Tizman

I am getting the sneaking suspicion that my lack of issues with this hump problem is the product of not using “a modern amplifier engineered to be linear” the majority of the time. I don’t hear it, and I listened to the song suggested by kink56 a few times at different volumes.

kink56 included Khorn in the hump club, if I remember correctly. Does Khorn also have a documented 150 HZ hump in response?

So the cabinet is definitely causing the 150 HZ hump, and not the design of the horn?

My understanding of the Belle, LS and LS II is that the “resonance” is about the design of the horn, and not about the cabinet thickness. Am I incorrect?

kink56: You can find many different sorts of members here. There is a great deal of knowledge and helpfulness available for folks looking to learn more about Klipsch. I don’t think that anyone is denying that there were trade offs in the designs of most Klipsch products. After all, there are trade offs involved in all commercial products. What I’m hearing is that those trade offs are acceptable to some users more than others, and that each user makes that call based upon their particular setup and priorities. Some of us go the route of modifying their Klipsch products to mitigate their perceived shortcomings, others DIY Klipsch inspired systems from scratch, all in order to get as perfect a speaker as they can get. Most of us are well aware of the both the shortcomings and strengths of our systems. Your last post indicates to me that you are angry and have an axe to grind due to some past slight. I have, as have a few others, stated that there is a 150 HZ hump in LS and Belle response. Both are small horns with trade offs required. It is documented in this and other forums. You are correct. What is also indicated in this and other forums is the preference of many people for an all horn speaker system, of reasonable size, despite this and other shortcomings.

kink56: La Scala is an all horn loaded design in a 2X2X3 box. You can do better with a bigger horn/more floor space, but the size of LS is already on the borderline of acceptable for me and many others. Are there any other flawless all horn loaded speakers of the same size that you you can point me to? The peak around 150 HZ is well documented, and is a function of the size and design of the horn, but it is not a deal breaker in my case or that of others that have posted in this and other threads. So, what’s your point? Is it that La Scala’s aren’t perfect? There is a whole list of things that are “not perfect” about LS speakers. For example, the mouth termination of the midrange and tweeter drivers, parralel sections in the bass horn portion, an imperfect midrange horn, no time alignment of drivers, etc. At the end of the day, the trade offs that LS has are offset by the strengths it has for a particular user, or they are not. How well would the NHT Super Zeros do with a 2.5 Watt amplifier, and how dynamic would they be? How does a kick drum sound on them with any amplifier? Etc. What is your point? Is it that, for you, their weaknesses outweigh their strengths? If so, thanks for the info, but I definitely don’t share your priorities.

I’d rather have one less gonad and have a pair of Belles. If the “resonance” bothers you more than listening to a fully DR speaker of 86 DB/W/M with -3 DB point of 85 Hertz (NHT Super Zero), so be it. I don’t get it though. At all.

I know of the Super Zero, but not Zero One.

I’m pretty sure every Klipsch speakers ever made sounds better than a speaker that doesn’t exist.

What is an NHT Zero One? A Google search provides nothing.

Trolling time.

Thanks!

Is that a SPL metre reading from that performance? If so, do you recall what piece was being performed? Also, where were you sitting in the hall?

Make a lip around the edge and fill it with a clear epoxy. You might want to make it look rougher first. I’ve seen this done on really old, crusty floor boards. It looks really cool.

kink56: I suppose it’s always a question of trade offs with speakers. I’ll take a fully horn loaded speaker every time over one with even one DR in it. Much like yourself, I also can’t understand how anyone would feel differently. For me, the trade offs required with having a DR and a large passive radiator mixed in with two horns outweigh any resonance issues that I perceive with my set up.

I’ve heard Forte only on solid state, and while it has more bass, in my experience the realism, impact and dynamics of the mid bass to lower mids just don’t compare to the La Scala. The gent who owned the Fortes bought La Scalas and prefers them to the Fortes as well on his SS gear. (Geoff, please feel free to chip in if you are following this ridiculous thread). This is not to say that the Fortes sound bad in any way. It’s more a question of priorities and preferences. La Scalas don’t plumb the depths, but the bass they have is very alive, dynamic and real sounding. With respect to La Scala cabinet resonances, there are numerous reports of this happening, and I don’t doubt that it is an issue, but it hasn’t been an issue that I have noticed in my setup. This may be due to synergy with my amps, listening levels etc. There are fixes for this issue, but I haven’t felt the need to pursue them. I own a pair of Quartets, that are a sort of mini Forte. While I do like them, in my setup, overall, they just don’t compare to La Scala, regardless of the amp topology used. Of course, YMMV.

I attended one classical concert this past summer in which, for unknown reasons, the organizers decided to mic and amplify the performers. It sounded like crap. A super confused sound with performers sounding like they were playing in two different places, the amplified version of themselves was louder and out of sync with the real version.

Magic and illusion. Neither have much to do with linearity.

