Maximus89

I currently have 200w on my CF-3's and CF-4s which are awaiting mods. It's way, way more than you need. I plan on downsizing to sub 50 watts, and considering all sorts of options from 3 watts to 50, but with a magical midrange in mind. I feel my RSW15 can fill in anything i may be missing in the low end. If you end up in a big room, perfect. If you are in a small apartment, with future plans to move to a medium sized room in a house? I'd say look for a good clean low powered amp with musicality in mind rather than just power and punch. Also i don't know about bluetooth, but i recommend the Denafrips Ares II dac on the used market for near the same price range of that DACMagic. The Ares II will make your digital music sound analog. It's really an incredible value. Klipsch and R2R Dacs were made for each other.

As someone with only one digital source, and a dac with volume control-albeit old digital-i wonder if a preamp is really that necessary myself? I have over $4k in a preamp suitable enough to not crush and shrink my dac as my previous preamps did. I've had it in the system and already planned to sell only to move to a somewhat cheaper model after with no phono since phono seems to be creating a lot of unnecessary heat i dont need. So the new preamp will be a few years newer and built the same but no wooden cabinet and no phono. Okay. Yet, this morning i decided to try the dac straight to amp for the first time since i purchased the vintage preamp i am using. I now realize that all that $4k+ got me was a transparent volume control. The vintage overbuilt preamp lets my overbuilt dac shine without hinderance. The dac sounded vastly better without the other preamps i've owned. Here's the thing, my vintage preamp has no remote control. My dac has a remote control. The dac straight to amp sounds indistinguishable from the dac into the preamp which i suppose is a win for the preamp as it's doing it's job. The apparent reason i can't use the dac as a volume control(from what i've been told) is because the digital volume is supposed to be bad and ancient and i will reduce too many bits. The brochure(photo posted) says i can reduce to -40 before any degradation of a 24 bit output. My computer as my only source usually won't allow me to select output bit more than the dac can hanld. An Audio Note 0.1x i had in here wouldn't let me select anything more than 16bit 44k. The DC-91 actually allows me to select 32bit 48k. Both in my windows settings and in my player software and the music plays fine and the dac locks onto frequency. I'm not hearing a loss of resolution right now with my power amp level low and my dac -24 volume just to get an idea of low level night time listening. I can't say for sure at -34 to -40. It's jut quiet. So here's my question with my source being 32 bit and the dac built in digital volume being set for 24 bit without distortion. Aren't i giving myself even more room to use the volume control without reduction in bits and negating the need for a preamp?

I guess mostly I was interested in hearing how everyone toes in or not at all. They image so well in any position Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

What is yalls preferred placement with cf-3 and cf-4s?

How did you blow it? Not enough power and cranking the volume?

Hey Dean! Thanks for the update and you're good dude! Take your time. Rest those shaky hands!

Don't know the recording quality either. Two completely different rooms as well. The recording of the cf-4 came out with a lot of sibilance for me while the focal recording was smoother. Again, most likely due to a phone recording. I have always liked Focal, though. The CF-4s really do everything so well. I do wish the crossover wasn't as complicated so we could put higher quality inductors and easier to match capacitor values and there were suitable driver replacements so we fans and owners could keep these going for another 30 to 40 years and beyond. Mostly if i have any negatives, it would be 1. They're big ugly coffins. 2. They are too low and the cheesy little feet were terrible. 3. The horn is thin and cheap and I do think the tweeter is a bit too bright/forward on the CF-4, but i solved that with some very expensive Aquaplas applied to my diaphragms. Damped the metal dome and softened and smoothed the sound, but currently testing it on the CF-3s which i already found a bit more balanced than the CF-4 in terms of the horn loudness. Now just waiting eagerly for Dean to finish up my crossovers so i can put it all together! I also applied sound deadner to the horns and woofer baskets and some bracing.

