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For those of you ordering the Klipsch Audio Papers & Dope From Hope publications........you might also want to check this out. The papers would be a great supplement to this book. Highly recommended. "Paul Wilbur Klipsch, The Life....The Legend" Barret & Klementovich, Rutlege Books, www.rutledgebooks.com Hell, all of you Klipscher's should buy this!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll give it a try. My recent "find" is a SACD, Superbass2 on Telarc, recorded at the New York City Blue Note. Ray Brown, Christian McBride & John Clayton. All upright Bass. Nothing else. You'll be amazed. ("we don't need no stinking drums") ("we don't need no stinking vocalist") ("we don't need no stinking violin") ("we don't need no stinking keyboards") ("we don't need no stinking horns").......oops yes you do. to reproduce the bass' full DYNAMIC RANGE you do. and that horn's name is KLIPSCH.............

Understood mdeneen. I've had my triode monoblocks for over 25 years now. They are push-pull, class AB1 biased. I'm quite aware that up to several watts they are essentially operating in class A with Klipschorns 99.99% of the time. While I have a technical background, I'm not an EE (electrical engineer). Thought I'd just try to pass these concepts along the way I learned them from the "outside". I'm not a big SET fan. But maybe its time to revisit SET. The classic tubes for SET amps such as 2A3 & 300B were extremely scarce back in the 70's. My listening room is large, acoustically tuned, and VERY quiet. Noise of any kind is very easy to hear. And quite honestly, I like what I have, & have not heard anything better (excellent & different, yes, but not "better", overall ). cheers!!!!!!

Like I said, it was an "elementary" explanation for our newbie friend Mark. I didn't really want to get into all the phase shift, current differential & biasing stuff, etc. At this stage I was trying to get the basic concept(s) across for him. But thanks for expanding on it.

That sounds about right colin. My 50 watt triodes sound just as, if not more powerful than my 275watt SS

