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Randy, Im not sure where you are getting your information from. Actually, horns, dont beam (unless of course, they are designed to). It is a well known fact that the higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength is. The shorter the wavelength is, the greater the tendency for sound to beam (become more directional) In fact, one of the main reasons for using horns is to reduce beaming, to more uniformly expand the wave front across the desired angle required by the listening area. A horn is basically just a transformer by means of which the acoustic impedance is changed as a function of the ratio of the throat to mouth areas. This can be used to ones advantage if the horn is designed to project a wave front into the subtended angle required to cover the desired listening area. The following is from A High Quality Loudspeaker of Small Dimensions Paul W. Klipsch, reprinted in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 17, No. 3, 254-258, January, 1946. Copyright 1945 by the American Institute of Physics. It was reprinted & included in Audio Papers from Klipsch & Associates. It describes the early high frequency horn designed for use with the Klipschorn, then a 2 way system: Points of novelty are the expansion of the air column in a single plane followed by further expansion in two planes, to avoid beaming at the higher frequencies. A design was undertaken in which bends were kept to a minimum, care was taken to keep wave fronts in exact phase, the angle of radiation was chosen to cover the listening field as well as to give the same solid angle as that of a corner woofer. The Appendix to this publication describes the Bibliography of literature pertinent to horn speakers. These deal with efficiency, power requirements within various frequency ranges, wave action within horns, directivity, auditory perspective, and attendant problems involving preservation of presence, distortion in air columns, etc. The Symposium On Auditory Perspective that I mentioned in my previous post goes into further detail describing this. The bass does not treat the drywall as if it werent there. All a horn needs is a reasonably rigid boundary (PWK) to form a column of air. In fact if the bass doesn't see the drywall as you propose, the bass horn would not perform properly resulting in a significant response dip in the 250-500Hz region (see Dope From Hope Vol. 2, No. 12, Nov. 1961). On the other hand, if the walls are not sturdy (rigid) enough, with K-horns they can act as a passive radiator in the bass region exaggerating the frequency response & reducing definition, or they could simply reduce the efficiency of the bass horn depending on the situation. Im not sure where you got the idea that the bass doesnt see the drywall & instead sees the whole basement. The wavelengths of all the frequencies from the upper frequency crossover of the bass horn (400Hz = 2 wavelength) on down are a minimum of 4 to 5x longer than the thickness of a typical interior wall. What matters here is that the drywall sees the sound first. Any sound hitting the drywall will be partially absorbed the drywall, a small amount will pass thru it & the remainder (most of the sound) being reflected back into the room. I would like to know where you read that PWK designed the K-horn to be fairly immune to room reflections. I think your source kind of has the issue confused. Its quite in fact the opposite. Howard Tremaine, who many years ago described the Klipschorn in his Audio Cyclopedia (Howard Sams & Co, 1959) as follows: The enclosure placed in a room corner to utilize reflections from the floor and wall. Note: utilize reflections, not be fairly immune to room reflections. That statement was primarily speaking of the bass horn, but that is also one of the reasons why room acoustics plays such an important role with the K-horns. They are capable of exciting any and all room modes. And even yourself in a previous post mention the that the midrange depends on some reflections to either side. The keyword here is some. Room acoustics can affect the overall quality of a sound reproducing system. This should go without saying. Yet it happens some times that a fine reproducing system is installed in a poor environment (Dope From Hope Vol. 1, No. 4, Dec 1960, PWK). This publication goes on to describe methods for improving room acoustics which I have applied to my room. Also see D F H Vol. 5, No. 1 Feb. 1964; Vol. 9, No. 1, Feb. 1968; Vol. 10, No. 1, Jan. 1975. Quite frankly, I dont see how you can get anything approaching optimum sound reproduction, from K-horns, or any speaker for that matter, in a space treated the way your listening room is. You may think it sounds glorious. But I propose to you that you have not even begun to hear what the K-horns (nor your other fine components) are capable of in a room set up as your is. You obviously have the space. Now do something with it! I also see you have the infamous Franka Zappa Crappa poster on your profile. At least we have something in common! We (my band) had that poster in our rehearsal room back in the 70s.

