Peter P.

My L.L. Bean cherry coffee table, and my cherry futon frame, did the same thing. Except with the futon frame, the wood covered by the futon pad has not darkened, so the difference is readily apparent.

Here's the cheapest steamer I could find-twenty bucks.

Either what wuzzer said, or your guess about the spider. You can remove the driver and visually inspect the spider to see of the glue bond is broken. Move the spider with your finger and see if it moves independently of the cone.

They aren't worth a cup of coffee. If your friend GAVE them to you, then I'd say yes. You might be able to find replacement tweeters/midrange driver on eBay, You could repair the woofer with parts from simplyspeakers.com. You can't repair water damaged cabinets; the underlying plies usually warp, and the cabinet may begin t split at the joints. Repair it for use in a man cave, basement, or garage.

Great story!; the picture puts it all into perspective. Thanks for the post.

Great story! So tell me; you chose to buy those Cornwalls without auditioning them? This is not a criticism; I'm curious what motivated you to buy a pair presumably not having heard them. Tell us more. For what it's worth, I'm a long time cyclist and have purchased high end bikes without having road tested them. I usually did this solely based on the specs or reviews. Didn't bother me a bit and I was always satisfied.

Looking at diagrams of the crossover wiring for the Heresy II, it looks like the positive speaker input goes to the NEGATIVE terminal of the tweeter. Is that right? Doing so doesn't put the tweeter out of phase with the other drivers?

A crossover upgrade isn't going to provide more bass. Neither is a receiver. Get a subwoofer. I use a single SVS SB-1000. I'm happy. Heresy's aren't known for playing low so to get that bottom octave, get a sub.

Sounds like the spider for the woofer. Remove the grill and observe both woofers at a level that produces the noise. Does it appear the suspect woofer moves differently? Watch both the cone and the surround. It should be pretty obvious if there's a difference. And go with JohnA's suggestion to swap speakers to see if the problem follows the speaker. Report back.

It's something I've read. search "echoic memory" for one explanation. Here's how I would explain it to audiophiles: Listen to speaker "X" for however long you want. After this listening, wait say, 5 minutes, then you would be given a series of other speakers to listen to (of course, all the parameters would be controlled for volume, material, etc.), switching freely between them. It would be your job to determine which of the series was speaker "X". Unlike our visual memory, our audible memory is significantly less accurate.

This is true. Our audio memory lasts less than one minute. I see no need to replace the capacitors unless they measure out of spec. If they're in spec, they still work.

So what's the difference between a ported speaker and a vented one? It appears one has a tube-like opening (Heresy IV), while the other has a slot (Cornwall). Is there a difference in the audio output? Is port chuffing a potential problem in a vented speaker? I began to wonder whether it would have been cool to have the Heresy IV be a smaller version of the Cornwall and have a front vent vs. a rear port i.e., a smaller version of the Cornwall, and wonder why that approach wasn't taken. The first pair of hifi speakers I had were the B.I.C. Venturi's, with an 8" woofer and a slot at the bottom. As a teenager, I really didn't understand the function or benefit of the slot despite the advertising literature, but now I get it. I also wonder why the Cornwall front vents are three distinct sections rather than a continuous slot. Could it be structural to support the weight of the motorboard? Are the new plastic ports purely aesthetic or do they actually change the vent response? All opinions are welcome!

Thanks for taking the time to write up your detailed comparison.

I'm interested in running an A/V integrated amp solely in 2.1 channel mode so I can take advantage of speaker high-pass filtering (you set your front left/right speakers to small/large, or pick the high pass frequency). I want to provide a high pass frequency to protect my Heresy's below their low frequency cutoff, while using a subwoofer to pick up the bottom octave. Are there any A/V integrated amps that can access the settings via a front panel display, vs. having to via a TV. I don't own a TV and don't care to get one just to set up the amp. Not interested in high end stuff nor do I need a lot of power, but if that's all there is, feel free to mention them. Thanks!