What is the difference between the technologies - heck - that ARE the technologies? At the basic level of the device itself, tubes are much more linear through the audio range than transistors. Linear in this instance = low distortion. Tubes act more like valves (just like a valve in water flow thru a pipe). Thats why they typically call vacuum tubes valves. Transistors act more like on/off switches. SE or SET is a single-ended type of circuit design. Both tube & transistor amps can be single-end designs. In this type of amp the entire waveform is amplified by the tubes/transistors. One of the major drawbacks to SET inherent in their design is noise & hum. All things being equal, there is no way around this. A push-pull amp inherently cancels these much of these components. In push-pull designs, you need at least 2 tubes or transistors for each stage of amplification. Each device handles ½one-half of the waveform. The waveform is switched back & forth between the 2 devices. This produces something called crossover or notch distortion. In most transistor amps this phenomena is more pronounced due to the fast on/off switching nature of the transistor. Furthermore, the amplitude of crossover distortion is constant. It stays at the same level regardless of the power output, which means as the power output decreases, the % of distortion increases. The highest % of crossover distortion is at the lowest power output levels. The only way around this is SE or class A operation which keeps all the tubes or transistors operation fully on at all times regardless of whether a signal is present or not. Yes, it burns more electricity & makes more heat. Another major difference between tube & transistor amps is how they overload or clip when pushed past their operating limits. Transistors typically, literally shear the top/bottom of the waveform off. While this may look real nice on a graph or oscilloscope, consider what this really means. The flat part at the top & bottom of the waveform actually represent DC or direct current. Its the same as taking a battery & hooking it up to your speakers. At DC the speaker diaphragm wants to just move in one direction to maximum excursion & stay there. And now, you would be doing this back & forth as the waveform swings back & forth. Speakers dont like DC. Also consider the slope of the waveform. As the amp is overdriven into clipping, the vertical slope of the waveform becomes steeper & steeper. This is equivalent to forcing the amp to produce higher & higher frequencies, which are at this point, are probably far beyond the amps power bandwidth. Tubes overload much more gracefully. They act more like natural compressors, gently rounding off or softening the clipping. Then there is the harmonics debate. Tube amps typically have more harmonic distortion but its of the pleasant type, even harmonics. Transistors seem to typically produce more odd harmonics which tend to sound harsh or edgy. The aforementioned clipping/overload situation would aggravate this even more. In the old days, 1000Hz was chosen as the standard frequency to test for noise. The reason being that the human is most sensitive near this frequency. Tube amps just so happen to typically have the most noise here. As it turns out, transistors have much more high frequency noise. It doesnt show up in the specs because no one is testing for noise across the entire audio bandwidth, just at the standard 1000Hz specification. For example, I can turn my tube power amps all the way up & put my ear right next to the midrange horn on a Khorn & its absolutely dead quiet. With my SS amp which measures more than 20Db less noise according to spec standards, hiss is clearly audible at the listening position. Another fascinating tidbit of history on the tube vs transistor sound has to do with something called negative feedback. Negative feedback is where you basically take part (a percentage) of the signal, invert it & feed it back into the signal. The inverted feedback signal cancels some of the distortion products thereby lowering distortion. Contrary to popular belief, negative feedback, in & of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing depending on how & where its used in the circuit & how much of it is applied. However, consider the following (elementary) scenario: If we take a typical bench test signal (1000Hz) & we play this through the amp. And lets say the amp can provide 20DB of amplification. If we take 2Db of this output, and apply it as negative feedback back at the input, we are left with 18Db of amplification. 2Db is 10% of 20Db so the distortion is reduced by 10%. BUT..this is with a static single frequency test signal. What happens when we play music through this setup? The negative feedback is now being mixed with a signal which is different than that of output signal from which the negative feedback came, in both its amplitude & frequency content. Its actually a distortion machine! To make matters worse, transistors have lots more gain or amplification than tubes, albeit at the price of bandwidth. Ill give you one guess what most (especially early) transistor designs did. Yes, they used that extra gain not only widen the bandwidth but also to apply even more negative feedback. So what this all boils down to is differences hum, noise, crossover distortion, overload characteristics, & harmonic distortion content and the fact that there's just more opportunity to mess up a transistor amp design, than it is with tubes. Ive heard superior sound from both kinds of amps, SE or push-pull, tube or transistor. However, after all is said & done, the transistor amps, when designed properly for true audio high fidelity, generally loose most, if not all, of their commonly associated advantages such as low cost, small size, less weight, less heat, high power output, etc. As far as what you should be listening for.believe me. You wont have to listen for anything. It will all be quite obvious. Thats why tubes are still alive after almost everyone said they were obsolete over 30 years ago. Hmmm..kinda reminds ya of the Klipschorn doesnt it?

Good News Klipsch Fans. The small mom & pop shop I've dealt with in the past will reproduce these for us! Let me also state at this time that I have reviewed much of the Copyright Law(s) and their interpretations pertaining to this over the weekend. Its my non-qualified opinion (as I am not an attorney) that since I'm doing this without profit, for non-commercial, educational purposes, & the information is "factual" (vs fictional) & technical in nature, & because much (if not all) of this material is out of print & difficult to find even in at public & university libraries that I can reproduce this for all of you without violating copyright law under United States Copyright Office document FL102 "Fair Use". I want to make this as simple as possible. The material weighs just under 2 pounds. I'm going to use the maximum zone rate for 1-2LB Priroity Mail for everyone. The postage to Canada isn't much different, so you Canadian friends will pay the same amount. Here's the totals: Printing $14.85 Postage $ 5.75 Envelopes$ 0.00 supplied by USPS TOTAL $20.60 I will accept orders Thru Friday, February 14, 03 Payment must be made by personal check or USPS Money Order (NOT PayPal as I had previously mentioned), AND....... You must include a Self-Addressed, SELF ADHESIVE shipping label! Make the payment out to & send to: Art Kulak 1014 Tennessee Lane Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

that all depends on YOU. ...if you're completely deaf,......no amount of sound pressure is really going to bother you until it gets to th e point of damaging internal organs........ hey.......if you like, & u don't mind going deaf.....turn it up as much as you like for as long as you like. Or turn it down as low as you like. Its YOU who is supposed to being enjoying the music YOU are listening to! Just make it sound right to YOU. You're preferences will change over time. & eventually, it will sound just right.......to you. ENJOY (My reference for any music is the live performance, no matter where it took place)

