garyrc
-
Posts
4186 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Events
Gallery
Posts posted by garyrc
-
-
On 2/21/2021 at 2:04 AM, DrTUBE said:
Moreover, can you tell me more about that " old Martin Mayer book" from 1958 ? Maybe I can find a copy ?
I think it was Hi Fi Revised 1958 edition by Martin Mayer. As I remember, it was a paperback with good photos and illustrations, very clearly written and fully understandable to me as a school kid, providing some technical background and history, and presenting what Mayer thought of as the best choices at various prices, but my memory is a bit rusty when it has to reach back 63 years!
It mentioned the Klipschorn (ingenious, but "too efficient" ??? -- another vague memory), JBL Altec, Marantz, McIntosh, H. H. Scott, Bozak, Leopold Stokowski, Perry Como, etc. I rediscovered the book decades later -- it had been relegated to my parents' basement and looked remarkably like the Dead Sea Scrolls, so I discarded it.
It's fun to remember The Way We Were. I maintain that if 15 ips, half track stereo tape was the source, the best sound of then was about the same fidelity as now, making some "audiophile" sound in ultra snooty high end stores sound pale, dead, and un-dynamic. As the late Art Dudley put it, " ... what did we give up to gain such easy access to [the virtues of modern equipment]? Natural-sounding dynamics. Impact. Pluck. Snap. Body—especially body. And soul."
Martin Mayer was a man of (popular) letters. He wrote many, many books. In the introduction to one, he stands in front of a mirror and addresses himself as Fyodor. Need I say more?
Here is Amazon's offering. No your eyes are not deceiving you; the new hardbound choice is $920.99
Hi-Fi, New Revised Edition Hardcover – January 1, 1958
by Martin Mayer (Author)
Here he is in his writing room; it looks like mine.
-
A few hours sounds good to me, BUT ...
One Klipsch engineer, whose name I forget (not Roy) said, speaking generally, "15 minutes."
I've heard other people say "30 hours," but never "400 - 500 hours."
Some manufacturers do recommend very long break-in periods. I'm suspicious that they are hoping that adaptation occurs, when, despite your best intentions, and intense self examination, you are fooled into thinking speakers sound better after you are good and used to them. This might protect manufactures against negative first impressions.
That being said, back in 2005 I put AK5 updates in my Klipschorns. The kit (from Klipsch) included redesigned crossover networks with very different slopes, and new midrange drivers and tweeters. Yes, they sounded a bit different, and a bit better on some program material, right away. But I burned them in with all kinds of music, at concert volume, for about 2 weeks for an average of 3 hours a day. That would be about 42 hours. So help me, they improved, sounding smother, and better in all those wacko audiophile ways, like "better integrated," etc. Placebo effect is real.
I, too, eagerly await your impressions.
-
5
-
-
5 hours ago, Paducah Home Theater said:
it would work but you're obviously not going to get the same lower bass from that radiator as you would with it being 8" from a wall. Most of your "feel it in the solar plexus" rock bass is higher than most people imagine though, I've heard it's centered at 63 hz which is what concert engineers boost. Not entirely sure the radiator is doing a heck of a lot in that region, pretty sure it's tuned to almost an octave lower.
@Chief bonehead , are you reading this? What frequency range is the passive radiator tuned to? Would it work in a room like his? What about just turning up the bass control a bit (if there is one). Thanks!
As to a kick drum:
-
9 hours ago, DrTUBE said:
Since it's an experimentation, my questions are :
- Did some of you followed that stuffing route ? (or is it considered a Sacrilège)
- Did you noticed bad or good results ?
- Pros and Cons of doing this on an Heresy ? (which is not the average enclosure, right ?)
- What were/are your alternatives ? Or better ideas ?
Thanks to let me know
It's a sacrilege.
-
I've never tried it, but I remember a caution in the old Martin Mayer book (1958!) to not "overdamp" a speaker enclosure with too much glass wool or cotton wool. I have no idea whether this is or not. By the way, until Star Trek misused it in the series beginning in 1966 (and ever after), it was "damping," not "dampening." It is still "damping" in orthodox circles. For instance, a power amplifier doesn't have a "dampening" factor, unless it is incontinent.