Randy, yes, you are correct, the K-horns need some room reflections to either side of the speaker to sound their best. And yes, my room currently has non-flat surfaces, primarily along the upper half of the walls on both sides & the front. The front & back of the room have the larger vertical diffusers/dampers. However, these are all reflective surfaces (but just not flat). The area to the sides of the bass horns are flat. The large Masonite diffusers in the front of the room are bowed about 12 from the lower portion of the wall & about 16 from the upper wall. The sound from the horns can pass behind them at that angle. There seems to be a fine line between keeping the surfaces reflective around the horns, & yet eliminating slap echo or flutter. Thats why I used the polycylindrical surfaces. It remains live, but it produces a much smoother & more distributed reflection pattern (ambience) while not allowing the initial reflections to interfere with the sound from the speaker. If the time domain of the initial reflections is too short (too soon) relative to the initial sound your ears hear from the speaker, you will experience a loss of clarity and definition. Actually, in its current revision, the panels are being twisted slightly from top to bottom with each panel stepping back a little further as you progress from the front corners to the back, or from the middle of the front wall to the sides. It makes the room look like its expanding, sort of like in an auditorium while keeping the room live sounding at low levels. Interesting question about the sound emanating (from inside the head or from the speakers). Actually, its neither. It never sounds as though the sound is emanating from inside your head. And regardless of the recording mix, the sound hardly ever seems to be emanating from the speakers. Its as if the speakers are just sitting there doing nothing. As if those things arent even speakers. There is no aural relationship between the sound and the speakers. There is basically a stage, a curtain or wall of sound that just seems to be emanating from pure space. The aural image is quite convincing in both depth & breath & localization across the stage and at times the sense of space seems to extend over your head (without the use of rear channels) just like in a real concert hall. Obviously, the image one gets is quite dependent on the recording. On many recordings, even if the sound is coming from far stage left for instance, on center with the speaker, you can turn your head & look at the speaker, and the sound does not appear to be coming from the speaker. It may sound like its coming from somewhere behind the speaker. It may sound like its emanating in front of the speaker. It may sound like its in the same space or plane as the speaker. But it doesnt appear to be coming from the speaker. I dont know if youve taken a look at my room posts in the architectural thread yet. Youll see that the room gone thru some acoustical revisions over the years. Its now undergoing its fourth. Do you actually have concrete walls for the interior surfaces of the room? I would think it would be very difficult to tame the acoustics. Also, if your room is very irregular, that should help with any low frequency mode problems. And also make it rather difficult to calculate the modes. You might want to take a look at this Excel spreadsheet used for calculating room modes & some aspects of reverberation. http://www.linkwitzlab.com/publications.htm I dont agree with everything this guy has to say but the spreadsheet is pretty straight forward & easy to use. The file is called mode1.xls highlighted in blue, scroll down the page.

When I orginally built my room I ran individual conduit thru the walls to accomodate speaker wire for each speaker. The main mistake I made was not anticipating the the insane diameter of some of the speaker wires that were to come on the market years later. They won't fit thru the conduit. The other problem is the additional connections, or breaks, in the signal path on its way to the speaker. As well all know, the more breaks, connections, or whatever other junk the signal has to pass thru, the more potential for additional noise & distortion. I eventually abondoned the conduit in the walls. I've never had any "sheilding" or crosstalk problems, or whatever, with the speaker cables so I don't feel I'm missing anything. And as you all know by now, its my opinion there are other things that are more important. However, if I ever have a chance to do it over again, I'll probably use conduit anyway, but without additional wall connections. Next time maybe a 2" or 3" conduit will be adequate (& much more expensive). Give yourself enough size in the conduit. Pulling wire thru conduit is a pain-in-the-arse.

Dean, I forgot to address your comment regarding the shear amount of space you have provided that contributes more to this effect than anything. Its true. But it would be nothing without the proper structural & acoustical treatments. In fact its not only the size of the space, but also the lighting that makes the room seem more spacious & dramatic. Years ago I noticed that highlighting the front walls with high contrast spot lighting on clean walls seemed to add to the 3 dimensional effect in audio. It seems to give added dimension to the illusion of space. I guess it might fall under the category of psychoacoustics . On the other hand, while the room has generous proportions, dont forget that the wide angle camera lens required to photograph the space is also distorting the appearance of the rooms size. Its not quite as large as it looks. And Jim, you got it! That was kind of the whole idea. To make it look & feel like a concert hall.

