henry4841

They are just a dust cover and do not contribute to the sound. Kids are most likely the culprit. Easily replaced. Lot of truth in what you said. I am happy with just a pair of bookshelf speakers in my bedroom. Big speakers there would just be a waste.

The Icepower boards have a tube like sound. At least the one I played with. My favorite though is the TPA3255 boards. Have tried many of them over the years.

I really should not have said throw away. Like most consumer products, televisions, copy machines, etc, repairmen just replace boards and do not attempt to repair the problem on the board. Most televisions repairs are done this way these days. Probably going to be expensive though.

Why punish Russian citizens for what their government is doing? There is a lot, I mean a lot, that our government is doing that I do not approve of. The people are the ones that are going to be punished most by boycotts. A lot of people are going to loose their jobs, good people, with no way to support their families. Living close to a military base that once trained Russian pilots years ago I meet many of them and they seemed to be really good people. Russian pilots had to belong to the Communist part to be an officer but believe me they did not approve of all what their gov. were doing. At least the ones that I made friends with. Really sad what is going on in the world right now. Good people are the ones that are suffering. Russian families are loosing their children along with the terrible carnage going on in Ukraine because of what their leaders are doing.

My experience as well. Throw away when they fail.

Fortunately have 12 tube amplifiers at the present time with a box full of extra tubes. Not counting the tube preamplifiers I currently have. I have bought tubes from this guy for a number of years and have always been satisfied with price and shipping. Unfortunately it appears he is away for a few days. https://www.ebay.com/str/vacuumtubevalues

You may be right. I just saw what looked like LaScala bottom ends. Not that familiar with pro equipment. Horns anyways.

I watched this on youtube last week and low and behold right at the beginning I think I am seeing LaScala bottom ends with a big horn on top. I assume they are Klipsch pro speakers. I have experimented with open baffle full range speakers in the past, still have them, and they do sound really good and enjoyable but compared horns they lack some detail and dynamics.

Possible explanation. The speaker industry standard is using a discrete L-pad or an adjustable one, at least that is my knowledge of all the crossovers for speakers I have seen. I am almost positive if 6 engineers from 6 different companies were put together in a room there would be a lively discussion on the best way for attenuation. PWK carried his button when in the presence of other engineers who he disagreed with.

From discussion on another thread it seems the engineers at Klipsch at some point in time took a different direction for attenuation using just one resistor designing the network with the value of the resistor plus the speaker impedance. I can see how it can be done but do not understand the advantage of doing it that way but I am sure the engineers at Klipsch had their reasons. As said above many different roads to town. Designed properly all should sound just fine. In electronics I put more emphasis on design then component choices.

I disagree. Having tried many different crossovers, over 30, with my LaScala's years ago the best sound IMHO was without an autotransformer. Probably because of the more phase shift an autotransformer has and me being sensitive to phase shift. That being said the difference between the two is subtle and not earth shaking. After trying many different combinations I have AA crossovers in my LaScala's now. As the country boy says, "there are many different roads to town." I still see no need for someone building a crossover network for a diy project to use an autotransformer. Let see, $120 plus shipping for a pair of autotransformers or $4 for 4 resistors. Not a hard decision for me if I ever design and build another crossover network. The only manufacturer I know of still using autotransformers for audio is McIntosh but not in a crossover network but rather in their SS amplifiers. Different story if someone is restoring an old pair of speakers wanting to preserve the sound of that era. Mentioning a swamping resistor is going to open another can of worms. There has been a lot of discussions on that subject in the past. Personally when using an autotransformer I like using ALK's swamping resistor networks with the ability to change attenuation on the fly. Easier to adjust the sound to ones room.

I have multiple preamplifiers having built some of the best designs out there both tube and SS. The last one I built is one by Wayne Colburn of Passlabs who designed it for diy'ers. Excellent sounding but has not been used in over a year neither has any of the others I have. I use a Firstwatt B1 V2 buffer with no gain for volume control with no equalization or tone controls. With conventional speakers that require more power to wake up a preamplifier would be desirable for the extra oomf. If one likes using a preamplifier with tone controls they should enjoy it. After all this is entertainment.

