hjones4841

Damon: My HT is in the basement in a room with 2 windows. I found that with the sub running at "movie" levels, the window panes were vibrating noticeably. I "glued" two pieces of 5/8 sheet rock together with sheet rock mud, cut them to fit just inside the window casings, put large hinges on them and painted them black. Instant light blockage (I have a front projection system) and quite a bit of bass SPL reduction. I hung black pleated curtains over the sheet rock. It is a PITA when I want to open the windows, but it is very effective for the purpose.

Those rags would be the LAST place that would advertise the Heritage line, what with all their bashing of "that horn sound" over all the years. Just look at the dealer ads in those mags - only very rarely will you see Klipsch in the product line. As for buying Heritage since 2000, I bought a pair of new Heresy IIs for side surrounds in May of this year. I agree that Klipsch's marketing of the Heritage line is sorely lacking. How long has it been since we have seen a full page ad for K'horns? 20-30 years?

Yep, I was speaking of bi-amping. The engineer in me struggles to believe in bi-wiring. At least bi-amping has merit on paper. However, as others suggest, I expect small improvement. But, having the extra amp channels means that the only cost would be about 75 feet of wire - and of course time. But, we all work cheap when it comes to our audio systems!

Thanks for the comments, guys. As for those who doubt my sanity for buying an expensive receiver, the previous setup was 1998 vintage Denon 8000 series separates. The 5805 sounds DRAMATICALLY better than that gear. Note that 95%+ of the time the system is used for HT. As other reviewers have said, the 5805 should not be considered as "just another receiver." It is far better than that. I had at one time decided on an Anthem AVM-30 to use with my Denon separate amps. However, I got weary of waiting for upgrades "just around the corner" that have yet to appear. I also got weary of all the external component switchers, extra digital audio switchers, etc, that all had to function properly. Sure is nice to have to only issue one remote command to switch sources. (Yes, I used macros on my Pronto with the old gear). As for what I paid for the 5805 "only my dealer and I know for sure." Well, OK, had to fess up to the wife also

My wife says that I could retire if it weren't for my electronics! Working to support the habit!

I am using 7 channels of my Denon 5805 to power 4 Klipschorns for front mains and back, a Belle for the front center and a pair of Heresy IIs for the sides. I have 3 amp channels left and don't plan to multizone - at least not with the internal amps. So, I was wondering if bi-amping the 3 fronts would make an audible difference. The 5805 has internal bi-amp capability, so the only investment would be about 100 ft of wire. Has anyone tried the 5805 like this? Thanks.

It could be a loose wire. Usually push-on terminals are used on the wires to the driver. Might be worth pulling the driver to check before sending it off for repair.

Here are low freq MP3 files - part of a group that another forum member posted (don't remember who.) Trrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy iiiiiiiittttt yyyyooooouuuuullllll liiiiiikkkkkee iiiit! And if you can't hear these in your room, get a better subwoofer. bass.zip

Hmmm... my room is much smaller that a 16hz wavelength (22' x 12.5' x 8'). What, oh what is my SPL meter reading when I put a 16hz tone to my Velodyne FSR18 and why, or why do my walls, doors and furniture inside and outside the room vibrate???

By all means take an extra day and drive down to Mt. Rainier.

---------------- On 6/1/2005 6:05:34 PM edwinr wrote: One positive of many esoteric cables, are the fine quality terminations used. You can plug and unplug at will withput fear of the connector breaking. ---------------- Not to put Mon$ter in the same breath as esoteric cables, but on two occasions I have had their "cut turbine" design RCA plugs pull jacks out of the back of equipment - last time was the green component jack on the back of my $1K HDTIVO when I moved it from one shelf to another on the equipment rack. So, while the connector itself may not break, it could spell "taps" for your equipment.

---------------- On 6/1/2005 12:54:28 PM maxg wrote: Whatever happens - there is nothing purple entering this system! ---------------- Now, THAT's a manly man! ---------------- On 6/1/2005 12:54:28 PM maxg wrote: I didn't realise the prepondenance of cable nay-sayers on this board until now. ---------------- But, Max it has been sooo much FUN and all at your expense!

---------------- On 6/1/2005 12:43:03 PM Painful Reality wrote: without engineers in the lunch room, the dress code would be much improved... ---------------- How true, how true.. and I am a veteran of the slide rule era! Long live VERSALOG!