Dean, Im not sure if you are referring to speaker placement in relationship to the wall boundaries, or the overall proportions of the room. The calculations Im referring to have to do with room proportions & distribution of eigentons (low frequency modes). From your description of the room, I have several questions. Does your room have a vaulted ceiling? Is it angled just from one side as a shed roof or is it more like a gable roof (angled symmetrically in 2 directions)? Or is it a flat conventional ceiling? The more non-parallel room surfaces you have, the better, unless they are forming a concave sort of interior. In that case the angles may cause an effect similar to that of concave curved surfaces which will tend to focus the sound into hot spots. The more non-parallel wall surfaces, the better the mode distribution of the room, & the more complex the resonances & their calculations become. Just for the record, if I assume for the moment that your room is rectangular with a flat standard ceiling height of 8, the room size of 20x12 is well outside the desirable proportion ratios of 1: 1.26: 1.59. Under these conditions the room should exhibit excessive bass response at 141Hz. There are 3 occurrences at this frequency (bad). The 2 worst ones are caused by the rooms length to width ratio and have rather high values (bad even if you have a vaulted ceiling). Interestingly, your listening distance of 8 is also the wavelength of 141 Hz (you really, really like that 141Hz frequency, dont you! Just kidding). Im not familiar with the RF7, but from what you describe as your listening position, it appears that the geometry between the speakers & the listening position indicate that the speakers are placed in the corner & toed-in about 45 degrees. Ive found that using the long wall for speaker placement (as PWK recommended) results in a much more believable stage. The problem with your room is that if you put the speakers on the 20 wall, you really dont have enough depth. You will be backed up against the rear wall. The bass frequencies tend pile up there, and the room already has a huge bass hump. As an alternative, you might consider (ironically) making the room smaller, 12x15 produces better eigenton distribution with a fewer number of mode resonances. You might use the smaller leftover space to get your equipment out of sight behind the speakers, and for storing recordings, etc. Or you might construct some large panels or moveable wall partitions so you can experiment with breaking up the standing wave/resonance problems. You might be interested to know that in my rooms original incarnation I had the speakers on the shorter wall & had lots more room depth behind me, theater style. While that may work in larger the sized spaces of theater/concert hall sizes, it doesnt seem to be the choice for optimum audio performance in domestic environments. I know that goes against conventional thinking (but hey, who ever said PWK was conventional?), especially with home theater setups where people tend to want that long room dimension for theater-like seating. I was quite surprised at how the sound opened up in terms of sonic breath & depth & detail (and at seemingly lower volume levels) when I put the speakers on the long wall. On the other hand, my room has enough depth, even with the speakers on the long wall, for the listener to not be backed up against the back wall. Regarding the bass propagation question, Im dont think that really applies here. You can produce deep bass in pretty much any room, or even without a room (ie: headphones). This is more about how many room modes there are & their distribution & their overlap (where one resonance can reinforce another). The RF7 is a much smaller speaker than the Klipschorn & is not designed with stringent corner placement requirements as an absolute must. K-horns need some room to breathe & a listening distance of 8 feet is a little less than the minimum desirable distance IMO. Ive had the K-horns in rooms like that. And there is absolutely no comparison to what they are capable of in a proper room. And if youre using a large center speaker, the center speaker is even closer to you and it gets difficult to blend the sound from all the speakers into a continuous curtain of sound.

Randy, I have to wonder where you listen to your live music. I recorded a live concert for a local chorale (60 persons) last night, accompanied by grand piano, flute, oboe, 5 octaves of Schulmerich bells, & assorted percussion. And I don't seem to recall any old ladies with too much perfume sitting next to me. Or anywhere in the audience for that matter. What kind people do you hang out with anyway man? LOL And what side of the stage are you on that you can get clear view of that cute tush of the viola player? And what kind of position does she play that thing in that you have such a clear view? I don't liken hi-fi to watching sports on TV. TV has a long way to go before it produces anything resembling a "holographic image" for the eyes. The current state of TV, I would liken more to the early days of sound reproduction...monaural, limited frequency response, high distortion, etc. Hi-fi on the other hand, has progressed beyond that. May I suggest you do a little more homework and read the following publications as primers: "Basic Principals of Sterephonic Sound" William B. Snow ("one of the great papers on audio." Paul W. Klipsch) "Auditory Perspective-System Adaptation" E.H. Bedell & Iden Kerney "Auditory Perspective-Amplifiers" E.O. Scriven "Auditory Perspective-Loudpeakers and Microphones" E.C. Wente & A.L. Thuras "Auditory Perspective-Physical Factors" J.C. Steinberg & W.B. Snow "Auditory Perspective-Basic Requirements" Harvey Fletcher "Stereo Geometry Tests" Paul W. Klipsch "Eight Cardinal Points in Loudspeakers for Sound Reproduction" Paul W. Klipsch "Stereophonic Localization: An Analysis of Listener Reactions to Current Techniques" John M. Eargle "Polarity, Phase and Geometry" Paul W. Klipsch "Signal Mutuality in Stereo Systems" Paul W. Klipsch "Experiments and Experiences in Stereo" Paul W, Klipsch "Wide-Stage Stereo" Paul W. Klipsch "Stereophonic Sound With Two Tracks, Three Channels by means of a Phantom Circut (2PH3)" Paul W. Klipsch "Experiences In Stereophony" Paul W. Klipsch Frankly, I don't care if YOU "believe" that I think my system is capable of sounding like the real thing or not. The fact of the matter is that's what other "qualified" listeners have said. As far as I'm concerned, from my experience, the room is the first & the last link. Its also the one most over looked. And considering how much time & money people are spending on things like speaker & interconnect cables or a 2A3 tube amp verses the 300B, I propose to you that until you get the K-horns in a proper environment, you haven't even heard what all those other things sound like, much less what the K-horns can do.