The "diaphramatic absorption" referred to in the video is the same as the "subwoofer isolation system" feet I purchased for my SVS subwoofer. I bought these so less vibration would travel to the floor, and be heard/felt by my condo neighbors. But that vibration is part of what subwoofers add to sound; that tactile sense in electronic music and movie explosions. Other than consideration for neighbors, why get rid of it? As for placing the sub off the floor, and at various heights, it does mitigate floor bounce but will reduce sub output level. And it's somewhat impractical for most of us aesthetically. It would be an interesting experiment nonetheless.

I think it's a very reasonable price. Of course, as long as they work without problems, the only issue would be what condition they are in. For $1600 I'd expect some scratches and so on, but unless they're an eyesore I'd say they're worth it.

Perhaps it's the driver height that creates the sound difference. The Klipschorns' drivers are higher relative to ear height than the Quartets, no?

From the Label on the back of the LaScala's, it's amazing how little current they draw. Usually the fuses are 1.5 to 2x the actual current draw, which means those speakers would draw roughly 2+ amps at most. That's nothing.

Heresy II's for $1200? I think that's insane, although as willand has pointed out, with the introduction of the Heresy IV, prices of the earlier versions are oddly creeping up. I paid $675 for my used pair of 4 ohm Heresy II's, and that was roughly 3-4 years ago, and I thought THAT was high. Personally, I'd keep looking.

I think that's a good litmus test as to whether you're running your sub beyond its capabilities, or beyond your needs.

Measure the capacitors with a voltmeter that can measure for capacitance. You can usually do this accurately with the capacitor in-circuit (disconnect the leads from the specific speaker driver, if possible). The tolerance of the spec on the capacitor is often printed on the capacitor. If not, typical tolerance of an electrolytic capacitor is 20%. So using that as a guide, if you measure a capacitor which is more than 20% outside of its nominal value, then replace it. Otherwise, don't bother.

I had a somewhat similar problem, and discovered this: I run my sub through my Channel B speaker outputs. With the subwoofer set to Auto On, it will go into a low power, Standby mode roughly 5 minutes after I turn off my amp. Sometimes I like to listen to my Heresy's without the subwoofer, so I turn off the Channel B speaker outputs. BUT when I did this, and subsequently turned off my amp, the speakers would NEVER go into Standby mode, as if they were receiving a sufficient drive signal! How could this be-I had turned of the speaker output, just like you would do when listening to headphones so there should be no signal at the speakers, no? So I stuck a voltmeter to the speaker wires at the input to the sub. Sure enough, if I turned OFF the amp, but the Channel B switch was on, I would read X millivolts, but the sub would go into Standby mode as it should. BUT, when I turned off the amp and the Channel B switch was OFF, I would read a much higher millivolt number. Not enough to hear audio from the sub, but if you stuck your ear near it, you could hear a low level grumbling. I'm thinking either you have an issue with your subwoofer or there is still a signal feeding your sub even with your amp in Standby mode. Post back with your results.

Three pairs of speakers-a regular amp with just A and B pairs available won't quite cut it. I think you're going to have to use a PA amp such as from Bogen to run a number of speakers through matching 25V or 70V transformers, and perhaps individual volume controls. Also, you'll want to spread out the sound evenly among the area. More speakers will mean you won't have to turn up the volume at Speaker X so it will reach diners farther away, while diners closer to the speakers might be overwhelmed by the sound. Remember, they want to carry on a conversation without competing with the music. The diners aren't really going to care about the quality of the sound, although I get the idea of wanting the speakers to "look cool" and follow the aesthetic of the restaurant. If the restaurant has a dropped ceiling, I recommend some A/V, ceiling tile mounted speakers. Bogen has a system design manual which will give you ideas on to populate the restaurant with speakers for good sound. As I said above, you can run 8 ohm speakers with such a Bogen amp using matching transformers with or without volume controls, and you could still use Klipsch speakers.

It's as much an aesthetic decision as it is an acoustic decision. If the speakers take up too much room making it difficult to move around them or displace furniture, or they just visually dominate the room, then I'd say they're too large.

The R8SW appears to be the smallest. But it only goes down to 38Hz, so I hardly consider it a true subwoofer. If home theater is your thing, you might want to avoid this one.