- Given the small panels, I wouldn't expect much in the way of resonances. Did you hear resonances before stuffing it?
- Call me naive, but I would think PWK would have added an inexpensive item like stuffing, if it would have helped. 1983 was late in the Heresy I's history, so there would have plenty of time (26 years) to discover and remedy an inexpensive limitation. The Heresy I's were discontinued 2 years later.
- Weren't the midrange drivers labeled or stamped PWK in 1983? Given no stamp/label, and the huge (10 dB) elevation of the mid and tweet (before you corrected it), I can't help but wonder if they are stock Heresy, or modified by the former owner.
- If it were me, I'd consider leaving the stuffing in just one Heresy, take it out of the other, and AB them (with the preamp switched to mono) with rambunctious, bass heavy music, followed by pipe organ, and seeing which sounded better, while noting any resonances. Or, use a frequency sweep for the woofer only. Then, for the sake of counterbalancing to eliminate order effect, switch the wool to the other enclosure, and AB them again.
Good Luck! Be Safe! 😷
-
1
-
1
-
I've never tried it, but I remember a caution in the old Martin Mayer book (1958!) to not "overdamp" a speaker enclosure with too much glass wool or cotton wool. I have no idea whether this is
-
Location: Oregon. So far, our home relies on public power, with moving water the largest single source. Many residents (who aren't under the trees, like us) use solar. It seems like this is increasing. There are some wind farmers, who were pissed a few years ago, when the state told them they had an oversupply of electricity and it would not buy energy from them for a while.
-
8 hours ago, rankaudio said:
I think my ceiling is 8 ft. Unfortunately this is the only room I’ll have. Thought about artificial walls behind them. Not sure if it’s true but I’ve been hearing reports that the newly back sealed AK6 models still require corners and that toeing them out seems to cause some phase issues? Not sure if that’s the correct term.
I would think that even the sealed back ones would benefit from the boundary gain of a corner. Tight in your corner, one side of each Khorn would have an 18 to 20 foot extension to the horn! You could try a very slight toe-out v.s. a snug fit. Be sure to include both conditions, with identical bass heavy music, and a test tone recording or REW (Free, but you supply a calibrated mic that is USB ready -- $80 to $100).
-
Ah!
Please let us know what you decide. Good luck!
-
1
-
-
Two different posters:
and
To angelaudio:
- I once had Klipschorns just about that far apart (8 feet), and they sounded fine, to a listener sitting dead center. For others, the sound was good in all ways except imaging (but still sufficient for me at the time).
- Are you expecting to move to a wider room eventually? My move to a larger room (4,257 cu. ft., and wide) was richly rewarded.
- How high is your ceiling?
- See Chris A's corner horn acoustics thread.
- It might be possible, but outrageous, to put the Klipschorns on the long wall of your room, pressed tightly into the corners, if you can afford to put in a horn loaded center channel (Belle or La Scala I, II, or AL5).
- I'd say they need to be snugly in the corners, unless you build artificial corners, and you put them in those.
-
The K77 tweeters in the Khorns are probably good enough a bit off axis (but will show some attenuation above 10K Hz), to allow you cross their aim somewhat in front of you. If not, can you put your center listening chair (or center of a couch) at 8 to 9 feet away? Don't put too much absorption in the room, but do put 2 feet of absorbers on the side and front walls where a yard stick placed flat on the front of the Khorns will touch the walls, at the height of the "top hat" of the Khorns (midrange and tweeter section), and for 2 more feet into the room. Diffusion is O.K. Showing the acoustical absorber (the lower one) in the larger room:
-
1
-
RIP Bob! To the family, he helped me a lot. Bless him and all of you.
-
9 hours ago, kevinmi said:
Still trying to figure out what to with retirement, or is having a plan even necessary? The most enlightening thing in my life was when I realized that you don't have to believe in silly rituals and dogma just because everyone else does.
