Mike82

KAIN is full of crap, but I believe he is still just a teenager so he lacks the education and life experience that would enable him to engage in critical thinking. KAIN is simply parrotting whatever anti-western garbage the local news (United Arab Emirates) feeds his country. Watching the news this morning, I'm glad to see civilian casualties have been minimal considering the amount of ordinance we've dropped. CNN's (Clinton News Network)Judy Woodruff was seething at the success the US military is having. Gotta love it! $H!t, even the electricity is still on in Bagdad!!! Here, a stupid car accident can take out power for hours!

Craig: My avatar is the insignia for the 82nd Airborne Division, the unit I served with while I was in the Army. The AA means All American. The 82nd division began in WWI and had member from all the states, hence the "All American" name. Sgt York of WWI fame was with the 82nd Infantry. The Airborne tab on top of the AA patch was added during WWII. The 82nd jumped into Normandy (St Mere Eglise- The Longest Day), Sicily, Salerno, and Nijmegen (A Bridge Too Far). My company also went to Grenada. They've seen action in GWI, Panama, and are fighting in Iraq now.

Dean: Aren't the Q/S M60s Tube rectified? My old Q/S 8417 monos were (5AR4)

Forrest: It's the liberals who are the cowards. The oatmeal-heads doing most of the protesting are young, naive, not well-read or educated, and also "history challenged". The appeasers spewed the same inane crap before WWII delaying England and the US response to Hitler's rhetoric and subsequent actions. We all (except the left, apparently) know the results. When this is all over, the left wingers will once again look stupid. We will televise the torture camps, rape rooms, plastic shredders (We've found out are the preferred means of execution. Head first if they like you- quicker death. Feet first if they wanna see you suffer), the WMD the Iraqi government supposedly didn't have, and finally the thanks of the Iraqi people for the liberation the US will provide. Mike Masztal, Proud Vet B Co., 1/508th Inf., (Abn) 82nd Airborne Division

Hi Edster: If yo get stuck and need a pro to look at it. Modular Electronics on Atlanta St. in Roswell is a good place. They tech is a tube junkie and builds his own stuff. Good luck!

I agree with the comments from Erik and Craig. I've had both type of pre-amps (neither were inexpensive), but I prefer the sound that tube rectification provides. My best description would be there is more "soul" to the music.

I've heard the TACT, BelCanto, and Spectron digital amps. They are pretty good. Kinda like solid state without the grain. But not good enough for me to leave tubes, especially with my Khorns! But if I had inefficient sepakers and needed lots of power, they'd be on my list. Other attractions to digital amps are they run cool, so shelf placement is not an issue and they won't heat your house up during the summer. They also use comparatively very little electricity which is a big plus if your live in CA.

Ditto on the new Avatar, Pyro. Mike Masztal, Proud Vet B Co., 1/508th Inf. (Abn) 82nd Airborne Div.

This can be tricky. While Mallett basically got it, soundstage is often one of the litmus tests of a speaker's quality. Unfortunately, the supposed soundstaging ability can be artifically manipulated. I've read about how wide a soundstage is, blah, blah, but ofter crossover phasing or even wiring tweeters out of phase will create an artifically wide soundstage. Example, using the Sterophile disc, you can hear this for yourself. On Ralph the dog's bark, they go in-phase then out-of phase. With most speakers I did this on, the phase change is noticable, but not especially remarkable. When I tried it on the Lamhorn (a single, full-range driver, no crossover), the difference was HUGE. An absolute hole in the middle of the pseakers with the bark heard 2' to the outside of each speaker. I did this for on of my customers (a relatively experienced audiophile) and his jaw dropped. I walked into a B&O shop at a local mall. They demo'd a table top unit that sounded weird when standing in front of it. Off-axis was quite a bit better. Phasing tricks!! Imaging is essentially the same thing. However, the image may drift, especially with solo instruments like a cello or sax, due to phasing inversions either due to the crossover design or tweeter wiring.

Clark Howard, a syndicated financial talk show radio host in Atlanta, discussed this a couple days ago. Consequently, there is a lot of pressure by the states to impose sales tax on mail-order and internet purchases to help fill the coffers. Many companies (Amazon, too), are starting to withold sales tax in anticipation of this new money grab becoming law. It's going to be a problem in GA as the amount of sales tax varies depending on in which county one resides. I'm in Cobb county which has a 5% sales tax, but adjacent Fulton county (Atlanta) has a 7% sales tax. My mailing address is Roswell (part of Fulton county), but I don't live in the city limits. I live in unincorporated Cobb county.