Randy, my music system/room obviously sounds better than yours. Stop trying to argue so much & just accept it.

Diffuser/Damper detail closeup

A closer shot of the acoustic diffusers/dampers

This is how the room currently looks. Notice the change in size & direction of the polycylindrical diffusers/dampers. Sorry about the width of the picture being cut-off. I need to rent a 20mm wide angle architectural lens in order to get the whole thing in. All of the Sonex foam & Celotex tiles are now behind the Masonite diffusers. This lets the room remain somewhat "live" at low volume levels. As the sound levels get louder, more & more sound gets trapped behind the diffusers. The result is a room that has similar reverberation time at low or high volume levels. It basically prevents the room from getting acoustically overloaded. The large Masonite diffusors are also helpful in damping the bass frequencies & breaking up standing waves.

These are the equipment racks. I designed & built them myself. This photo is from a long time ago. The racks are now completely crammed with gear. They were designed to provide ventilation & convenience in changing components. I used slotted wall-mount-type shelf standards & brackets on both sides of the racks to hold the shelves. The turntable stands were weighed down with more than 300 pounds of solid concrete blocks "floated" on closed cell foam.

Some of these file sizes are large, so please be patient with the download. This is the second revision of the room. Later revisions look similar, but differ acoustically. I know some of you have already read a previous post of mine describing the construction of room, but for sake of convenience, I'm re-posting here: I built an entire room around my Klipschorns in the early 80s & the room has undergone a number of revisions. You & other readers might benefit from what I did & what I learned from my mistakes. The room has been published in several audio magazines over the years. First things first. Ideally.you need a room with the proper proportions to achieve uniform distribution of eigentons (low frequency room modes). The ratio is 1: 1.26: 1.59 (called the Golden Mean) (see Klipsch Dope From Hope newsletter Vol9, No1 Feb 1968). It doesnt have to be exact. And rooms outside of these proportions have been known to sound good. Use the long wall for the stage. It makes a dramatic difference & you may even find that you dont have to turn-it-up as loud. Another trick you can use is the Half-Room Principal (Room Dimensions for Optimum Listening and the Half Room Principal, IRE Transactions on Audio, Vol AU-6, No1 Jan-Feb 1958, pp 14-15). For instance, my room is 27 wide. A 42Hz note has a wavelength of aprox. 27. So based on the longest dimension of the room, the room will accurately convey the full wavelength of a 42 Hz tone. But based on the Half Room Principal, you can expect a reasonably flat room response down to 21Hz (21Hz=54 wavelength. 54/2 (one-half of the wavelength)=27. If you take this one step further & use the diagonal dimension (which you can do with K-horns because of their corner placement & 45 degree angle toe in) it works even better. My room has a diagonal dimension of 32 which ½is one-half of 64. 64 puts you at about 17-18Hz. My system has measured down only 9Db below 20Hz with no electronic EQ. Not bad for folded horn-loaded speaker of this size. And in fact, that puts the K-horns at about 95Db/watt below 20Hz. Much better efficiency than any of the sub-woofers or so-called flat audiophile speakers out there. A dimension you want to avoid is 19 (or multiples & fractions) thereof as it is the wavelength of 60Hz (electrical hum). A quiet room is a good room. Avoid exterior windows if you can. In my room, I isolated all plumbing (sump & ejector pump plumbing too) from the frame of the house. The plumbing is also insulated. Same thing with any forced air vents. If you can isolate the rooms ceiling & walls from the structure of the house, do so. I didnt have the luxury of doing that. Remember that wall mass & no air leaks has more than anything else to do with blocking sound. In my room, I applied silicon beading to the interior of the outside wall studs. Standard R-19 wall insulation between studs. Over the studs I placed 1/2 inch Celotex http://www.us.bpb-na.com/products.html rigid insulation board. Sealed the joints with silicon beading. Silicon beading over the Celotex where the studs are located. Created a 1 air space by putting 1x2 lath over the studs/Celotex. Repeated this process again. Then applied 5/8 sheet rock (Gypsum wall board). Since my room is only partially below ground, the upper wall exposed to the outside received an