Thanks Trey. At this point, I take it that what you are saying is that I can reproduce the Dope From Hope publications, at least for the people who responded in this thread, for the purposes involved, even though the documents overlap "commom law" copyright restrictions? If thats the case, I'll be glad to send out copies of the Dope From Hope publications to those that requested to it thru Friday, February 14th. The other stuff will have to wait until/if I can secure reproduction rights for this particular, nonprofit, noncommercial, educational intended distribution.

Terry, yes. Here's a schematic from Klipsch Dope From Hope Vol.14, No.4 Revised July 1973. For the pots I used extremely high quality military spec hermatically sealed high precision pots that take about 5 or 6 complete turns around from full off to full on, and 1% resistors. I don't remember what kind except that whatever it was, they were the best available back then (1980-82) (maybe its time I revisit this & do an upgrade). You can really "dial-in" the overall balance & center channel extremely well with this. But any high quality pots should do the job. The ones I used were about $50 each as I recall. Klipsch2ph3.pdf

Almost forgot to mention: Believe it or not, there are micro organisms that like to eat vinyl. Humidity & moisture will aggravate this which is why I don't like to wash records with water unless you have some means of thoroughly & quickly drying the record, preferably with some kind of vacuum action to lift any remaining residues out of the grooves since water does not evaporate quickly enough to "lift" these off the record. Detergents used in the water may leave residues that tend to cling to the vinyl. Use of alcohol will help to "disinfect" the vinyl & remove these microbes far better than water with detergent, especially if the moisture is allowed to linger. I've used Last too (a long time ago). I like GrooveGlide better (so what). Also use a product called Stylast (lubricant)on the stylus. Not even sure if they make this stuff anymore. A small bottle seems to last forever.

Never store them flat. Store them in a vertical position. Don't pack them side by side to tightly. This may cause the cover spines to break or deteriorate prematurely. Always remove any shrink wrap to prevent warping. Use sleeves that are acid-free & intended for "archival use" (don't throw out the original sleeve or any other stuff they put in there for collection purposes). Don't use cabinets/storage that may contain materials that can, over time, be emitted as gases, oils or acids (as many paints & plastics do) & absorbed by the LP covers. You're looking product that is designated "archival quality" for sleeves & shelf liners etc. If you can, keep them in a relatively uniform temperature & humidity environment, not too dry & definitely not damp. If the room they're in feels "humid" to you at any temperature, its too humid. Make sure the storage cabinets/furniture is strong enough. This stuff can get heavy. Generally follow the same rules that museums use for archiving documents & artwork/photos.

Terry, yes, it includes the Bell Labs stuff. Not yet sure if I'll be in volilation of copyright laws or not. I would think that this would qualify under the "fair use" interpretation of copyright law which may exempt factual (vs fictional) information for educational, nonprofit, noncommercial purposes. Terry, Luxman made some really great amps. The SS stuff is typically more warm sounding than other SS gear. While having much of the "tube warmth", I think they still lack the detail, definition & sense of 3-D space/imaging that a good tube amp has. If you think that M-117 sounds great, you should hear their tube amps like the MB3045 or MB300. Interesting thing is my 50 watt Lux MB3045's sound way more powerful than my 275w/chnl Crown PSA2 (which is up for sale by the way). Not only that....even though the Crown specs & measures more than 20Db lower noise than the Lux tubes, I'll give you one guess which one sounds quieter. The Lux are DEAD QUIET, turned all the way up, even with your ear right against the mid & high horns on a Khorn, you can't hear a thing. You do that with the PSA2 & you can hear the hiss at the listening poition. One suggestion: don't use 2 speaker systems for your center speaker. You're probably producing what's called the "comb filter effect". Its bad enough trying to minimize this within one single multiple driver speaker system. With 2 of these in close proximity of each other the frequency response anomolies will be exaggerated even more. In addition, you then have the most acoustic output potential where you need it the least. I've tried this many years ago, several times in different rooms. I looks impressive for sure. But from a technical standpoint, its probably not the best thing to do. On the other hand, as I always say, "to each his own".