Thanks, Al. The sound I am getting is pretty good, so I wasn't expecting any problems with your fine crossover. I don't listen to loud music...wanna save my hearing.

Bernd: I'm using the ALK crossover and the stock Klipsch tweeter. I just made this mod about a week ago and will likely seek some advice from Al K on whether to modify the crossover, delete the tweeter, etc. I believe Al uses Rane crossovers with his modified Belles (mods incl 811 horns with JBL 2424? drivers) Edster. You're welcome anytime. I was kinda bummed to have to change the gear. The Onyx monoblocks simply had too much gain for horn use causing a clearly audible hiss. I was planning on keeping the excellent Jade pre, but I sold the pre/amp as a combo. The source upgrade was timely. Regards, Mike

My third audio epiphany was how good Khorns sound with SET. Id only ever heard them with mid-fi s-s gear before and was not impressed. First, I got a pair of Belles from Edster as they were available and who knew how long it would take to get some Khorns. Being a consummate tweaker, I couldnt leave them stock. First mod: Rope caulking the squawker and tweeter horns. Nuff said on the Forum about that already. Khorns showed up (85) shortly later. I had to drive 8 hours to get them, but they were 9+/10 condition from the original owner. The wiring was corroded, so I rewired them and rope caulked the horns. Impression: More expansive sound and bass authority than the Belles- no surprise. The crossovers were pretty funky, so I got some ALKs. Again, Nuff said here. Horn loaded bass is impressive! I spent a lot of time in Ron Welbournes room at CES and still think the Maya is the best system Ive ever heard. Being an audio masochist, I continue to read the Forum. How to modify the Khorns? I thought about some Oris 200 horns with the AER driver I like so much, but Ouch. The price!!!!! Reading on. The 511B horns seem to impress quite a few members. I remember the VOT from my high school days (Im 48) and picked up a pair on Ebay. After getting adapters, I mounted them on the Khorns. Impression: Improved presence over the 400 and my 14 x 21 listening room seemed larger. But I knew the Klipsch driver could be improved upon. The JBL and TAD were a bit pricey for experimenting. After further reading about the Altec drivers. I scored a pair of local pair of Altec Iconic (circa 1965 w/415/806A) from the original owner. A non-audiophile, he never even opened these up! The drivers were like new. Even the surrounds on the woofer are perfect. After bringing them home to use in my second system (replacing Heresy II which are too small), I decided to try the 806A on the 511 topped Khorns. Impression: Holy crap!!! The ease with which the mid range comes through was THE most natural Ive heard. Im hearing much more of the music, the back-end of notes, decay, etc. I read that their output was greater then the stock driver, but Ive not found that to be the case with the 806A. Needless to say, they are staying on the 511/Khorn. I guess Ill have to try the stock midrange driver on the 811 horn in the Iconic and add a tweeter. Or maybe build a VOT cabinet and use the 415/511/806A in them. Aint this a fun hobby??

Good one, mOOn. LMAO

The dove politicians in Canada enacted a gun registration law a couple years ago. Initially, it applied to only handguns, but by 1/03, all guns had to be registered. Hopefully the store owner had his gun registered or he may get as much jail time (or more, if Canada models England) as the crooks.

Hi: Since I didn't get to CES, I'm going. Need to fly from Atlanta though. :-( Going to be nice to see Bruce Edgar again. Last time was at CES a few years ago. He had his refrigerator sized speakers at the Ho-Jo Inn. There he was sitting in front of a what looked like a home-brewed 300b and commented, "These things will play so loud it will make you throw up", then proceeded to demonstrate. I think everyone at Ho-Jos thought there was an earthquake! ROTFLMAO Off topic. I scored a local pair of Altec Valencias for low $$$ yesterday. Near mint cond from the original owner. Opened 'em up last night and they are clean. The woofer surrounds are like new. I may take to 806A drivers out and swap them with the K55M on my Khorns (since I'm already using the 511B horn). Regards

Military fiction- Dale Brown- fantastic air battles History- Victor Davis Hanson and Donald Kagan Fantasy Fiction/Horror- Clive Davis, HP Lovecraft Wish I had more time to read, but with work, family, and music, reading takes a distant 4th place.