Good point.
What to do?
Listen to music
Read
Write
Paint & Sketch
Take photos
Listen to music while reading or writing or painting or sketching or taking photos.
Hike
Explore new neighborhoods, towns, cities; photograph interesting buildings and houses and get arrested for "casing the joint."
Explore new wilderness areas. Frogs will fall silent when they realize you are close.
Don't surprise a cougar (they wander through our town, but hey, L.A., too. "We were here first!" -- A. Lion
Woodworking
Astrophotography
Collect microscopic life, and photograph it through a microscope. Big prints look good over the fireplace -- protozoa, the smallest metazoa, etc. Rotifers look great over the fireplace:
Meditate
Contemplate the Universe, deism, theism, quantum mechanics, string theory, M theory.
Classes are a great place to meet people. I met my wife in one, and we have been (mostly) joyfully together for 51years (married for the last 46).
-
3
-
-
1 hour ago, BigStewMan said:
I found Jesus ... BEST thing I've ever done in my life. I do take a multi-vitamin. scientifically, there is probably no reason that I've lived to be 60. For decades I ate fast food 99% of all my meals, drank booze like crazy, took more drugs than a pharmacy has, did all kinds of crazy things. some of the old crew didn't make it ... some died in their 20s. I tortured my body and it has plenty of scars and some parts don't work that good anymore (my lungs are the organ that remains very mad at me to this day), I'm not sure why I'm still around -- maybe just to bore you guys with my stories?
Not boring. Keep typing and we'll listen.
"... some of the old crew didn't make it." I lost several, also. None of them due to illegal drugs, and all but one used. One was murdered at home, near the Oakland-Berkeley line, by person(s) unknown, and discovered by another friend -- a fire fighter -- who responded to a 911 call.
I sort of misplaced Jesus at about 20 something, and located him at 44.
Beethoven's 7th, Rene Leibowitz version, played with 110 dB peaks lifts depression for some (me). Solo dancing through In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida works, too. Having a dog or a cat that dances helps. I once saw myself as the man who loved cat dancing.
My great aunt wasn't sure why she was still around, either, at about 70. She lived until she was 103, bringing many people enriched lives. This, despite many health problems. And after losing her husband in a freak accident, after a period of grieving, she became a happy person for decades.
60 is plenty young to find a second or even a first calling --- listen for yours.
-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, dtximages said:
highs just seem to sparkle less
I have Khorns with a Belle between. Audyssey improves the system, increasing clarity, but AFTER the Audyssey run, I turn up the bass a la the Harmon curve, and also the treble just a bit, contrary to the Harman curve. It sounds very dynamic.
Audyssey Flat takes the worst kinks out of the curve, then I adjust it to taste.
The K77 series tweeters [stock in Khorn & Belle] need a boost above 10K; if you have tone controls that have 1 dB increments you might be able to fine tune it AFTER running your room correction, restoring the sparkle. Mine go out to 15K, (or 16K, or 17K on axis, with Audyssey flat and treble control at + 3 dB, but our ears don't, so no matter).
-
On 2/4/2021 at 6:47 PM, JerryC said:
Actually, I have heard (that's a great authority there, right?) that short duration is more damaging to hearing than longer loudness. The ear tries to compensate (hammer, anvil, stapes) to loud noises by turning the volume down. But a sudden gunshot gives no warning. The nerve cells of the inner ear get blasted. I can attest to this. Six years ago my wife was horrified that squirrels were mounting our deck to eat her flowers in pots. She counseled me to fire a warning shot without killing them. I got my shotgun, forgetting to put on my hearing protection, and fired. Immediately I felt deafness in my left ear. My own voice sounded to me like I was talking with a bag of crumbling potato chips in my throat. An audiologist confirmed that I lost all hearing above 8 kHz in my left ear. That's because I held the shotgun to my right cheek she said. My rattling sensation has dissipated but I still have little hearing above 8 kHz or so in the left ear.
Yes, I agree. Avoid loud sustained sound pressure levels. But more important: Avoid sudden blasts!