additional layer of Celotex with a 2 air space between it & the wall. Similar treatment was done for the ceiling. Ilbruck (maker of Sonex acoustical products http://www.mhtc.net/~lowey ) now makes a product called ProSpec Barriers which I would recommend using between the layers of the wall & ceiling. I also heavily reinforced the corners for the Klipschorns, from the corner, to 8 out from the corner. I used a staggered 6-12 stud spacing, both horizontally & vertically to eliminate any wall resonances. I then made 4 plates out of 2x12 wood, fit into the studding & secured them & the wall, tightly against the foundation. I made a corner fitting out of 2x12 to fit securely & air tight (use foam weather striping) in the corner for the tail board of the Klipschorns to be secured onto. The corner board is secured to through the wall to the foundation with 10, 1/4 inch lag screws. The tailboard of the K-horns are secured with 8, 1/4 inch lag screws to the corner plate. The K-horns are sealed air tight into the corner with weather stripping foam. In regards to electric, have everything on its own circuit. Im not sure that 20 amps is enough nowadays. Obviously this depends on what kind & how much equipment you have. Tape decks for instance can draw a lot of current because of the motors in them. Make sure you use an isolated ground for that circuit, isolated from the rest of the electric in you home. Ground the system at only one point, preferably from a regulated power supply that everything else is plugged into. Float all the rest of the ground connections on your equipment using a 2-prong adapter so that the ground(s) seeks their own level & does not produce any ground-loop hum. If you are using light dimmers, make sure they are the kind that have RF filtering. No fluorescent lighting. Now for acoustics. The Klipschorns do not like dead areas around them, so forget that dead-end/live-end room stuff. It doesnt work with K-horns. I use large polycylindrical surfaces made from 1/4 inch tempered Masonite (a wood-based fiber hardboard) (cheap) bowed to 12 on larger ones (4x8), 6-9 inches on smaller ones. These can be painted to match room décor. Behind the cylinders I mount Sonex acoustical foam on 3-6 standoffs on the Celotex behind the Masonite so the Sonex can capture sound more effectively from all directions & angles. This produces a room with very well distributed/dispersed middle & high frequencies. The larger polycylindrical surfaces help to damp bass resonances & break up standing waves. The principal here is to allow the room to be relatively live at low volume levels. But as the sound levels increase, more & more reflected sound gets trapped behind the cylindrical Masonite panels & gets totally absorbed by the Sonex & Celotex behind it so the room does not acoustically overload due to increased reverberation time at higher volume levels. A simple thing such as clapping your hands can be very useful in locating hot spots or ping in various areas of the room which will require sound absorption or dispersion. Likewise you dont want any dead spots either. These Masonite panels can create quite a dramatic appearance, so be creative & experiment. Keep in mind that the bow in the Masonite panels will tend to push the walls of the room in making the room seem somewhat smaller. This can be overcome by the use of lighting to highlight the depth & curve of the panels. The carpet flooring you see in this picture is composed of large sections of rug remnants. This allowed me to experiment with their affect on the room's acoustics. Later it was decided that very heavy weight carpeting & padding wall to wall would be best.

well randy, I guess I'm going to have to put you to the challenge! And drop the gaunlet! I guess I'll have to have an open house & you can hear for yourself. I do live recording my friend & I think by now I certainly know what a 70 person chorale or full orchestra sounds like, in very specific halls no less. By the way......being able to reproduce the sound of a full symphony orchestra is nothing new. It was done in the 1930's (see Audio Papers from Klipsch & Associates). And it can be done now. I will be posting pictures of my room soon (hopefully). The server wasn't accepting them today. The file size may be too large (even though it says otherwise...have to wait for the klipsch webmaster) AND DON'T YOU DARE IMPLY THAT "ANYONE WHO THINKS THEIR HI-FI DOES WHAT FULL ORCHESTRA DOES DON'T GET MUCH OUT OF IT". What kind of dumb**** statement is that? Jealous are you? for a preview....I have 2 detail pics posted in the 2- channel - $25Kroom thread & the architectural thread. Have a nice time pulling your foot out of your mouth