On cleaning records (LP's &45's) (take note of not using alcohol on 78's & earlier recordings). This what I use......& everyone should love it as it has multiple pruposes! I don't like washing the vinyl. Its just too difficult to get all the microscopic crap out of there & have the records dry uniformily. The water doesn't have strong enough evaporation qualities to "lift" any remaining residue from the grooves. And it doesn't do much to eliminate static. I have heard good things about the record cleaning machines that have a vacuum to suck all that crap out of there. Poor man's method: Smirnoff Silver (100 proof). Yes fans, the real thing. The stuff you can drink. Isopropyl alcohol is not all that pure (as it is not for internal consumption)& is often sold as "rubbing alcohol" which contains oils/lubricants & other impurities. High quality Vodka has been refined/distilled a number of times & is much purer than isopropyl alcohol. I use it with a Discwasher preener. After cleaning your vinyl with any type of alchohol or detergent, you will have removed some of the natural lubricating qualities inherent in the vinyl. This may cause more damage in the long run. To combat this, I use a product called GrooveGlide. Now before anyone starts chaffing me for using this stuff, please be aware that this stuff was being sold in high-end audio salons years before the nightclub DJ's started using it. GrooveGlide (when PROPERLY APPLIED)(did I mention properly applied?) puts a one molecule thick coating on the record that lubricates the groove. I have found it eliminates static charge (which in & of itself is responsible for much of the debris that gets attracted to the record in the first place), reduces groove noise, ticks & pops, seems to improve transient response & lower distortion. Bottom line: IMO records properly treated with GrooveGlide sound better. Many of my recordings that were treated with this stuff, ONCE, over 20 years ago, are still pristine & sound great with nary a pop or tick to be found anywhere. The product works similar to an automotive product called "Rain-X" which essentially does the same thing to vehicle windshields/goggles so rain runs/blows right off. This stuff was developed out of the NASA program. The key here is proper application. LESS IS MORE. Otherwise you may wind up increasing the tick/pop/groove noise in the long run. After treating the record you only need to give it a gentle wipe while the record is rotating with one of the GrooveGlide applicator pads (without additional GrooveGlide applied). ArmorAll can produce a sort of "greasy" coating on surfaces. I wouldn't use it for vinyl recordings.

Bad News Folks (so far) Kinko's has put a Kink in this. They won't copy any of it because of the copyrights (and there are lots of them). Apparently, last year or so, the copyright law was extended to 95 years. On Monday I'll take this stuff over to a little mom & pop shop on the other side of town that I've dealt with over the years. Maybe they won't be so concerned as a big national franchise like Kinko's.

Those of u who are ordering copies of the Dope From Hope & Klipsch Audio Papers from me are also getting the architect's & engineer's spec sheet for this monster. get this............. 100Db @ 1 watt @ 10feet in free space.

Update. Yes, the response is much greater than I expected. I don't intend to do most of the work.....its Kinko's job & my secretary will take care of the rest. There are 158 "sheets" (300+pages on both sides) according my current count. Not all pages are printed on both sides, but I'm going to treat it that way for efficiency. I thought about scanning this too. My scanner is too slow. Will take forever. & if Kinko's does it, I have no idea how large the file size will be. At 300+ pages, most email servers probably won't tolerate it anyway. And if I have to burn disks....more time for me. So Kinko's copy/USPS gets the job. I know I've been referencing a lot of this material since I started hanging on this Forum a few months ago. Apparently, much of this documentation is no longer available. Its wonderful to see that this information is still so sought after. I had no idea. I feel very fortunate to have original copies (an oxymoron?) that I can share with all of you who have the same goals & interests. I guarantee......you will enjoy it!