How long has it been since Klipsch used autotransformers, 30 years? If they are so much better why are they not using them now? Do they not want their speakers to sound the best they can? Dean profits from building crossovers using autotransformers so naturally he would prefer them. My understanding is PWK used them to get every bit of power he could out of the amplifiers of the 50's he could. I can see no reason whatsoever for anyone to design a new crossover network for a diy project using an autotransformer that even Klipsch does not use anymore. No offense meant to Dean, he serves a purpose for those wanting to keep their old speakers original and from all accounts does a good job building them.

When you go to a concert what kind of speakers do you see? If one wants the live sound effect choose the same thing if you want live sound for your home.

My experience is a minimal 25 clean watts, preferable class A, when using SS even with 92db rating. More will not hurt. Your Marantz should be more then enough power. Then all amplifiers sound slightly different from each other so the Rotel may or may not sound better but doubtful if more power is going to be contributing factor.

Anyone else watch the ACM awards last night?

Very Nice. I look forward to impressions of sound.

How does it sound? Does the bass seem to be OK when listening? If so I would contribute it to test problem. If no bass you will need to isolate the problem. Unhook the mids and tweeter and see if their is any sound coming from the woofers. Something is wrong with your test setup or if not probably going to be in the crossover networks. I see no way the bass can drop off that much as your graphs are showing unless there is something wrong.

Why use an autotransformer on a speaker that is not an old Klipsch speaker? Just added expense with no significant advantage. Klipsch has not used them in decades themselves. I can understand trying to keep an older Klipsch original sounding and stock as PWK designed it but not something I would use on a diy speaker. Not something that I know of anyone doing on a crossover they design for a diy speaker. At least not something I would do. Having designed many crossovers for different speakers I still use AA's with autotransformers on my old LaScala's but not for any other speaker.

Ears are always the best judge but it does help to understand the different ways of amplification when picking an amplifier. Once you hear a really good class A amplifier you will understand. I do admit bias having a basic electronic understanding leaning to class A. Probably like those that spend large amount of money for a new piece of gear and convince themselves how great it must sound because of it's cost. That and the fact all the other classes of amplification use class A to compare there amplification to. "Our class A/B amplifier sounds as good as class A without all the heat and expense" is a common saying. Class A is the standard others are judged by. Technically for a solid reason. One limiting factor of class A amplification is the heat and cost when going over 25 watts. Perfect for our horns but not for all conventional speakers. For an example here is a 100 watt class A amplifier. https://www.passlabs.com/products/xa100-8-2/ A pair will cost you $21,000 and weigh 99lbs each. You can also cut your heater off in the winter time when playing music.

I think you already know the answer but here go's for those that may wonder. The baton is transferred but both runners are running as fast as possible when it is passed. would be a better description. The relay race analogy makes it easier for those not electronically inclined to better understand how class A works.

Edgar beat me to the draw. I agree with all the post Edgar has made, well described. I think Nelson Pass said it this way. The different classes are like relay runners. Class A runners take the baton and run all out without ever swapping the baton. The first A/B runner takes the baton and runs all out till he swaps the baton and then slows down when it is passed. The second runner then runs all out until he swaps the baton. In class B the first runner stops then passes the baton to the second runner who go's all out until the baton is swapped again. Deep down in me I still lean towards Class A knowing the signal stays pretty pure in the amplifier. As pure as the present designers can build them. I also like Class A designs with just the minimal amount of parts like Nelson Pass builds amplifiers. I still have one powerful A/B amplifier that sounds fantastic along with some Class D that sound really good as well. Much as what Edgar said.

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Class A is where the transistors are run as high as safely possible. In other words hot. The only drawback I can quickly remember of class A is the heat factor and expense of a costly chassis with big heat sinks to dissipate the heat. That being the case a class A amplifier is the most linear of all the classes. In other words the best sound theoretically. Human factors weigh in though meaning not all class A amplifiers are built or designed where they sound superior. In other words a cheap class A amplifier may not sound as good as a good class A/B or D. Hope this make sense. Just for reference Nelson Pass of Passlabs and Firstwatt is considered one of if not the best amplifier designer in our generation. Quality is built in as well but everyone that I have heard, many, sound different from each other.