According to my calculations, at the listening position, I should be able to get about 126db out it, max, before the amps move beyond their published ratings. I've never had it that loud. I've had it up to sustained average 110db levels for things like Jimi Hendrix. I swear, you can go outside & put your hand on the patio 20' away from the house & feel the vibration. Klipschorns right & left Belle Klipsch center Luxman MB3045 triode monoblocks (50watts) 27x18 room custom built & acoustically tuned for the K-horns sidenote: I have a copy of an old press release from Memorex. Remember those old Ella Fitzgerald commercials for Memorex tape where she hits this final high note & the wine glass shatters? Turns out that Ms. Fitzgerald's voice was amplified thru Klipsch LaScalas with enough peak power to produce "an incredibly loud 146 decibles". They went on warning not to attempt anything like this on your own as "this will not only shatter glass, but will destroy ear drums and, even damage other organs in the human body". LMFAO Car Stereo SUCKS

Well Kelly, you & I obviously aren't hearing the same thing and don't have the same preferences. But, as you know, I have the proper acoustical conditions/listening room to expose the audible differences between just about anything. So I win! . (sorry, just couldn't resist) Its my "qualified" professional opinion that tube amps, 'GENERALLY', suck for bass amplification, especially in live applications. The tube gear is just too boomy on stage & has to be played too loud in order to cut through the mix. I have a number of old Kustom amps that are SS & have a remarkable tube-like sound, although they don't clip the same (very abrupt). They sound wonderful, by themselves. But on stage, they just don't quite cut it unless you're playing something more akin to background music or need that boom boom bloated sound for something like 50's jump blues. Guitar is something else. For me, with the kind of music I listen to, and the size of the room, the 2A3 doesn't have quite enough headroom for me. But I'd still like to give them another try, especially since my room is currently being revised to be a little more "live" & I'm finding that I don't need as much power as when the room was stuffed with more exposed sound absorption. Kelly, since your obviously one of the 2A3 gurus here, what's a good reliable source for some schematics of 2A3 monoblocks? I'd like to build my own. Someone had recommended subscribing to Audio Express but I can't seem to find a proper link for them on the web. These amp manufacturers are charging an arm & a leg, even for kits, for what is basically a hand full of parts that cost only a few bucks. These are all old basic designs. It can't be all that difficult to build.

I'd be glad to do that test one up. Do it the way they described, & then deliberately just set the levels subjectively. And then.....even deliberately have the levels not matched! I know for a fact, in my system/room at least, its quite apparent which amplifiers are being used, regardless of the recording or matched levels. For instance, one time my wife's boss was over. He was familiar with the "sound" as he had heard it a number times previously, although not a frequent listener. I had borrowed another power amp from a friend of mine to audition. It didn't my wife's boss more than a minute to say "Something is wrong with the sound. It doesn't sound right." He was right. I didn't like that amp either. In fact, I never liked subsequent offering from that amp designer. And this was between 2 SS amps. It was truely a totally blind situation. Comparing a SS & tube amp the differences are even more apparent. I use both.

I wouldn't go into anything having to do with the travel business after the September 11 attacks. People are increasingly cocooning and spending more time & money on their private homes. I see this happening in my own business (architect). Home theaters are still gaining momentum. Some of the Home Theater guys I know are busy as all hell.

I try to get the best seats in the house (or at least what I consider to be the best) Many times this is easier to achieve at matinee performances. Most of my live concert experience (acoustic) has been in The Foellinger Great Hall at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Champaign-Urbana, IL, U of I http://www.krannertcenter.com/center/venues/foellinger.php , and at Orchestra Hall, Chicago. Orchestra Hall used to suck. The Chicago Symphony used to go down to The Great Hall to record. Orchestra Hall has since been renovated & sounds better. I still prefer The Great Hall. An amazingly beautiful & wonderful sounding space. As a matter of fact, it was the inspiration and served as a model for building my music room, which is kind of like a miniature auditorium. Unfortunately, for my own live recordings, I dont have the liberty of choosing recording locations & Im somewhat limited in how I can setup. So Andy, you got to see Tony Levin, eh? VERY COOL. Hes one of the worlds most awesome bass players! The past few years Ive been able to see Stanley Clark, John Paul Jones (from Led Zep), Roger Waters (from Pink Floyd) and my look-alike twin, John Entwistle (from The Who). I have to tell you, Entwistles concert is where I first got my idea about acoustic overload in rooms. This band was so F******* LOUD it was unbelievable. I had solid core ear plugs, & believe me, you didnt dare open your mouth for fear the sound pressure would knock your ear drums out from the inside. When he went into his bass solo, I swear, it was as if someone had shoved their fist up thru your chest, grabbed your heart, & started shaking it. I wouldnt be surprised if Park West had sustained structural damage. And as you said Andy (re: Levins concert) everything just became noise. After his passing earlier this year, I think Roger Daltry seemed to put the next phase of Entwistles career in perspective best when he said I just hope God has got his earplugs ready. Whatever happens, Hell have to reinvent thunder, as it simply wont be loud enough anymore.