I can see we have plenty of interest. I'll take all the stuff over Kinko's, today (Fri 2-0-03) or tomorrow & get a firm quote & better handle on shipping/mailing. I'd like to give this a little time for everyone to respond so I don't have to do this 2 or 3 times. On the other hand, I'll have to put a time limit on it so this doesn't drag on. Friday February 14 will be the last day to sign up for a copy. By Saturday, February 15, I will email all of you who want a copy and request that you send payment to me with a self-addressed/self adhesive label that I can simply slap on the package. I was quoted 4 cents per page for a min. 1500 pages over the phone from Kinko's. We're well over that now so unless they misunderstood me, at aprox. 250 pages=$10 plus the shipping box or envelope, plus shipping, $15 should cover it. I'll post the actual cost on here tomorrow.

OK. Here's the deal. I checked with Kinko's & they said they copy these "folded, book-type notebook" pages & collate them, that is, if the person I talked to understood me correctly. I figure there's about 250 pages of material, including a few other goodies I can throw-in. All the sets will be the same. No "custom" orders for only certain things. All B&W on regular copy paper. 1. "Audio Papers From Klipsch & Associates, Inc." This alone is about 160 pages. 2. "Dope From Hope" newsletter publications. Based on the Contents page, there are some newsletters that may have not been included with my sets. It starts with Vol. 1, No.4 & there are a few empty Vol. No's without any titles listed. I don't know if there ever was anything for those or if they just skipped No's for some reason. About 60 pages 3. Reprint from Audio magazine interview with Paul Klipsch 4. Reprint from Audio magazine "The Best of Audio Vol.IV" in depth testing & review of the Klipschorn by the late great Richard Heyser. 5. A few other assorted goodies such as architect & engineer specification sheets & a hand drawn plan by the man himself (PWK) of the listening room layout in his second home which he sent me regarding some correspondence with him. My best estimate is that if I can get enough of you for at least 10 sets, it should cost around $10 each for the printing, plus the shipping & envelope or box. So probably around $15 give or take a few bucks. I have a PayPal account that I guess you could probably pay me thru somehow. Check or money order is fine too. You pay me, check clears, I make copies & send them out.

Well, I'd rather do as many of these at once as possible & at least be compensated for my expenses. And because lots of this material is in a page format...(four pages on two sides, folded) so its not as easy to "just copy" as you might think. Maybe a place like Kinko's has a way around this problem, I don't know. With my own equipment, its gonna be a one page at a time, collated process. So far as I know...there's you Andy, Randy Bey & playntheblues..........lets see if we can round up a few more. It will probably take me a Saturday to run off 5 or 6 sets of the stuff I have. No fancy binders or glossy paper folks....just the copies on jive ol' copy paper. You can email me from the forum.