---------------- On 6/1/2005 6:35:41 AM kev313 wrote: I thought that there isn't any secret to these cords. ---------------- ...to elaborate... 1. restricted to initiates: intended for or understood by only an initiated few ...the "great unwashed" (of which I belong) certainly don't understand the hoopla of "esoteric" cables... 2. abstruse: difficult to understand ... difficult to understand why someone would pay $1000 for a power cord and difficult to understand why the dern thing would make any difference anyway... 3. secret: secret or highly confidential ...several things come to mind here, from 1) the secret to making ungodly profits to 2) the confidential company in-house memo admitting that it is all smoke and mirrors to 3) "the Colonel's secret recipe" to 4) "two all beef patties, special sauce..."

---------------- Oh yeah, free thesaurus for the next one who uses the word "esoteric" when referring to power cords. ---------------- Encarta Dictionary's definition of esoteric: 1. restricted to initiates: intended for or understood by only an initiated few 2. abstruse: difficult to understand 3. secret: secret or highly confidential Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Works for me in describing $1000 power cords

maxg: I agree that better shielding is the best explanation for what you are experiencing, but couldn't the same thing be said for better shielding on the audio interconnects? Are we trying to keep it from getting out or keep it from getting in? Anyway, happy experimenting and keep us posted when you try the "high priced spread." My reference to drug companies was in relation to claims of health benefits of their magic pills. Can you imagine if they were allowed to advertise like the esoteric cable companies are allowed to do? Believe me, I am well aware of the gross overcharging in the medical industry. I had back surgery 4 weeks ago and the billings to the insurance company are coming in. Funny how those things are handled here in the States: the hospital bills the insurance company for, say, $5000. The insurance company agrees to pay $800 and the hospital accepts it as 100% payment...

maxg: My sincere apologies for hijacking your thread. It is just that there is soooo much hype (dare I say lies?)in the audio marketplace that it is painful, for me at least, to see folks falling for it. Can you imagine drug companies getting away with the like? The ultimate one to be satisified is the purchaser, so if sexy cables make him happy, then go for it.

What about this power cord that enhances "toe tapping rhythm"? http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=KKPK10G10&product_name=PK%2010%20Gold%20High-Current%20AC%20Power%20Cord Or perhaps these for which "The dark or black backgrounds, against which musical notes stand out in relief, have seemingly now gone beyond black," http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=KKPK10P12&product_name=Palladian%20PK10%20Power%20Cable The secret? It "incorporates a special copper optimized for 120 volt AC wall voltage, as well as a special conductor dielectric that is devoid of performance robbing color doping" (oh no, not the hideous color doping!) All this for only $1,120.00 ! And don't forget to intall the "premium Wattgate Audio Grade 350 IEC and 330 US wall plug". Funny, that does not appear to be on their website, but here is another one that promises "Stronger Music and Blacker Silence" http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=PSAPP Gee, where is truth in advertising when ya need it?

A pair of Bose 301s driven by a Technics receiver; the garage is the only allowed place in the house for Bose. I got them only because they were marked WAY down at Sams Club several years ago.

kev313: I did indeed misread your post - sorry about that. On the power center question, I have mixed feelings. As far as noise on the power lines, I gotta believe that the power supply capacitors in our audio equipment do an adequate job of filtering. Surge protection is another matter and I strongly encourage the use it - mainly for lightning protection. Surges caused by the power system itself are very rare, regardless of what seems to be "common knowledge." Believe me, the power companies are blamed for far more problems than they actually cause. Brown-outs are a another matter that will become more of a factor as our power generation and transmission equipment gets older and as utility expenditures for maintenance and equipment replacement shrink. A UPS (battery backup) is a good idea for hard drive based HT equipment, like TIVOs, as well as projectors with expensive bulbs (the UPS allows the bulb to cool when the power goes out). There are other factors such as ground loops that can cause noise, mostly hum. Fixes for ground loops include removing the grounding pin from a 3 prong power cord and making sure that all your outlets in the HT are on the same "leg" of the house power box. In the US, the house power box is 2-wire 230V with neutral; we get 115V by connecting between one of the power wires and neutral. A lot of times, the connection between one leg of the 230V to ground is at a slightly different voltage than the connection between the other leg and ground due to unbalances in the voltages to and from the pole transformer. Making sure that everything in the HT is connected to the same side of the 230V line may make a slight difference. I would not re-wire your outlets due to the small potential difference, but this can be easily done during room construction. One of the most difficult ground loops to diagnose, yet the easiest to fix, comes from cable TV connections. The hum appears when the cable is connected, and is gone when the cable is disconnected. The easy fix is to take two 75 to 300 ohm matching transformers (like used on an outside TV antenna) and connect the 300 ohm sides together. Then connect one 75 ohm side to the cable TV and the other 75 ohm side to your equipment. Ok, enough rambling...