The 2A3's tend to sound "sweeter, more subdued" while the 300B will probably have a "clearer sound" & somewhat more powerful bass. All this is dependent, of course, on the specific tube (manufacturer, date of manufacture, etc) & the amplifier design & how it interacts with your speakers and room. The reason some people want to bi-amp using tubes on the mids & highs, and SS on bass is usually more for "tonal" reasons than for additional power. The SS amps tend to sound more solid, tighter & well controlled, although not as impressive on really deep stuff. I've been playing bass for over 30 years & I've never really liked tubes for my bass amps, at least not live on stage. Some guys love their Ampeg tube amps. I don't. In the studio where everything is close miked or direct to the board, tube amps seem to sound ok to me. There are also very few tube amps I find acceptable in the lower register for hi-fi as well. To me, most tend to sound somewhat bloated, soft, sometimes kind of "wooly" & worse case, just plain muddy to me although the bass tends to sound fuller and the mids have more "body". Main "listening" System: Klipschorns left & right Belle Klipsch center Audio Research SP-6C preamp Luxman MB3045 triode monoblocks (8045G tube based) If anyone knows where I can get some Luxman MB300's...LET ME KNOW!!!!!!!!!!1 Alternate amplification for general use: Crown PSA2 left & right channels Crown D150A bridged mono center channel Crown DL2 Control Center

"If you like look for the sound of live orchestra no audio system will ever be satisfying." Well I gotcha on the last one aksho. While I agree with you that live concerts can be a pain in the arse, which is probably why I don't attend them as often as I used to, its still the real thing. My system does sound like the real thing, orchestra & all. And it is very satisfying. And thats the way I want it to be. The live event is the reference. If it is not, then what is? An opinion of what someone thinks sounds good? Who cares! Both non-audiophile & audiophile types, & experienced musicians who have listened to my system have been astounded at "how real" it sounds. They all have said the same comments. Such as "its as if you can see all the musicians The sense of space goes right over your head, etc, etc. Quite frankly, the live verses recorded things were accomplished decades ago in the 1930's. The point is most people prefer the artificial sound and wouldn't be able to recognize the real thing in a blind test if their life depended on it. I record live concerts for a local Chorale comprising 50-70 persons, piano accompaniment, & various "musical guests" several times per year. I also play professionally in local bands. And some of those bands have rehearsed/recorded in my listening room/studio. I've also recorded some other acoustic music in my room that is commercially available. I think after being having the opportunity to record voice, banjos & guitars, drum kits, etc. in my room, I have a fairly good idea what the real thing sounds like and can make a fair comparison between live & recorded sound. On one recording session, involving 2 banjos & one bass banjo, & 3 vocals, it was rather uncanny to hear playback of the master tape with the musicians making comments between takes. It was as if there was 2 of everyone. You would look up as if to respond to one of their comments only to realize that they weren't talking. A similar thing happened when a friend of mine wanted to record some parts that he could then play back & record himself in duet. Classical American banjo is not "my bag". Consequently, my wife, his wife & myself, all present in the room, had sort of lost our attention when my friend made a major blunder playing a banjo part. We all looked up, ready to laugh and do some finger pointing, only to realize that he wasn't playing. It was the recording I may not be able to fool all of the people all of the time. But most of the people most of the time is fine for me. And thats about all that technology is capable of at the present time.