Ou8, re:Does this mean that when I listen to something, at, lets say -15db, my amplifier is sending more power to drive the speakers, than if I were listening at 0db? No. Assuming the level marked 0Db is an indicator of "unity gain", that would mean that, at that level, your amplifier is passing the signal thru at the same level as if you took the CD player (for instance) & plugged it directly into the power amp (stage). Obviously, you can't do that with most receivers (unless it has a line level out like a preamp does). At the -15Db level you would be attenuating the input signal from the CD player (for instance) by 15Db. The gain (volume) control is a "relative" thing. It adjusts GAIN, not volume. It is not related to a specific output wattage. It controls the amount of INPUT. re:how does 0db translate into watts used. It doesn't. You could have your amp's volume control at "0Db" & still drive the amp past its rated power, IF, you have enough input signal. re:does that mean if an amplifer is rated as 100wpc with .05%THD at 8ohms or something, that this measurement is taken at the 0db mark on the amp? No again. If you look up the specs on the amp there is usually something called "input sensitivity" which will specify the amount of input voltage required for the amp to achieve a specified or rated output in watts with a specific load (resistance or impedance). Such as 0.75 volts +-2% at 30watts at 8 ohms. Under this condition, 0.25 volts in would cause the amp to produce 1/3 of its rated output, or 10 watts out. It doesn't have anything to do with the numbers on the volume control. The volume, or gain control, simply increases or decreases the level of the INPUT SIGNAL. The 0Db mark is simply the unity gain point. Unity gain is often used as a reference point for recording & sound engineers to achieve the best signal to noise ratio between various components. Some amps sound best operated that way, some don't. If you vary the gain levels between a preamp & power amp you can often affect the "tonal balance" of the setup. IE: preamp turned down low, power amp high, or vice versa. Its all basically a balancing act to get the best tone, lowest noise & achieve the desired gain with the speakers you are using & the conditions under which they are being used/listened to. Volts x amps = watts. Different amps achieve this differently. It all depends on the design. 3Db = doubling of power from the previous level. -3Db = one-half the power. It takes roughly 10Db increase in sound level to make something sound twice as loud to the human ear. If you have no way of measuring the input signal & without knowing the input sensitivity of the amp, you really don't know how much power the amp is putting out unless your amp has calibrated power output indicators or you use a sound pressure level meter, know the efficiency rating of your speakers, & calculate the power based on the sound pressure level the speakers are producing. The room's acoustics can affect measurements of this sort.

Some food for thought Gordon....... The power amp will ruthlessly amplify everything that came before it, including noise, hum & distortion. I realize many folks think their power amp sounds best wide-open. However, this usually results in an inferior signal to noise ratio as any noise from the preamp (& pre-preamp: ie: moving coil phono pickup) & sources, will be amplified along with the music signal. In my case, my power amps seem to like running with the gain control half way up (12 o'clock) so I've opted to leave the gain controls intact instead of removing them as many audiophiles do. Audio Research SP6C preamp Luxman MB3045 power amps

LOL. It never occured to me to sell this copyrighted material in the web! I have 2 original sets of the Dope From Hope publications. The first one was sent to me by the late Mrs. Belle Klipsch. And a later set sent to me in the mid 80's by Gary Gillum (engineer @Klipsch...don't know if he's still with them). They were not "bound" in a 3 ring binder, simply a plastic slip-on binder. I also have two copied sets. The Audio Papers From Klipsch & Associates where in a plastic cover 3 ring binder & includes a lot of copyrighted material that Klipsch reproduced with permission. I have one complete set in original 3 ring binder. Never thought of selling this stuff on ebay because of its copyrighted nature. Some of these publications reference copyrighted material & Klipsch received permission to reproduce these. The Dope From Hope puublications were, as far as I know, sent free, primarily intended for Klipsch dealers. I suppose, as long as Klipsch promises not to prosecute me for copyright infringement, I could supply copies of these to you Klipsch fans here on the forum at far less cost than what they are selling for on ebay. I don't know that my sets Dope From Hope sets are fully complete. Both have mostly the same publications, but some are present in one set & not in the other, and vice versa. I notice that ebay guy also has a copied set of Klipsch Audio Papers, also copyrighted material, but in this case the materials are from many organizations which still exist. I wonder if this guy knows that the fine for copyright infrinement can be as high as $50,000.

First lets clarify what a "volume" control is. Even though its commonly labeled & called a volume control, its not really a "volume" control. The proper term is actually "gain control". It controls the amount gain (or amplification FACTOR or ratio). For instance, 1 volt in, 2 volts out: 1 volt, in 3 volts out: etc. You can drive any amplifier to full output, & beyond, at any gain (volume) control setting given enough input as long as the amp tolerates the input levels. In your case, I suspect +18Db is the full potential "gain" of the amplifier. The 0Db level is probably what is called "unity gain", which is the point where the amplifier is not contributing any gain in & of itself (ie: 1 volt in, 1 volt out). Levels from -1Db to -60Db are probably actually "attenuation". In otherwords, at those gain settings, the level from the source (CD, radio, etc) is actually being reduced.

REALLY