Ummmm.... Proper break-in time would be two trips to esoteric audio salons -with the button in plain view, of course.... you know the type of dealer I am talking about... the one who cups his hands around his mouth and demonstrates that HORRID HORN sound. And as soon and the new shipment of BS buttons came into Hope, Monster would come out with a $75 pin alignment tool for them...

PWK would have had a field day passing out the BS buttons to those who believe in esoteric cables and cable burn-in

...there's one born every minute

Parrot: Actually a better idea would be lead sheathed cable to protect the precious little electrons from all the radiation that escapes the microwave oven. (My kid did his science fair project this year on microwave oven leakage. After reading several "sky is falling" web articles, we measured 10 residential ovens made from 1978 to 1999. The only one that exceeded federal industry leakage limits was one with a broken door seal.) Oh, on wire break-in, I forgot about the time it takes for electrons to wake up and get up to speed - those lazy little buggers! About a year ago I went into a local Best Buy to pick up a component video cable. I had in my hand a $20 AR cable that appeared to be well made (Parts Express sells these now for $10). This sales guy walks up and tells me that I really should put that cheap cable back and get this $100+ Mon$ter Cable. I assured him that I knew what I was doing and that I had been in home audio since well before he was born. He said that's not possible, to which I replied, "gee, you don't look to be 45."

kev313 - congratulations, you will ALWAYS have friends at your local "esoteric" audio dealers! Lessee now, break-in time for wires. Now you guys know that an electrical engineer is much too practically minded to believe in such. Wire has several characteristics: biggest factor is resistance. The only way that a piece of wire's resistance can change (excluding resistance in terminals) is via a temperature change. So, if you pass enough current thru a wire, it will heat up and cause a SLIGHT change in resistance. However, get out the fire extinguisher if you want to see a significant change in resistance... OK, wire also has capacitance and inductance (mainly in parallel runs). The vector sum of a cable's resistance, capacitance, and inductance is its impedance. To change capacitance or inductance, the spacing between the cable conductors has to change, its proximity to metallic objects has to change, or perhaps the conductors are twisted. Hmmm, don't see any connection there to break-in time. The physical characteristics of wire include the chemical composition of the insulation and jacket. These factors can also influence the impedance of the cable (particularly in coax cable)as well as where it is approved for installation (plenum rated, in wall, etc.). I cannot believe that any cable manufacturer would use a chemically unstable compound that would change its properties over several hours of "break-in time." OK, so what factors do make some degree of difference in cables? Obviously, the cable has to large enough to carry the desired amount of current without overheating. For home audio system amplifier outputs, I doubt that appreciable temperature changes occur in even #26 or #24 wire, and how many of us would use cable that small anyway? The reason we use large cable is to minimize the cable's contribution to the total circuit resistance (really impedance) from the amplifier output stage to the speaker - this is called damping factor. You can find many in the audio field (even PWK if memory serves me correctly) that would agree that the small contribution of cable resistance makes any audible difference to the overall system (amp, cable, speaker)damping factor. Beyond that, making sure that the cable connections are tight and secure is about it. And, no, the $50 banana plugs don't make any difference, either. So, what good is all this esoteric cable? Well, $profit$ is surely the prime motive, not only on the cable itself but on the stuff that goes with it. The best laugh I had about all this was a picture of a guy's HT in a magazine several years ago. He had single conductor, very large and I am sure very expensive, cable between his amp and speakers. These single conductor wires were supported above the floor on little towers that looked like a 230KV transmission line installation. There is no telling how much $$$$ that poor guy spent on that. Of course, in the mag the owner praised how much better his rig sounded..... Like I said, it is dangerous to get an electrical engineer started on esoteric audio cable After all we all know that our food will taste better if we put a $250 power cable on our $75 microwave... There are those who believe because they want to believe, especially after spending all those $$$$.