I have "heard"
that too, from a fire arms expert, but he was not a hearing expert! I have also "heard" that the belief in question comes from a confounding of the variables of duration and Sound Pressure Level, an SPL that is far higher than anything on the OSHA charts. All single shotgun blasts are short, but their SPL is HUGE. There is no ethical way to separate the two for an experiment. Here is what the military says:
- 100 – 120 decibels: For example, a bulldozer, impact wrench, or motorcycle
- 120 – 140 decibels: Such as, a rock concert, auto racing, or a hammer pounding a nail
- 125 – 155 decibels: Like, firecrackers or fireworks, or a jet engine
- 170 – 190 decibels: For example, a shot gun blast or a rocket lift off. Compare with the measly 115 dB at the top of the OSHA Chart.
From: Department of Defense Hearing Center of Excellence High Decibel Levels - Hearing Center of Excellence - Health.mil
https://hearing.health.mil › Prevention › Causes-of-Injury
There is also something in the giant paperback 50 Seminal papers on Human Hearing, but I don't have a copy.
-
1
-
On 2/4/2021 at 3:37 AM, ODS123 said:
And no need for gobs of power. My Cornwall III's aren't as efficient as the Belles (I think) yet I can't get the wattage meters to go beyond 10 watts without inviting a visit from angry neighbors (over an acre away!). It's crazy, ridiculous, stupidly loud at that point.
Yes, but:
On 2/4/2021 at 2:49 AM, garyrc said:... sometimes, it would be good to be able to turn up the bass on the Belles. A 6 dB increase in the bass would require multiplying the amp power by 4, so that need for 16 watts becomes 64 watts. Another 3 dB gets us to 128 watts. Fanfare for the Common Man on Crystal Clear direct to disc sounds great that way!
By the way, I have boosted Common Man BASS by 9 dB, and got 25 watt peaks, but the wattage meter may have ballistics that cause it to read low on instantaneous (1/3 second) peaks. Some read 13 dB low on the leading edge of peaks. The Khorns have more bass than the Belles, as do the Cornwalls, so they would need less bass boost. The Belles have cleaner bass than the Cornwalls, though I'm mot sure about the Cornwall IIIs. Any and all boosts should be done carefully, with an ear cocked for speaker strain distortion.
Speaking of ears,
On 2/4/2021 at 3:37 AM, ODS123 said:Way past flirting with hearing damage
With the exception of things like gunshots heard close up (because they can be so really loud), duration really counts in assessing potential hearing damage. That's why music that is "all loud," like some Rock, should be played at a lower level. After playing every kind of drum, as well as great gong in orchestras for more than 9 years, I could still hear to 16K (alas, age has caught up with me now). Here is what OSHA says:
-
10 hours ago, Cicerogue said:
Almost three years ago, I found a nice pair of nearly perfect Fortes and brought them home. I matched them to a pair of Quicksilver mono blocks I have had for some time. I would characterize the Quickies as laid back and it is a nice compliment to the forward presentation of the Fortes.
About a year ago, I lucked upon a McIntosh MC 2105 and matching C-26 that left the store together in 1975, so the story goes. I must say that, after fiddling around a bit with the variable loudness control on the C-26, I really like what I am getting from this combination. It is punchy, when it should be and sweet when it should be. It seems to give me exactly what I like from whatever music I put through it.
For the price of a well sorted vintage Mac setup, I think you could do quite well to consider it. I know...I am only complicating things by adding more options. But the great thing about buying and trying vintage McIntosh is you get back most or all or more than your investment, if you decide it didn't work for you.
Good advice, but beware the C28. The C26 preamp @Cicerogue got is fine, but the C28 has a long history of the right phono channel failing. I got tired of mine going in for repair at an official McIntosh repair station, so at a point when it had been freshly repaired, I took it to the biggest McIntosh dealer and booster in the SF By area (right under the mooring of the SF Bay Bridge, on the SF end -- at least then), who bought McIntoshes to check out and sell used. They called out a diminutive master tech from the their repair department, who said he needed to test the right phono channel, because of the high failure rate. Sure enough, my newly repaired C28's right phono channel failed, right in front of me! AFAIK, McIntosh has a very, very good reputation for being trouble free, but I got the one model that was a turkey.