Its hard to imagine that this tube vs SS & digital vs analogue thing is still going on after many decades. You can achieve superior results with either. However, your preference will probably be biased by your equipment preferences, how you have the equipment setup, the room's acoustics you listen in as well as the recordings you listen to. Dean supplied some excellent links somewhere in the forum yesterday that gave an excellent perspective on tubes vs. transistor amplification. I use all of the above. While I don't seem to find my SS gear as offensive as some people seem to, I'll be the first to admit that it doesn't really compare or hold a candle to the tube gear as far as "recreating" the musical event. Whether this is because of certain distortions or not, I don't really care. The same goes for the vinyl LP thing verses digital. I've had superior result with both. And I've experienced absolutely horrendous sound with both. From a techical standpoint, by the time you get a SS amp to really "sing" & perform properly you basically loose all the so-called "advantages" of SS. The amps are no longer small, they get big & they get heavy, they put out very little power for their size & make lots of heat, they are more expensive, etc., just like tube amps. For what its worth, the vacuum tube is inherently a more linear (low distortion) device in the audio range. A transistor has to be "finagled" into doing the same thing across the entire audio range, and can do so because of its natural tendency towards higher gain, which is probably where most SS amps go wrong. Too much opportunity for the designer to f*** things up. SS amps tend to measure better under test conditions (basically a static, non-dynamic, simple 1 or 2 tone signals). However, the "tricks" that need to be done to make a SS do this can also cause the amp to basically become a "distortion machine" when reproducing music (which is constantly changing in both frequency content & dynamics). I suspect similar inherent distortions in analogue are responsible for it "sounding" more "musical". Consider the fact that the typical vinyl LP you are listening to is probably, at a minimum, the 10,000th+ copy that had its grooves "pressed" into some second grade (non-virgin) plastic from the same master. And then you take a microscopic stone (that doesn't really match the shape of the groove), and hang it on one end of small cantilever with some magnets or coils attached at the opposite end & suspend it in some kind of rubber gromet at the fulcrum. And then drag this thing through a microscopic pressed plastic groove at 7.5"/second. Does this sound like anything thats capable of reproducing accurate sound, in stereo no less? Its amazing we get as much out of it as we do. I also sometimes wonder what other people's music reference is. How many "audiophiles" frequently attend live musical events, both acouctic & amplified? How many have ever played an instrument at the professional level? How many have ever recorded live music, amplified or acoustic? Or mastered their own recordings? An acquaintance Of Paul Klipsch, Sergent Jack Riley, tells of a visit to a "hi-fi" show when he was stationed in England. A feature was a comparison of various playback systems with a live orchestra. He reported "The orchestra came in third." Lets not forget that we are dealing with imperfect systems regardless of the technology used.

OK moon. How about this? Instead of a formal "cabinet", why not just let there be a large cavity(s), space for the speakers, underneath and/or to the sides of the screen that are simply covered with acoustically transparent (for all practical purposes) grill(s) (panels) that can easily be removed. I'm thinking something like the way you can pull the grills off the speaker fronts, but instead these cavity grill(s) are sort of like cabinet doors with fabric instead of wood. Just leave the space behind them open as they normally are.

True Dean. I was pondering the same thing regarding sensitivity. Its a relationship ratio between input signal & output gain. The 4 ohm speaker may provide you with more power out of a direct coupled SS amp. But that has nothing to do with the amp's "sensitivity". Its just a simple 1 volt in, 3 volts out kinda thing (thats why we use the term "gain" instead of volume). & with tube amps that have output transformers (as most do), it can actually get a little more complicated. (see Klipsch Dope From Hope Vol. 11, No.1, March 1971 written by the man himself) (sorry, I don't have time to post the whole thing right now.)

Is this a test? When I listen to my system... ... I am about 17' feet away from the speaker's corner. ... I am 15'-6" feet away from the front of the corner speakers (Klipschorn). ... I am 11' feet away from the front of the center speaker (Belle Klipsch). ... there is a wall 6' (varies) with acoustical treatment behind my head (polycylindrical parabolic surfaces for damping bass & dispersing higher frequencies ... I sit up on a low back 4 seat, 2 ottoman sectional sofa (I can't stand having a wall or couch padding behind my head when listening) ... I am * (somewhat intoxicated, stoned, straight, blasted) * any or all of the above depending on whats going on, whats being played, who's over, what I have to do (or not do) the following day. Drugs are for enlightenment, not abuse. Don't drink & drive. Drink before you drive (joke). Never bias your tube amps while "messed up" (no joke). It could be just as lethal.

Its called acoustics. And the smaller the room, the more difficult it is to deal with. Some of the above suggestions/insights are also correct (controlling reflections & sound absorption)but it gets increasingly difficult to do the smaller the room is. And then there's the issue of room proportions which can have a profound affect on everything, especially the lower frequencies. Many times I've found that the recording itself just doesn't have things centered or proportioned correctly across the "stage". Thats where a center channel or an "imaging control" (verses a simple balance control) comes in handy. Unfortunately, not many preamp/control centers have this feature because of the "purity" (straight-line, wire with gain concept) most audiophiles want to retain. And just as no 2 people hear everything exactly the same, neither do our own 2 ears, or the way our brain interpretes sounds from either ear! So don't worry about it too much. Move your speakers around (if they are made for kind of thing), adjust your listening position, check for "hot spots" by walking around the room and clapping your hands. Eliminate any "pinging" with the use of reflectors, furniture, sound absorption (be careful, a little goes a long way), etc.