I’m sure the test is legit. This begs the question of whether or not it is relevant though. It has nothing to do with what sounds better in the real world. In the real world pretty much no one has Clark available to make every amp sound the same as every other amp, and beginners go out and buy an amp and speakers and put them together in less than ideal rooms. This is presumably a forum for hobbyists that are interested in getting the best sound out there system, right? Other than the common thread of everyone being interested in Klipsch and Klipsch inspired speakers, we all find our way to what sounds best to us. If I were to advise a beginner who appears to be a budding audio enthusiast what to buy, I am going to advise them to buy something that works for me. Even though I use SETs mostly, my advice was to buy an ACA. That’s because I have heard it, it sounds good, and it is reasonably priced. I am not going to advise them to buy something I haven’t heard or something I’ve heard and don’t like. My annoyance with the OP has mostly to do with his advising against/slagging equipment he hasn’t heard in the real world, a world where Clark isn’t standing there adjusting equipment so it all sounds the same. In the real world, it doesn’t sound the same. Some amps and topologies sound better than others because of their synergy with the far more imperfect speakers they are paired with.

Thanks for the clarification. There is no part of the audio reproduction chain that is less linear than the speakers. I choose to use synergy, what you refer to as "cycling through speakers to find one that "works best" with some favored less-than-linear amp" to deal with this lack of linearity. Others choose a modern amp engineered to be linear with tone controls or equalizers to do the same thing. I would argue that one is not better than the other. Also, achieving synergy takes one component out of the chain. I will add that a SET amp and a pair of La Scalas achieves synergy in my setup.

Yes and, if I understand it correctly, this will vary from speaker to speaker as the variable impedance of a speaker is going to vary according to the design of the speaker. So, amplifiers will sound different depending on the variable impedance of the speaker used, and the way that the amplifier used reacts to this variable impedance. What you are saying is that different amplifiers sound different from each other because of the variability of the non-linearity created by this interaction. Doesn't this mean that given a particular set of speakers, different amps will sound different when used with these speakers? As in "amps don't all sound the same"? Also, doesn't this mean that an amps synergy with speakers is an important consideration when picking amplifiers because of the more variable nature, and the much more flawed linearity, of speakers? While I would like to better understand the perspective and position of the other side of the argument, it will have very little bearing on my future choices. This quote from Lynn Olson, although a bit out of context, pretty much sums up my perspective on the amplifiers and speakers that I use for my own pleasure.... "And 85~89 dB/meter audiophile speakers sound flat and dead once you get used to the sound of high-efficiency speakers. Even the Ariels at their modest 92 dB/meter made it hard to enjoy conventional audiophile speakers that are 3~5 dB less efficient. You just hear more, and it sounds more beautiful. Like direct-heated triodes, you don't go back. It's about surrendering to the emotional experience, just letting go, no more thinking and analyzing, just allowing yourself to be swept away by the music. Not all audiophiles can do this. I've seen some of them, in my own listening room, hold their arms tightly across their chests, fighting off their emotions. Maybe they didn't like what they heard, but the sound quality was ravishing, far above anything at an audio show, and was certainly affecting me and Karna. I'm kind of letting the cat out of the bag here, but I design audio equipment so the listener can have a deep emotional experience; the technical parameters are simply a means to an end, for the system to get out of the way." For me, after a long trip through audio land, this (mostly) means SET amps and horn speakers for the flawed construct that we call stereo. My goal is to have my experience of listening to a stereo recording be as close to a real life event as possible. This is based upon what I hear when I listen to my setup, and how it allows me to connect to the music on an emotional level. So maybe this means, "when listening to the flawed construct we call a stereo recording, all modern amplifiers engineered to be linear sound the same, and SET amplifiers sound better and are more emotionally involving". If so, so be it.

So Clark is saying that pre-amps sound different, but not amplifiers? If the frequency response of an amplifier varies with impedance, it's the amplifier that is doing it, right?

Of course, some amps are going to sound more alike than others, and none of this has anything to do with what sounds best to an individual user on their particular setup.

I don’t think that’s true. Clark makes amps that sound different sound the same for his challenge. The amps don’t sound the same before he does this. Because Clark needs to modify amps in order to make them sound the same for his challenge, amps don’t all sound the same. Am I missing something?

Interesting read. My takeaway is that there are differences in amps, but that when the differences are eliminated with various techniques, it is much more difficult to hear a difference between them. It makes me wonder what it is, specifically, that makes me prefer the SET amps that I’ve built over the PP tube amps I’ve built and the SS amps I own. I’m always looking for a sense of “being there” when I listen to music at home. I get this with my SET amps, and with the SS Class A amps I own, more than with other topologies. Stereo is an artificial construct, it gives us localization cues that, at the end of the day, are not the same as the cues created by a musician playing in real life in front of a listener. It isn’t “real life”. That said it’s the best thing I/we have available at the moment (I haven’t given multichannel audio a go yet), and 95% of my music is stereo recordings. Maybe expecting stereo, as an artificial construct intended to recreate real life, to provide this reality is asking too much. It could be that strict linearity, and truthfulness to the source, shouldn’t be the goal at all. The goal should be recreating the “reality” of a live performance despite the limitions of the construct we call stereo. I don’t care about linearity per se, I care about what I hear in my listening room when I put music on my system. A SET amp sounds more “real” than any other topology I have used in my set up. If that reflects a limitation, distortion or unlinearity created by my preferred topology, so be it. Clark’s test tells us that when you make two different amplifiers sound the same, they end up sounding the same. I don’t see how this is helpful. It’s not what most people actually do. When you go out and buy an amplifier, you don’t then take it home and put in a resistor and a equalizer to make it sound the same as the amp it is replacing. Amps sound different. Clark’s adjustment of the amplifiers in his challenge is a confirmation of this fact. Some amps sound more “real”, when playing the stereo material that most of us listen to, than other amps when their differences are left intact.