As for the C26, the manual gives a great deal of info. The action of the bass control looks ideal to slightly EQ the Belles. I hope McIntosh still provides these graphs with new models. http://www.berners.ch/McIntosh/Downloads/C26_own.pdf
-
Welcome to the forum!
I can see you have high standards since you have a Goldring Moving Coil.
The Belles are so sensitive ("efficient") that, normally, they don't need much power. I use a Belle as a center channel between flanking Klipschorns in our home theater (also used for music listening, i.e., Klipsch's Wide Stage Stereo configuration). In our 4,257 cu. ft. room, at 13 feet, our single Belle produces 107 dB (2 dB above THX fs for frequencies above 80 Hz) with an input of 16 watts. So, surely a good 100 watt "RMS equivalent" per channel amp, at 8 Ohms, with low distortion (<0.08 THD?), 20 to 20K Hz, with both channels operating, should be fine, right? Maybe, maybe not. Even if we had a complete set of distortion figures for an amplifier, including IM, TIM, etc. (almost impossible to get unless some magazine has done a bench test), different amps can have different interactions with a given speaker, and your ears may pick up things that a bench test might not. My NADs (several C272s, 150 w.p.c., now discontinued) sound fine, but the very best solid state sound I ever had with the Khorns was with a Luxman L-580 integrated amp, also now discontinued.
It had the most versatile and best sounding tone controls I have ever encountered, which could come in handy with Belles, and sure did with the Khorns. Just in case you are one of those who eschew tone controls and attempt to playback flat, hoping to hear music the way the musicians heard it, or how it sounded from the audience, or in the control booth, etc., please see all of Chris A.'s posts on de-mastering on this forum, starting with "The Missing Octave." Generally speaking, records are not flat. Rock, pop, and metal often have a substantial amount of the bass removed, so the sound can be crammed up against fs. On vinyl, even classical is often attenuated in the bass, in order to make it fit on the record, because bass takes up more space.
Is this what "FLAT" looks like? From There Is No "There" in Audio
By Amir MajidimehrFigure 4: Survey of 20 Dolby certified dubbing theaters showing wide variation in response.
So, if you can listen to a candidate amp, at home in your music room, with your Belles, that would be best. Some stores will let you do that.
Speaking of a missing octave ...people often say the Belles roll off at 60 Hz or so, but mine actually has a little peak at 60 Hz, and still sounds robust at 40 Hz (but is about -5 dB, according to REW). That's with the Belle flush mounted in the wall; I would think that against a wall or in a corner would come close to that. But, sometimes, it would be good to be able to turn up the bass on the Belles. A 6 dB increase in the bass would require multiplying the amp power by 4, so that need for 16 watts becomes 64 watts. Another 3 dB gets us to 128 watts. Fanfare for the Common Man on Crystal Clear direct to disc sounds great that way!
I would expect either McIntosh, or a modern Marantz to sound fine. I would bet on Luxman, but that's likely to bust your budget.
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, rgdawsonco said:
He did not want to be excluded from the man-club, haha.)
We lived with 2 channel TV for years, in two houses, and it was fine, BUT with Cornwalls that far apart, with the couch that close (as it should be, for a big picture), the people (except the one dead center) might not have dialog centered.
If you do this, can a center speaker be placed above the TV (or below?). Hopefully, it won't have a stray magnetic field distorting the picture. Maybe that is a thing of the past (?). There would probably be a center channel amp in your son's AVR. It would also allow Klipsch "Wide Stage Stereo" for his MUSIC. Since he is now a home owner, not an apartment dweller, he could really rock out (or toccata and fugue out, as the case may be). To become the President of the "man club," if and when finances permit, he could get a third Cornwall, with an acoustically transparent screen that comes down in front of it, and a projector on the rear wall. Like many members of the forum, I enjoy spending other people's money.
