to be way off as demonstrated above. Also, I had entered the RE as 1.4 and it is 2.8 since there are two voice coils. Oops... Here is the new graph. It looks a lot better, and is now -3db at about 25Hz. Much better... That Fs is still way too high. That driver should be down in the high teens. That's also causing your Vas to be way too low. For comparison, the Ascendant Ava 18 I mentioned above has a Fs of 18Hz and a Vas of 407 liters, and the SI HT18 has a Fs of 17Hz and a Vas of 412 liters. Vas is a function of Cms * (Sd)^2, so something in the 1xx liters range is very low for an 18 unless it is incredibly stiff. We may be in a bit of luck. Data-bass measured and actual Q18 in 2012. I have entered that data into WinISD and run a new graph. The article is here: http://www.data-bass.com/data?page=system&id=98&mset=108 The fs was in the 30hz range with that version of the driver, and the vas was even lower than the one from the website. It is all a bit confusing, but at least a third party has offered some hard numbers: I do know that they've gone the multi-spider route lately, perhaps that's what's going on to some extent. Even then, a Vas of 110L for an 18" driver is extremely unusual unless it's car audio specific: small box, high power. The Q line is (was) intended to be their non tiny enclosure 2kW/ea offering. Perhaps times have unfortunately changed. If they've really gone the high stiffness route, then nein for HT use, unfortunately But I guess the market drives the product.

Don't know. Did you select dual voice coil? Was the Qts and Qes calculated? They look way off. I don't have winisd on this computer. Some of the information on their site was wrong. The biggest thing was the CMS. They had it as .73mm/N, which is way off. This caused the WinISD calculations to be way off as demonstrated above. Also, I had entered the RE as 1.4 and it is 2.8 since there are two voice coils. Oops... Here is the new graph. It looks a lot better, and is now -3db at about 25Hz. Much better... That Fs is still way too high. That driver should be down in the high teens. That's also causing your Vas to be way too low. For comparison, the Ascendant Ava 18 I mentioned above has a Fs of 18Hz and a Vas of 407 liters, and the SI HT18 has a Fs of 17Hz and a Vas of 412 liters. Vas is a function of Cms * (Sd)^2, so something in the 1xx liters range is very low for an 18 unless it is incredibly stiff.

CECAA850, what Ascendant drivers do you have? I've got an Ava18 at the office also and can confirm that its XBL^2 motor gives it >28mm of one-way linear coil travel.

You didn't, no. Their specs are wrong on the website. For example, the Q15D2 actually has an Fs of 20.1Hz.