IME, cabling makes a slight difference, but not always improvement and not always thicker cable=better cable. When I was reviewing, I had a lot of stuff in my place and found that the sonic differences of different wire (whether improved definition, incr/decr treble, etc., etc.) had more to do with the type of amplifier that was being used than the speaker. Likely due to the afore mentioned inductance/ capacitance the amplifier "sees". If you are using budget or lower mid-fi components, you might not notice much difference. I like the 8 ga Analysis Plus Solo Monocrystal, but it's not cheap. The 47 Labs OTA cable is also very nice and is small gauge (something like 24 or 26). The Mapleshade and Goertz are pretty good buys. For sure though, zip cord doesn't cut it and I DON'T like silver cable. Even the megabuck stuff is bright and forward sounding. But if your compomnents are dark sounding, then silver might brighten things up. The whole cabling thing is a real "can of worms". Good luck, Mike

Hi: I own a Custom Power Cord Super Power Block. $450 retail. It absolutely crushed the PS Audio Power Plant 300 I was using before. 4 outlets and no current limitation. I plug all gear into it. Tremndous improvement in lowering noise floor, spaciousness, timbre, etc. Oh yes. The CPCC products received numerous TAS Golden Ear Awards for those needing the "Reviewer's Imprimatur". I sold a bunch of them when I had my audio shop. I never had one returned. Regards, Mike

Yeah, I've heard it too, but audio has been my main hobby for 33 years. Thankfully, my wife puts up with it. Here's why: 1. It keeps me home. 2. It's not a motorcycle (used to be my other main hobby) 3. I'm not down at the Gold Club stuffing $5.00 bills into some chick's G-string. All hobbyists usually have, what would seem to others, some sort of obsession with their hobby. Whether it be wine collecting/tasting, stamp/coin collecting, photography, doll collecting (women, of course), cars, clothes, jewelry, or how about SHOPPING!!!!!. In my wife's case, it's work. She puts in 60-70 hour weeks and what little free time she has is devoted to loosely related work stuff. Hobbies are a great refuge from day to day work and make life interesting. Mike

The tweeters may only need new diaphragms. Probably cheaper than buying the whole tweeter.

As many have already stated, there are concerns whether typical subs will integrate well with the Khorn/Belle/ Lascala. In my experience, they do not. I've tried subs with the Khorn/Belle and back-loaded Lamhorn. Yes, you get more bass, but the integration and coherence sucks big time. It's a speed issue. The horn-loaded subs from Edgarhorn and the Moondog Maya work very well, however.

Just in the new Gramophone in the mail. A company in the UK is making transparent horns. 150 Hz-20K Hz using Lowther DX3. 96 dB/w. $6853UK Should have decent WAF. Other photos at the website 9sorry, I don;t know how to paste pictures here). www.fergusonhill.co.uk

That photo looks like a bass cabinet for a JBL Hartsfield. Put a squawker and tweeter on top and I would expect it to work quite nicely.

The wife was out of town this weekend, so I thought I'd give Dean's woofer tweak a try. But first I digress. When I bought my first pair of Klipsch Belles from Edster (my first horns, too), I noted he had rope caulked the squawker horn. (I had done this to a Denon DP3000 t-table I had back in the late 70s and got some significant improvement) After listening to the Belles at my place, I noticed the highs were a bit confused sounding. I went and rope caulked the tweeter horn which resolved that problem. I later scored some 85 Khorns from the original owner which were entirely stock. The wiring was really oxidized so I replaced it which improved the sound, most notably, in the bass region. I incrementally rope caulked the squawker horn- some improvement. Then the tweeter, big improvement. An ALK crossover also made significant improvement, especially with the ability to attenuate the squawker output to match my room's acoustics. Dean's woofer tweak made sense, so I picked up some Frost King rope caulk from Home Depot and went about the modification. I first cleaned the woofer's metal frame with some denatured alcohol to insure adhesion of the caulk and then applied it like Dean did. The job took about an hour and the cost , about $10.00 for 2 packs of caulk. How does it sound? Decent improvement. I didn't notice MORE bass or DEEPER bass, but improvement in tonality, timbre and definition. Theoretically, this tweak make sense. The woofer basket (K33E, in mine) is stamped metal and prone to vibration and resonance. The caulking will both dampen the vibration and lessen and probably shift the resonance (for you engineer types out there). The vibration can conceiveably impact the voice coil's operation and the resonance frqquencies may cause peaks in the bass output. Verdict: A tweak well worth the expense and time. Thanks, Dean, for sharing. Regards, Mike