Either way, without a subwoofer, be sure the the AVR's subwoofer output is set for OFF, or NO, and that the front speakers outputs are set for LARGE, or the bass may not be sent to the Front Left and Front Right Cornwalls, as well as a center, if any.
-
3
-
-
Interesting that Robinson, his wife, and Sam Tellig all said La Scalas are "Fun." Well, they are, and so are Khorns, Belles, and probably Jubilees.
And guess what all those speakers have in common, other than being (largely) a PWK design!
-
1
-
-
41 minutes ago, Mallette said:
For reason unknown to me I was fired. That's fine as I've been doing this since 2005 and it's consumed time I don't have anymore but did it anyway as I love PWK and all his work, and I love so many of you. Really, all of you. Tried to be a very just and "moderate" Moderator. I HAVE kept my badge. I think I earned it. I think only a few have been here longer than I have and I will continue to participate here and in Pilgrimage and other events. All you guys I've had to step between in the ring are now at the tender mercies of the other mods...
Dave
I'm glad you will continue to participate here. I enjoy your posts.
I wonder why it was "reason unknown to me" ... I would think that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes." I fully understand that Klipsch is free to do what it likes with its forum, but just "firing" someone as a moderator is puzzling.
-
3
-
-
On 1/5/2021 at 7:22 AM, Alex2233 said:
We are currently furnishing our house, so sorry for bumping this thread, but it is helpful for me. First of all, thanks for sharing your experience. I noticed that a lot of people prefer buying furniture items on Amazon (I guess, because of the prices and delivery). Also, I've recently found a site that provided me with the reviews of different recliners (again with links to Amazon). I should say, some of them are supposed to be comfortable and fit great in our living room. But still, it would be good to check other online shops. What sites do you use to buy furniture today? I need a pair of recliners and a new sofa.
If the recliners and sofa are for your Home Theater or Music Room, you may want to:
- Avoid reflective leather or the artificial equivalent because something shiny will reflect the high frequencies back at your ears too soon. Cloth, or a cloth cover, quilt, or throw-over may help if you really want leather. This is especially important if you have a room EQ device like Audyssey or Dirac, with the microphone positions where your head(s) would be.
- It's possible that the farther apart the audience members are, the worse the imaging/soundstage.
- Make sure the recliners provide a comfortable position that doesn't put wearers of bifocals or trifocals so far back that they end up looking at the screen through the close-up/magnifying area of their glasses.
-
I'd advise using a whole, matched La Scala. We have a Belle Klipsch (designed to sound similar to the LaScala) in the center, sunk into the wall to flush mount it. It works great! Since it was going into the wall anyway, creating more room to the rear (in our case, in to a bump out, sticking out on the other side of the wall), we built a new top hat with the longer K401 mid horn, so the timbre would be more like that of our flanking Klipschorns. We have an acoustically transparent projection screen that lowers in front of where the Belle Klipsch is hiding behind the wall covering grille cloth. The Belle is EQ'd to compensate for the wall covering grille cloth and for the screen. That makes it very slightly bright when playing music, rather than running a movie, but it is fine, and the EQ is above 10K Hz, where some of the family and usual guests have attenuating or absent hearing. It's a story as old as (audiophile) time: by the time you can afford good speakers, your hearing is rolled off a bit. 😐
Lacking all that, a properly designed ported or sealed large DIY box with a big speaker in it might work well. The parameters are online somewhere. It should be floor standing with your top hat on top, or on top of your display (or behind an AT screen, if you have that). You really can't put a 400 Hz crossed over unit "somewhere else," because you would have at least two octaves of bass that the audience could easily locate ("Hey, the bass part of Sam Elliot's voice is coming from over "there!"). Most X overs to a sub, for instance, are 80Hz or below, where bass is more non-directional.
6 hours ago, Alexander said:Has anyone put any thought in making a center channel out of effectively the “top hat” of an LS? In other words build a stand alone top half of an LS with just a k77/k400*? Not sure how much information is used on a center below 400Hz though.