Here is what i am considering. http://sparkler-audio.com/portfolio/products_en.html There's the little integrated 'Ether' with 7watts. Then there's a physically larger 25wpc stereo amp with volume control and 2 small 25wpc mono amps and a separate preamp offered. The CD and DAC are interesting and i might even want that Tuner just because of how beautiful it is. Kazutoshi Tsukahara used to work with 47 Laboratory. These are all very simple designs and i don't know how they will pair with the not so simple DC-91 dac which i plan to have extensive mods done at a later date. I've also found several preamps i have tried actually hold the DC-91 back and the dac ends up sounding far superior directly to an amp(the c280v matches well but runs too warm to hot and i don't need phono which is adding extra heat), but the DC-91 starts to reduce bits as you go lower in volume... and so an amp with volume directly to the DC-91 for only digital sources might be an option. The negative to that approach is no remote control which i have missed so much since i sold my SS Macs and the Sparkler Audio remotes are so retro and super cool looking. I also can't tell you what Class amps they are? Seems something i would know before purchasing. I'm also considering a vintage Mcintosh MC250 w/ 50wpc. I have experience with ss Macs and they ran very cool to the touch. I haven't heard the vintage first solid state amps they built, but apparently they're great.

Do yall think 7watts to 25 watts solid state is enough for a CF-4? I love my vintage Accuphase gear, but it all gets very hot in my small room. Looking to get a barely warm to the touch small amp that has a warm or romantic sound to it. Probably asking a lot since i know low watt class A amps run very hot. I think my p360 runs in class a to a certain point? Also my c280v preamp is class A and gets hot. My DC-91 gets warm on the vent, but i can live with that.

Neither would i, as i've got nearly that much in mods alone

Dean originally built these for me and i sold the Khorns and sold these networks to indyhawg-sold as i wanted to downsize to more practical sized speakers with plans to move and didn't believe i could take the khorns with me-i got CF-4v.1 and while i love them as well, selling the khorns and Deans crossovers are a decision i regret to this day. I can confirm this is a great deal and they sound amazing. Very black background and smoothed out and dialed back that forward midrange just right for my needs and in my particular room, i had incredible deep and tight low end. Great caps. I had some of my best listening experiences ever with that combo on a long wall run- i did have my tweeter out on top of the top hat-physically aligned with the mid range driver in a vertical position.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Ive got a Dean build with ODAM caps incoming soon(not la scalas). Excited. You have any experience with those caps?

Same experience here. I always feel happy about not needing a sub until i bring one in and you go "oh. so that's full range" and you can't go back. I have my RSW-15 at 60hz with my CF-4 and CF-3s though. That RSW-15 is old now, but Klipsch sure got it right with that model. The only time i didn't use it was with KHorns except for movies. I didn't have the RSW-15s when i had my 4 split pro La Scalas so i lived with the limited low end, but that mid bass was oh so snappy and fast. I think i liked those pro woofers better for the mid bass even though they didn't go as low. I'd sure love to go back to KHorns or La Scalas(or Jubescalas!) with that KPT-1502 or 1802. I chose 60hz because i also watch movies in 2.1. Would a 40hz crossover be too low for movies? I wouldn't want to run these woofers too hard. I don't use an AVR, i have the subs directly into my "for sub system" outputs on my Accuphase C-280v

Dean! You're the first person I looked for but couldn't find you. I like the new name! I'm already familiar with your work on my klipschorns so ill send you a PM here soon Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I did way back when and they wouldn't work on the cf4 Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

No soldering experience here. Rather pay someone than learn Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

I've got a loose rear baffle that was held together with clamps. Both speakers. I'm just now getting around to a little project of titebond II for the rear baffle and then add a bit of bracing. In doing so, i just discovered my crossover looking like this with one of the red parts hanging and loose to the touch. Yet, my speaker was working. What's up with this? Any experienced volunteers for repair and recap? I know the Klipsch approved crossover guy wouldn't work on the CF-4, so what are my options? I'd rather come to you guys first instead of a local repair tech i've never met. He's expensive and slow, but heard he's good. I have backup CF-3 v.1 so i can ship the crossovers to a forum member with enough free time to make a little money PM me if you don't want Roy to see you volunteer to molest his first child, maybe it'll come back with a case of the mumps...