-
-
I like the K77 tweeter in the Cornwall I, and elsewhere, such as in my Klipschorns.
I have both Khorns with K-77s, and Heresy IIs like yours. Neither sounds better in the tweeter range to me, both now, and back when I could hear 20K Hz.
The K77s sound rich, clean and detailed. Several writing here like the Crites version better, but a few don't.
Frequency response probably isn't as important as distortion levels, within reason. Distortion figures are rarely published. Klipschorns (with K77) typically have very low distortion. Direct comparisons are difficult to come by; most (including the following) are what statisticians call "free floating." But here are some figures at very high volume -- 105 dB at ~14 feet, THX full scale (fs) for the loudest peaks for sound higher in pitch than 80 Hz. 2% was taken to be the level at which the distortion is becoming audible.
Speakers
IM distortion at 105 dB at ~ 14' (fs)
Harmonic distortion at 105dB at ~ 14' (fs)
Klipschorn
2.00% Becoming Audible
0.25%
AR 4-way AR 98RS
2.7% Audible
~3% Audible
Fried Studio 4
10% Audible & Annoying
4% Audible
Platinum Studio 2
7% Audible and Annoying
1.9% Becoming Audible
From reviews by Heyser, Keele, Jr., and others.
..
In looking at K77 curves, you will probably be looking at Electrovoice T 35 curves, because the K77s are highly selected T35s.
Klipsch would order a bunch of T35s, and run curves and other measurements on them, and keep the best to become K77s, and send the rest back to EV. So, the K77s should be the cream of the crop.
Here are some K77 curves. I believe a Cornwall I crosses over into the tweeter at 6K Hz, so the graph is of interest around there and above. The red curve is a K77 that came out of a Klipschorn. They were plotted at different levels only to allow you to read them clearly.
Here is one I ran, with 1/3 octave smoothing. In case you can't see it well enough, it crosses the line at 12.44 KHz, and ends at 17K (the 1 in the numeral 17 is cut off), down about 4 dB.
Hear is a histogram of a KEF studio monitor. KEF is one of the most respected speaker makers. !5K here is down about 5 dB. See what happens when it hits just about 16K:
Now, here is what may happen when you get into a room -- just in the bass--at least they claim this is typical room response:
Here is a full range example with studio monitors in a presumably a good control room, before treatment, By Jesco in Acoustics insider:
LEFT RIGHT
Now here are 2 elite loudspeakers, in a listening room, but spatially averaged and with 1/3 octave smoothing.
Wilson Sophia Series 3, spatially averaged, 1/3-octave response in AD's listening room (red); spatially averaged response of AudioNote AN-E/SPe HE in AD's room (blue). [Stereophile]
Let's look at the top end. The Sophia is down about 5dB at 11K and about 6.5 dB down at 12.5K. True, it springs back up at about 14K, the is about 5.5 dB down at 15K. And at the 20 K you wanted? It's down 28 dB. This reputed to be one of the best speakers in the world. Back then you could have it for about $17,000 for a pair. To be fair, many reviewers want the high frequencies to drop at the top of the treble. Some get upset if it doesn't, or label the speaker "Bright." Others advocate the Harman target curve in which the bass is much louder than the treble. Most slopes I've seen have the loudest bass 9 db louder than the highest treble. In the one below, as they say, "after equalization" it's more like 10 dB, with 16KHz 15 dB below the loudest bass..
In experiments, listeners tended to think such a curve was FLAT and NATURAL.
With my Khorns with the K77, I like the bass about 7 dB higher than the treble, but I usually don't curve the treble down at all.
You can use absorbers, diffusers, bass traps, Helmholtz Resonators, electronics, etc. to fix much of this, but then you'd be down the rabbit hole, for sure.
-
On 12/17/2020 at 9:42 PM, BigStewMan said:
But, there's nothing finer than the doggie diner. (anyone that lived in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area during the 70s and before will know this place).
@dwilawyer @garyrc
On 12/17/2020 at 9:46 PM, dwilawyer said:Of course, lived there.
Me, too ... many happy hours.
In the 1960s, students, who could only work part time, and at near minimum wage, could afford to grab a snack at many fast food outlets. McDonalds had the worst food. Quick-way was better, as was Doggie Diner, Taco Bell, and 4 blocks down the hill from my place, Hambricks 1/4 Pound Hamburgars -- A cheeseburgar for 70 cents. I used to walk there at 2 or 3 AM -- no concern about crime at night. One night I was very sick with the stomach flu, but walked to the Cine 7 to see the last night of Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly. I stopped by 1/4 Pound on my way home, and wolfed one down. Two blocks later, a friend who knew I was going to see that film, came out and said, "How was it?" I vomited all over his lawn. "Worst review ever," said he.
Friends from the Oakland neighborhood and I would take the bus to UC Berkeley for many events, including Albert Johnson's class on film musicals. He ran every clip imaginable, and we got out at about 2 AM. The last bus left at 1:05 AM. Imagine my friend's father driving out -- in his pajamas -- to pick us up.
Normally, our bus transfer point was Mayfair Market at MacArthur (pronounced "MuhGarthur" by the kids) and Broadway. Malls were becoming centers of discourse, and all-channel nets, like the agoras they were, There were so many fascinating things inside, that buses could be missed. In the late '60s there was a record store in Mayfair run by "Eidetic" Gene, who knew obscure records you might want by number. There were huge posters of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, nude, full frontal, and the of the burning Bank of America in Santa Barbara (Isla Vista), also full frontal. Earlier on, the malls were swarming with Irregulars,, if you were there at the right time. At both Mayfair and Rockridge, we had the preacher lady who would point at people, or wheel on them, following their passage past her, perfectly panning, with that finger aimed between their eyes. She would yell "Bull Shittim," and then declare, "You don't know what Shittim is! When she tried that on me, I said, "Isn't it a place in the Bible?"' She leaned toward me and whispered the secret truth in my ear, "A tree, too ... " Several Irregulars were to be seen all over the Bay Area. Long before jogging became popular, there was the individual we called "The Walker." There was no mistaking her. She had a distinctive, longish face, pale, despite what looked like sun damage, and walked looking straight ahead, or slightly skyward, and never seemed to see anyone else, or her surroundings. She walked at a steady pace through the Berkeley campus, South Shore Center in Alameda, Mayfair, everywhere. I once saw someone walking determinedly up Carson St. above Tompkins. Carson is one of the steepest hills in Oakland. Naturally, it was The Walker. The first Trans I ever knowingly met (1960s), Carol, frequented Mayfair, and a good number of other places. She was arrested from time to time, but was friendly with and vouched for by, the local merchants and security guards.
The Mayfair mall's Theater 70 actually had Cerwin Vega's
for Midway (1974 version) as did the Rockridge Center theater for Earthquake, shaking up nearby shoppers in the earthquake prone Bay Area.
The food center at Mayfair rolled up its interior sidewalks at about 10 at night, but it had a tasty variety before that, seasoned with the occasional fly, and, you could buy mercury defiled swordfish at the meat counter. For good food after hours, you had to go to Doggie Diner.
-
2
-
1
-
or not. By the way, until Star Trek misused it in the series beginning in 1966 (and ever after), it was "damping," not "dampening." It is still "damping" in orthodox circles. For instance, a power amplifier doesn't have a "dampening" factor, unless it is incontinent.
that too, from a fire arms expert, but he was not a hearing expert
Figure 4: Survey of 20 Dolby certified dubbing theaters showing wide variation in response.
for Midway (1974 version) as did the Rockridge Center theater for Earthquake, shaking up nearby shoppers in the earthquake prone Bay Area.
Speaker Break In?
in 2-Channel Home Audio
Posted
Yes, if the comparison set-up isn't double blind, or at least single blind, how will anyone know that the difference isn't due to extraneous variables such as 1) the appearance of the equipment 2) the reputation of the equipment?