No need for high resolution. I mentioned that before I knew what the output meant- thinking i could send the signal out to another dac which would do high res while having the signal pass through the dc-91. Im good with Redbook. Theres good measuring cheap delta sigma dsd dacs if I want a 2nd dsd dac. Or rather 3rd as I have a multichannel hdmi dac as well. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Appreciate it! Well this dac is 30 years old and sounds better than 2 different Audio Note Dacs, a modwright tube modded oppo and an ares ii and several other $1k range dacs i had in here. I was expecting an r2r ladder dac type of sound like the Ares II which i found addictive, but it's a very clean modern sound. Crazy revealing, but a bit lean on the mid bass it's only drawback and bad recordings sound bad unlike through a NOS ladder dac where everything sounds analog and lush imo. They retain their value so i'll likely try a dsd capable NOS r2r DAC next or decide to send it to a tech to recap and modify it-here's a quote containing some of what he'd do "I certainly agree with you on the sound of a stock or "conventionally upgraded" Accuphase DC-91. For god knows what reason, other than it was common practice at the time, each of the 32 pcm63 chips has it's own feedback i/v opamp, then into a common buffer, then into a HORRIBLE GIC filter, then output buffer and balanced driver amp. With single common passive i/v resistor per 16 dacs per channel, then my no-feedback voltage gain + line driver stages, plus way larger caps around each of the dacs(over 500 nice Nichicon caps I had to replace with larger nice Nichicon caps, exhausting), the resulting sound is absolutely spectacular, without even changing the ancient YM3436 input receiver or d/f arrangement."

Thanks man. I must have poor reading comprehension since i read that very review before posting and it all went over my head. I can see it if i got myself a 2nd dac for DSD, but that's usually DOP through toslink and spidf. Or let's say i got a tube dac for a different flavor that also played my high res 24/96 and 24/192 music specifically and the DC-91 offers a connection no other modern dac has - ST glass optical-which i am using. In that case, i would get the benefits of the apparently too-expensive-to-produce ST Glass Optical connection benefit with another dac despite it's being output in toslink/spidf? If i did this, the DC-91 would NOT be analog out to anything-the new dac would be analog out to a preamp, correct? Final question. The DC-91 can technically be used direct to power amp-wouldn't it benefit the sound outputting to another dac if the volume control is the DC-91?

Ah so it's a worthless option basically in most cases? The DC-91 won't pass through any of it's sonic benefits to the next dac? The next dac would just have it's own multiple inputs so this would only be cool if some form of the audio signal was passing through the DC-91 improving the quality of the new DAC.

I have had had this vintage redbook limited resolution DAC for a month now and never questioned what the toslink and spidf OUT of my dac would be used for. In a sterophile review, this was a quote about the OUT: "Two 24-bit digital outputs are also provided to maintain compatibility with the next generation of digital components." I'm still quite confused on what it is. Everything goes IN to the dac which is analog out to the preamp so i can't come up with any way the dac would output it's digital signal received from a transport. Am i overthinking this? Help me out here

I dont have the la scalas anymore. If I did, I would have invested in 3 used decware zbox tube buffers in between the evolve analog outs and the preamp. The sr7007 is not currently working but it has alwyas had a bad hdmi board. The hdmi out and thr front hdmi worked. So technically I could have used the hdmi out to a switcher then switcher out to my TV. Preouts and analog outs and built in power amps of the unit stopped working. Never got around to repairing it. Since then I've had multiple mcintosh multichannel analog pres and currently use one from Accuphase. I had been looking for a Conrad Johnson MET1 multichannel tube pre but never came up. They all do good enough job with surround, but not being able to run a room correction does become a pain at times. The center kv4 always too low volume next to the cf4s. Surround takes a back seat to 2ch music so I guess I'm in the very small market those early 2000s era high end multichannel analog units were being built for. I had a pathos cinema x in here which was awesome for 2ch in auto bridge and surround with its tube preamp was great, but all of these analog multichannel systems have very basic manual channel trim levels. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Works great. Still using it today. The switcher has only 1 problem with a long hdmi run in where it goes black for a sec and comes back. I also have problems with the ps5 blu ray player playing back in surround and the ps5 hbomax app. Could be a ps5 issue. I don't know. I have a separate blu ray player and all surround works on thst including Netflix, prime and vudu or plex, but it doesn't have hbomax or disney+ etc. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk