garyrc

Meagain, I use a RSW-15 Klipsch subwoofer with Klipshorns SOMETIMES. I cut it in at 40 Hz (the lowest low pass available) precisely because at a higher lowpass, the tight, clean response of the KHorns are degraded, just as you predicted. I also keep it 1 to 3 dB below the level of the Khorns, so the clean attack of the Khorns will predominate) from 38 Hz for some very big bass drums, on up to 150 or 200 for various instruments and combinations. People tell me that although the big bass drum of timpani fundamentals may be as low as 38, the sound of the impact -- of beater hitting drum head -- is actually higher, and well into the Khorn's best range. And here is what may be the most important thing: We use the bass enhancement setting on the preamp, that allows the Khorns to keep responding all the way down, without any attenuation, even though the RSW-15 is joining them below about 40. It only took me about 14 hours of moving the sub around and playing with the phase switch and the sub level to get good integration. SOMETIMES? How often do I use the sub? On DVD movies, virtually always, because of the ubiquitous Bass Machine they can't resist using. On CDs, anywhere from 3 out of 4 times to 1 out of 4 times ... the CDs are so damn variable in every way imaginable. Eventually, every CD gets a sticker spelling out the ideal setting.

Dr. Who, Would that I had, or could afford, good measurement equipment. My compromise in the future will be the Beheringer mic that you and others recommended, which is now on triple backorder, and may arrive by the time our new room is finished (but not tuned), along with an online analyzer of some kind. The old measurements were surprisingly repeatable in the bass range, so I would guess that the large differences in the way the Khorns responded in the two different houses are probably for real; accuracy in the absolute true SPL sense is probably low, but the reliability (precision) is probably high, because 50" away on the tweeter axis in our Oakland house produced nearly the same bass measurements again and again, over months and years. The only tools that were used in both houses -- and therefore can be used for comparison -- are the miserable Rat Shack meter (analog variety c 1985) and a French CD called Compact Test, from Diapason, using frequency modulated noise at third octaves (details below).* Radio Shack provided a frequency response curve in those days that showed very large deviations from flat in the hi-mid and treble range that one had to compensate for, but essentially flat bass. I did not then have the various other curves for that meter (none of which agree very well) so, below about 1.25 KHz, I treated the meter as essentially flat on axis, because that's what their graph claimed. I do remember that an image of my yellow Klipsch "Bullshit" button flashed into my mind at the moment I first saw the ruler flat bass response. But I took the bass readings at face value, because I had no other data. In the treble, all bets were off, even though I went cross-eyed reading their compensation curve with a magnifying glass, confidence was low. We finally gave up on measuring treble response, period, and will try again when the Beheringer mic arrives. In our very symmetrical Oakland room, 50" away from each Khorn in turn, on tweeter axis (flashlight determined) the two Khorns were very nearly the same in the bass, except for a big, narrow, mysterious dip in the left one at 70 Hz. On several occasions, I tried taking the meter off of the tripod and moving it around (being careful to not have my reflecting body behind the meter) and the readings didn't change much (in the bass) over a lateral range of about a foot either way. Walking the meter in an arc with the Khorn being measured approximately equidistant from the meter did make a larger difference. Here's my point on the comparison of rooms, using the same CD and the same meter, still treating the meter's response as flat below 1.25K Hz, at 50" on tweeter axis, in our Oregon house, the same speakers lost 9.5 dB response at 31.5 Hz, relative to 1K Hz, from approx. a +1.5dB to a - 8dB or so. I didn't apply any of the recently acquired, disagreeing, correction curves, because I didn't in Oakland, wanted to be consistent, and I'm at a loss as to how to treat the disagreements in various versions. Taking the meter off the tripod and moving it around produced variations similar to doing so in Oakland. The 70 Hz dip in the left Khorn seems to be gone -- maybe it stayed in Oakland. Measuring the Belle in Oregon (didn't have or need it in Oakland's narrower soundstage), 50" away, on tweeter axis, which is considerably closer to the floor, naturally, than the Khorn tweeter axis, same meter, same CD, we got the big peak at 60 Hz (I'd have to look it up, but I think it was about 6 or 7 dB), fading to nothing below. In Oakland, the 31.5 Hz not only measured @ about + 1.5 dB (center of needle swing) but sounded very strong and powerful at the measurement point, and at several points in the room, with spots in which it was attenuated, but still solid and insistent in it's clean presence. There were a variety of other measurements taken in each house, but not in both, so we can't really compare. An audio oscillator (borrowed) sine wave sweep in Oakland produced a curve with more peaks and valleys, some dramatic, than with the CD, and I can't find the records, but I remember that the response at about 35 Hz was pretty flat, not as low as the - 5 dB that Klipsch specs. I don't remember what it did at 31.5, and may not have lingered there, but I remember it growling away, quieter and quieter, into the 20s. In Oregon, we've also used the Stereophile Editor's Choice Sampler & Test CD, and in going back and forth between it and the Diapason Compact Test CD, we found that the major difference between the two disks is higher level high frequency response (10K Hz and above) with the Stereophile disk, that also seems to be slightly upward curving above 10K (compared to Diapason, on all speakers, more so on the Khorns and Belle than on our surround Heresy IIs). When we first moved to Oregon, we borrowed an Audio Control real time analyzer from a friendly (Klipsch) dealer. We used pink noise, as advised for this analyzer, from both Diapason and Stereophile sources. It gave us similar bass readings (to the Oregon set) when their microphone (supposedly calibrated and matched to the analyzer) was put in exactly our standard rat shack position. That's the good news. The bad news is that it gave us outrageously elevated readings in the treble, from about 5 or 6.3K up to the top, that simply were not plausible. Repeated tests produced treble readings that were to ridiculous to bother recording (I know, scientific sacrilege!). "Up to the top?" Still several dB above the line at 16K, and just a little below at 20K, where there is not supposed to be any response from a K77. An odd anomaly was that the treble readings were even more outrageously high when we used the digital output of the CD player, rather than the analog one. Go figure. Anyway, when we once again have firm walls and floor, and have the Beheringer mic, we'll start over, just for a sense of completion. Any advice is welcome. After the room tuning is over, I'll eschew all of this stuff, and use my equipment for nothing but music and movies. If not addicted. * Excerpts from liner notes: "Frequency modulated noise at third octaves, for acoustical measurement ... signals made by Dr. Benjamin Bernfeld, acoustical engineer from Strasbourg University ... uses the principle of an aleatory frequency modulation, enables one to obtain a spectrum comformable to international acoustic norms, although it maintains a level constancy at all frequencies similar to sinusoidal signals."

Differing results ..... Re: the La Scala results reported on this thread. The Belle Klipsch is supposed to sound a lot like the La Scala (but since the Belle's mid horn is a bit shorter, it should sound a little different). My Belle is against a big wall, being used as a center channel. It is fairly smooth in the mid bass, and has a big peak at about 60 Hz, then drops like a rock, to nearly nothing just below that. My Klipschorns, in my old house, tight in their corners, with rock solid special walls (studs 8" on center, double 3/4 plywood plus veneer) actually not only went to 31.5 Hz, but had response that was slightly elevated there (~ + 1.5 dB), relative to 1KHz, honest! And the response was pretty clean, (almost as clean as at 40 Hz) with no doubling apparent. Below 31.5 Hz there was rapid attenuation, the sound got a little dirtier, but was still there at 25, and (barely) at 20, Unfortunately, at my new house, with slightly floppy sheetrock walls, a springy floor, and imperfect corners, the response has problems of various kinds in the bass, especially below about 40 Hz, and bass is seriously attenuated (~ -8 dB @ 35 Hz). Same speakers! We are redoing the music room, and eventually it will have rock solid corners and floor, and tightly fitting corners, and acoustical treatment, then we'll see! Although the above measurements were taken without it being turned on, I now use a subwoofer (Klipsch RSW-15) for some CDs and all movies. It sounds cleanest crossing over at 40 Hz (I'd cross it over a bit lower if I could), and set at least 1 dB below the level of the Klipschorns. I prefer the Klipschorns to deliver most of the mid/hi bass attack that can occur anywhere from 40 up to about 150 Hz; I like their clean, snappy sound. I predict that when we finish rebuilding and tuning the room I will need the sub less often, but I'll still use it with some music, to get good response down to 20 Hz or so.

CONVERGENCE, Thanks for the information! I would be quite interested in seeing the Ampex literature that is being scanned on the horn that was part of the Todd-A0 system. As I said, the 6 channel Todd-AO mag sound, especially at the Coronet for Around the World in 80 Days (1956), is the best sound I have ever heard in a theater, and the best sound of a big orchestra (114 pieces) period. Modern movie sound has not equaled it. When they made some changes at the Coronet to bring Star Wars (1977) in, (I know they at least installed subwoofers) the sound got worse -- a bit harsher, and less snap, and didn't sound as much like the orchestras in which I used to play. I think there is one error on the Cinema Treasures site your friend saw. Oklahoma! played at the Coronet (I saw it there), not the Alexandria, and they added the short to precede it, The Miracle of Todd-AO. It is conceivable that they prepared the Alexandria for Oklahoma!, then changed their mind, but I doubt it. The Coronet was refurbished for Todd-AO and Oklahoma! and it was in the preferred Todd/Magna Theater Corporation configuration, with the seats going right down to the deeply curved screen, with no pit or stage in the way, so row number, for row number, the image was a lot bigger on people's retinas, and the stereo spread was greater. The Alexandria was not equipped for Todd-AO until it just about had to be, when the Coronet was playing Around the World in 80 Days well into its second year, to big crowds, and there was no place to put the next Todd-A0 feature, South Pacific -- so they equipped it, but left the stage in the way, which meant that the picture was too small (from audience position), compared to the Coronet. The screen was also not as curved. When they started playing other 70mm processes at the Coronet, they left the curved curtains, but installed a smaller screen, that was not as curved, since the competing processes did not compensate for the curve. Very ill-advised, but the Coronet's screen --- relatively, on the retina -- was still much bigger that average. Here are the earliest 70mm films each theater played, all with beautiful sparkling projection, and, for the most part, exemplary sound (I may have left out a few): Coronet: Oklahoma! (Todd-AO) Around the World In 80 Days (1956) (Todd-AO) Sleeping Beauty (Technirama-70, process lenses by Panavision)) Porgy and Bess (Todd-AO) Ben-Hur (MGM Camera 65 -- a variation of Ultra Panavision 70) Alexandria: South Pacific (Todd-AO) Exodus (Panavison-70?) Cleopatra (Todd-A0)

O.K., I've lived with Klipschorns in two different houses, and heard them in 5 other venues (repeatedly, for long periods), with room sizes ranging from tiny (9 x 12) to gargantuan. To me, the question becomes "Imaging from what seats, in what room?" I'll share my impressions of the image in these different rooms in a moment, but I should state that imaging is not particularly musically important to me, compared to what Holt called "triggering one's musical Gestalt," which involves bringing one the feeling of both the reality and the joy of live music, regardless of objective accuracy, with localization being not very important. For me, this feeling of realism and joy seems to involve a subjective purity of sound, and clean and powerful dynamics that are not contained in a "safe" and fully predictable envelope. With good recordings, Klipschorns are among the few speakers I've heard do that well, and in that crowd, they are among the least expensive, Now, Imaging (no solo piano was used, but there were full orchestras in every audition, and jazz groups in most): 1) In a huge room (a store), about 60 feet wide, and much longer, with a very high ceiling (18 feet??) the Klipschorns were in the corners of the 60 foot wall, with quite a few other floor standing speakers between them. All were driven by a very large Crown amplifier. There was no center channel! The Klipschorns had the advantage of the widest spread, but also the most vulnerability to "hole in the middle," due to their great separation. Their imaging capability and reality/joy were jaw dropingly good, and made the other speakers sound more restricted, tame, and artificial. With a variety of music, their imaging was very precise from not only the center position, but several other chairs (5, I think), all about 30 feet from the speaker wall. 2) The opposite extreme: in a room 9 x 12 feet, with a high ceiling that sloped from about 8 to 14 feet, Khorns on the 12 foot wall, the imaging was great from the one "sweet seat" on the center line between the Khorns, with the chair about 1 foot from the Sonex covered rear wall (i.e., about 8 feet away from the speaker wall), BUT, the imaging was not good from the chairs on either side of the sweet chair. Strangely, from way to the side, the imaging was better than from the slightly to the side chairs. 3) In my current room, 17 x 24 feet, with a too low ceiling (a little less than 8 feet), with the Khorns along the 17 foot wall, the imaging is usually very good from the three center seats( about 11 feet away from the speaker wall), especially the dead center chair. Imaging quality seems to vary a lot more with the recording than in the other rooms. Sometimes a center channel (Belle Kilpsch, same drivers as Khorn) is used, sometimes not. With about 1 in 4 CDs, I turn the center channel off, because the illusion, including imaging, is better with just the Khorns, About 3 out of 4 times it is better with the center on. From extreme side seats (I try to avoid using these) the imaging suffers, unless these seats are farther from the speakers I'm hoping that when we get around to raising the ceiling, and using some diffusers and a few absorbers the imaging will improve. 4) With similar seating, In a room similar to the above in size (16 x 24, with a beamed ceiling 9 feet high to the beams, and about 6" higher between them), the imaging was phenomenally good, with fine gradations of stereo localization all along the speaker wall, from the center chairs. Never tried side chairs, 5) In three other rooms of unmeasured sizes, probably ranging from about 14 x 19 to 17 x 26, all with approx. 8 foot ceilings, all with the Khorns on the short wall, the imaging was adequate from seats near the center, and very good in the one sweat chair.

Clarence, We have the same power amp, and, I think, the same CD player (is yours a C 542?). I'm convinced my hum is coming from, or through the NAD T 163, because it has so many circuits in it, all kinds of Dolby, DTS, EARS, Hot and Cold running water. The Klipschorns have plenty of response at the two prime hum points, 60 Hz, and 120 Hz. We used to have a cat named Clarence, so named because he was always talking (meowing), like the famed lawyer Clarence Darrow. At least he didn't hum.

I didn't like the first iteration of the Heresy .... at the very beginning. To me, they didn't have enough "air." Then, something changed. Crossover?? The next Heresy, still the Heresy I (I heard them -- borrowed a pair long term -- c 1974) was plenty airy and clear and a bit forward. I have a pair of Heresy IIs, which I use as surrounds. They are clear, clean, and more forgiving of bad recordings that Klipschorns or Belles, but less live and real than either of these. All Heresy models I have heard lack bass, but that's O.K. if they are used as surrounds, and I like to set them for "Large" -- go figure. They also mate well with a good subwoofer, and would make for a very satisfying system. Haven't heard the Heresy IIIs, but those who have, and have commented, seem to think there is an improvement.

My system is different, but since it uses NAD and Klipsch, you might be interested in my take on your situation, as well as what I hear. 1) I have no idea how to answer your question about running two sets of speakers off of the NAD. Email NAD and ask the horse's mouth. Dealers vary in their knowledge. Will your NAD have a level control to differentially adjust the level of two sets of speakers? I think the kg 2.2s had a sensitivity of 93 dB 1wt 1M, and the Heresy IIIs are rated at 99 dB -- I'll bet the 6 dB difference will minimize any bass help you would get from them, unless you have a way to turn them up relative to the Heresy IIIs. This may cause them to distort, compared to the Heresy IIIs. If your NAD will support a powered subwoofer, you might be better off saving up for a good sub (new or used) and adjusting it to a moderate level, so that it won't interfere with the considerable purity of the sound of the Heresy. 2) I have NAD separates and Klipschorns, Belle Klipsch center, Heresy II surround (for music, the surround signals sometimes pass through a Lexicon ambiance simulator, and for movies there is no extra processing - Lexicon on bypass). The one surround channel (set for no processing) that uses 1/2 of a NAD 150 wt stereo power amp (NAD 272) sounds very good with the Heresy II (I've listened critically, temporarily using the Heresy as a main speaker). But the other surround that uses 1/2 of a Yamaha MX 600-U 135 wt. power amp through a Heresy II sounds just about as good, just different. How similar are the Heresy IIs and the Heresy IIIs? I find the Heresy IIs to be very forgiving and sweet. 3) My NAD 272 power amps and NAD T163 preamp sound very, very good with the Klipschorns and the Belle Klipsch, better than the Yamaha, with two qualifications. The NAD / Klipschorn or Belle combo reveal a little more detail than the Yamaha and Klipschorn team I used until relatively recently. In a very few CDs some of what is revealed is not pretty -- a little too much breathiness, or a damaged sax reed that shows up with the NADs, and was veiled with the Yamaha, etc. I think the Yamaha is a little mushier (lower resolution), and the mush covered up a few defects in recordings. Also, the NAD T 163 tuner/preamp/ movie oriented unit has -- or picks up -- a little hum .... it went back to NAD under warranty, and they improved it, but I can still hear soft hum between selections through the Klipschorns. I don't hear the T 163's hum coming through the Heresy IIs, when they are set to the same pink noise sound pressure level, perhaps because the Heresy IIs have less bass than the Klipschorns. All in all, though, the NAD units with the Khorns, Belle, and Heresy surrounds sound superb -- better than the Yamaha, especially in the case of the Khorns -- a very pure, clean, effortless, dynamic sound, very exciting, once the music starts playing to cover the slight hum. You may want to experiment with a throw rug covering just part of the floor. Rummage sale type. I had a room like yours, with a hardwood floor, when I was in college. A rag rug improved the sound greatly. Mapleshade stands are probably fine, as are others, but I often smell snake oil while reading the Mapleshade catalog. Good luck!

Maxg, It was a feeble attempt at a joke. The picture was of the philosopher Hegel (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel). He was not a handsome man. All I can say is Thesis / Anithesis / Analysis / Synthesis.

".... Hegel CD player and amp. Never heard of Hegel." Did you get to see the owner / CEO? Did s/he look anything like this?

ALL: Thanks ... interesting observations ... keep 'em coming, if you've got 'em! GILL: Re: your comment on Fantasound, Disney and the Gabler book -- I don't know if you saw my old post containing info on this --- Now I'm thinking that the Peck article may have been 1941, not 1940 --- my mind is playing tricks, and I only know about the article from reading it in the '70s ... Fantasia was in Fantasound before even I was born. Here is the relevant part of my post: By the way, those interested in the history of movie audio might want to check an article in Scientific American (Peck, 1940) on the sound for the original 1940 Fantasia, which was the first time large numbers of people heard stereo (in a few theaters; New York, San Francisco, LA, etc.) An old sound recording teacher of mine helped set it up in San Francisco, and said that in that city, there were 96 different sound locations in the theater, fed from three discrete tracks, and manipulated -- I never was clear on whether the manipulation was automated (knowing Disney, it probably was) or handled by live mixers in the theater. My teacher said the effect was hypnotic. There was always at least some subtle outrigger ambiance from the side, which made the orchestra sound spacious, and sometimes the outrigger speakers were used creatively. And some people think "surround sound" came in with Dolby (1970s), or Cinerama (1952)!! Leopold Stokowski had been part of the landmark stereo recordings at Bell Labs, and introduced stereo to Disney, who decided to allow it to move around the screen to follow the animation at certain moments. A few times, part of the music left the screen. At one moment a goddess (Artimis?) bends the crescent moon like a bow and shoots a gleaming arrow up toward the right top of the screen, and music follows the starry arrow to the edge of the screen and beyond, passing across the proscenium arch, when CUT, the audience is now traveling with the arrow, which we now see in a medium close shot as comet-like, with stardust or glowing ice streaming off of it, as the orchestral sound whooshes past both our ears. Old Uncle Walt called that kind of stereo Fantasound. My old teacher said that the original Fantasound protocols had been lost, but I hope they have found them by now. I haven't bought that DVD yet, to find out.

Which is better in theory, CD sound or DVD movie (not DVD Audio only) sound? Also, I'm curious to know which usually sounds better to forum members in their subjective listening experience. Better? I'm interested in any of your observations concerning whatever loosely defined properties you consider important: from your overall impression, the "triggering of your musical Gestalt" as Holt has it, to frequency extension, lack of distortion, tonality, detail/texture, dynamics, effortlessness, imaging, "openness," realism (fidelity to the imagined original?), anything you think is noticeable. I'll start it off by saying: 1) I usually listen to CDs and DVDs over the same system (amps, speakers, room) 2) I'm often disappointed in CD quality when listening to my favorite kinds of music (Classical, Contemporary Orchestral, and Jazz) -- often because the sense of richness, warmth, and "thereness" that I used to get with the best (certainly not the average) vinyl (various Ortofon cartridges & SME arms), open reel tape (7.5 & 15ips, Crown tape reorder) and even some cassette tapes (Nakamichi) happens more rarely on CD. These old listening experiences were with the same main speakers, and (damnit) a slightly warmer amp (Luxman). Many movies on DVD, however, do sound warm and "there," even though their music (except for a few great scores) is less rewarding. 3) For all the talk about the extended dynamics on CD, most of my CDs seemed a little compressed or constricted, compared to other media and compared to most movies on DVD. Some CDs come through dynamically, though, such as EiJi Oue's COPLAND HDCD disk (Reference Recordings RR-93CD, available once again, now that RR is out of court) ---- Watch Out! When turned up, this disk may be too much for most systems. 4) Mysteriously, some movies that have sweet and open sounding music recordings on DVD, or even VHS HIFi tapes, sound constricted and airless when the music from the soundtrack is put on CD, played over the same system, in the same room. Two examples are 'Round Midnight and Shakespeare in Love ... I tried turning off the surround channels in the DVD versions, and the DVDs still sounded much more open and spacious. Adding a little judicious Lexicon ambiance or reverb through the surrounds on the CDs didn't help. I realize that the final "sweetening" of movie soundtracks is sometimes not done until a mix that is closer to the release print, so the 1st generation musical elements may lack that sweetening. Does this explain all of the variance? I realize that some of this may have to do with the economics and personalities attached to the CD industry, vs the movie industry. There is plenty of time and money available to record movies with tender loving care, and very little to record classical and jazz CDs. Filmmakers seem to like flashy sound. It seems to me that movies on DVDs, with so much space taken up by the images, full length commentary, other special features, long running time, and the like, should be, if anything, theoretically worse in sound than CDs --- don't the CDs have a much easier job? Perhaps the listening experience of others is different, or the opposite? It looks like most of the music I listen to will be primarily on CD for some time, and if I got a SACD player, it would be usable 10 -15% of the time, max. Still, it might be worth it, next time I get enough money. If you folk tell me that the CD is theoretically better than DVD in sound, and that the lower quality I hear simply has to do with style, will, time and money, then maybe some letters to the industry would improve CD sound. Naive, I know, but perhaps we should give it a shot.

Pauln: The reason I heard for elevating speaker wires was that the various things rug pads are made out of (latex, etc.) exert some kind of electrical influence (capacitance ????) on the speaker wires. Since speaker wires carry relatively high level signals, compared to everything else in stereo system, I have my doubts. A friend's uncle ( in businesses other than selling little tripods for speaker wire) used to think ways to charge affluent customers top dollar for fairly meaningless extras. He claimed to believe that these folk wouldn't be happy unless they were constantly spending. One business was a limousine touring service. His extra special deluxe tour (the same as the cheaper one, except that the customers were charged incredibly more to be driven to the most expensive hotels along the way) was given a mellifluous name that rolled off the tongue. He concocted this name by combining Latin, Yiddish, and French -- it meant "F____ 'em good and deep" As to the Black Holes, all I can say is "gravity sucks."

Gill: Thanks for Dope from Hope. I support your request for both a FAQ and a Dope from Hope section on the Forum DRBILL: Thanks so much for the information on Belle & Paul Klipsch, and thanks for being their Episcopal priest. It is heartening to find so many members of the Forum, although technically and scientifically minded, still have a belief in God. I noticed that one gives as his occupation that he "works for a Jewish Carpenter." Science and Faith coexist in so many people, as they apparently did in Paul Klipsch. Tuning in to almost any NOVA show fills me with awe, wonder, and respect for the great spirit / mind / consciousness behind it all. One of the many, many things that caused me to buy Klipschorns was to be able to hear the grandeur of the religious music of Bach, Handel, Brahms. Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Haydn. "The Heavens are Telling."

On the one hand, I object to reviewers attributing to the equipment, differences between components they have heard this week and those they heard last year, sometimes in different rooms, at different distances, and even with different program material. On the other hand, I tend to do the same thing. What am I to do with this contradiction? I don't doubt that there are very subtle differences that are real. These real differences may vary in repeatability over a reliability range of 0.00 to 0.99. As I said, even my equipment seems to sound different at different times, with the same program material, and I have witnesses (unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with the reliability and validity problems with eyewitness or earwitness testimony). Both the listener and (I'll bet) the equipment having our little moods has been true with every set of components I've ever had (8 sets, with 6 varieties of speakers). And, with speakers as efficient as Klipschorns, I find that the ever-present hum ranges from barely audible to annoyingly worse. My local High End store attributes this to the power company ... who knows? When doing experiments with perceived auditory complexity at SFSU, I had people from Physics, Stereo Recording, and Psychology (I was a Psych grad student at the time) cautioning me to control for temperature, humidity, light level, light color, and immediately previous experience. Many of these factors have to do with cortical arousal level, which might vary with everything from lighting, very subtle differences in SPL, whether a speaker is clad in fine rich hardwood, or looks cold, gray & metallic (edwinr showed one of the latter), to how much coffee the dealer has given you. Vladimir Konecni apparently found that even preference for paintings could be "pushed up and down" and even reversed depending on arousal level, the source of the arousal, and whether the affect produced was positive, negative, or absent (Konecni & Sargent-Pollock, 1977, in Motivation and Emotion, I, 75 -93).

Is it not a combination of: 1) Posturing -- reminiscent of those who write pretentious movie or book reviews to demonstrate how discerning and perceptive they are (see the hilarious amateur reviews on IMDb). 2) Illusory or unreliable (hard to reproduce reliably) perception ... I'm convinced that our hearing mechanism has its moods, and my equipment sure seems to, as well. 3) Real perception which varies with attentional factors, as well as all the variations of speaker location, room acoustics, etc. I still like well set up blind testing / reviewing / , etc., and yes, there are blind experimental designs that allow for relaxed, casual, incidental, long term listening, without one's cortex being thoroughly in the judgmental mode.

I wonder if the somewhat new sound of the LaScala II (haven't heard it) is the continuation of a trend that started in about 1988, when (I think) PWK was still at the helm? Brief chronology of my impressions of La Scala, Belle, Khorn 1) Always liked Klipschorns (from late 1950s, as a teen), and noticed that some of the improvements actually were considerable improvements. 2) Mid 60s to mid 80s: I was, like Who, a LaScala hater.[]...Too harsh with most program material .... . exceptionally good for solo flute, solo brass, etc., but lacked not only deep bass, but seemed to lack some of the mid bass that balances and moderates the sound of orchestral climaxes, preventing them from sounding too shrill, even with vinyl and tubes. My local art house (Berkeley) replaced Altec 604 Es with LaScalas, on the advice of John Curl (later Parasound), according to the Berkeley scuttlebutt (like all scuttlebutt, not always reliable). The La Scalas reproduced the movie soundtracks more clearly, but with less warmth than the Altecs. 3) 1988 walked into my favorite store to hear a Lexicon, and heard a Belle Klipsch, advertised to have sound "identical" to a La Scala. The Belle sounded much kinder and gentler, much better balanced, but was dynamic as hell. "He recently toned it down," said the Klipsch knowledgeable sales person, who had been corresponding and chatting with PWK since the late 50s. I wonder if he toned down the La Scala at the same time (for the first time?)? 4) 1988 - 2003: heard a few more Belles, and liked them. 5) 2005: Bought a new Belle as a center channel to go between Klipschorns ... It sounds fine alone, with adequate bass and balance, and is much more articulate and "there" than my Heresy II surrounds, but is not as startlingly clear and "open" as the Klipschorns. There may be a little of the treble reticence that Sam Tellig wrote about in the Stereophile review of the LaScala IIs. The treble sounds a little soft, compared to my Klipschorns, but it doesn't show up in measurements. .....WHY? 6) 2006: Everyone is saying that the LaScala II is much improved, has better bass, but doesn't measure all that different. I believe all of this. I hope Stereophile does review new Klipschorns (AK4 or 5), and I hope they let Sam hear them, to report on the subjective difference between them and La Scala IIs.

1) One big difference between, say, the 80's and today: In the past it was possible to hear most of the advanced speaker designs in an urban area, with a short road trip. In '82 I had my choice narrowed down to three rather different sounding speakers: the Klipschorn, the B & W 801 (F, I think), and the JBL 4350 (big studio monitor that made Duke's list). I was able to hear the Klipschorn cheek by jowl with the 801 at a store in Oakland, and the JBL next to the Klipschorn in Berkeley (the Khorn sounded the most like the orchestra I heard every day, so I went with it .... the JBL was a close second, and the B & W was very pretty, rich, and pleasant, but not like "live"). Within a half hour's drive, I heard Magnapan, Bozak, Acoustat, Altec, Polk, Infinity, you-name-it. I listened for weeks (hours in each store during off hours) and came up with Khorns. It was hilarious to hear a few of the dealers bad mouth speakers they didn't carry, until I no longer found it funny, and asked them to keep their opinions to themselves and let me just listen. Today, try finding and listening to the collection Edwinr and the others have posted! 2) The most powerful confounding variable, in the past and now, would be the combination of room acoustics and placement. I've been repeatedly surprised by speakers I am not particularly fond of sounding excellent in certain rooms. JBL 4312s sounded great at The Different Fur Trading Company (a recording studio, of course), and not too bad at Tower Records Classical. The Bozak Concert Grand sounded great (but a little tame compared to the Khorn nearby) in one store, and incredibly muffled and distant at another.

10% of the price of your system would be way too high ! And, with an inexpensive system, good interconnects would not help much. The Radio Shack ones are probably fine. You want sturdy, well made interconnects, no longer than needed. My old Monster Cable ones fit well enough so that it didn't bother them to have my components hanging from them when the '89 earthquake made my amps fly off the shelf. I'm not convinced that most of what is written about wire is not the purest snake oil, panther pucky, or as PWK put it, Bullshit. Feel free to share this with your dealer.

Well, for me, the newer or upgraded Klipschorns would be at the top of any list of plausible home speakers. Many others are appealing, including panel speakers, but they don't have the Klipschorns' finely graded dynamic contrasts. Finely tuning a room, or feeding speakers with optimized program material can sometimes make an unimpressive speaker sound great. With tender loving care, most speakers that are not compromised for price can be made to sound good. Example: Speakers I usually don't like are the Bose 901 series, and the Altec theater series. BUT the Bose sounds quite good at Alphonso's Mercantile in Mendicino Village, CA, and Altec Theater systems sound great when fed with a good 'ole magnetic Todd-AO 6 channel soundtrack, especially with those warm and wonderful double system installations, with full coat 35mm mag film carrying the 6 soundtracks, synced to the 70mm print. I suspect these tracks were mixed with the Altecs, or JBLs in mind.

When walking from a great distance to the bands during the free concerts / dances / clothes optional be-ins in Golden Gate Park in the 60s, one heard upper midrange and lower treble first, battered by the wind, wavering over, say, a 35 dB range of phasey, drifting sound. There were no buildings anywhere close, just trees. Upon getting close enough to see, and more or less on axis, the treble and shimmering overtones became more prominent, and the music became stable (non-wavering). It was not until we would get rather close that the deep bass came up enough to sound truly balanced, and then it was sometimes loud enough to make the dirt bounce up and down off of hard surfaces like concrete / asphalt walkways. We liked the fact that the dirt danced in rhythm with the music. It was a trip. The speakers were usually tall and wide stacks of very large Altecs, JBLs, or boxes containing their drivers. Occasionally they would use La Scalas, or supplement with them. Once Klipschorns were used, in artificial corners. I heard the Dead borrowed some Khorns very early on, but found them and the artificial corners too unwieldily to move around. Ahh such days. The Dead, Airplane (later Starship), Loading Zone, Country Joe and the Fish, many others --- for free! Chants and poetry readings by Alan Ginzberg, Michael McClure, and the rest. Once in Provo Park in Berkeley, Country Joe did Rock 'n Soul Music while slamming the stage with his microphone on the long whip of its cord. They had the bass turned way up for this. Indescribable. I think it was one of those mics they used to advertise by driving nails with it (RE-15??). With all of this, I'm not aware that they ever blew a speaker. JBL ran a glossy ad showing such a Rock set-up in a park, with a cautionary tale about the time a passing griffin stopped by, coughed into the microphone, and left nothing except a crater. It was a time of passing griffins.

Mr. Snake, See the current Stereophile magazine for a very positive review of the La Scala II, the new version of a fully horn loaded Klipsch. Sam (the reviewer) specifically says that he did not hear any of the horn anomalies that horns are caused of. The speakers in the new Klipschorn are identical to those in the La Scala II -- but the bass enclosures are different. The newer Klipschorns (from about 2002 to now) have the AK4 crossover with some slight EQ, and they sound a little sweeter (kinder gentler) than before. I would guess they are "voiced" a lot like the La Scala II that Stereophile reviewed, but with a lot more bass (more and smoother bass than ever, perhaps). As Sam says, many speakers sound reined - in and constrained, but not these! In addition to the Stereophile review, you may want to read the following thread on the Klipsch forum: La Scala II Stereophile Review. There is good review of Klipschorns by Constantine Soo --- type his name in your main search box, and it might pop up. Some Klipsch forumers thought he didn't have the Khorns set up right, or really understand them, but it is a pretty positive review. If the producers, engineers, and artists use speakers that are "forgiving," veil the sound, and very slightly blunt the transients (and I suspect that many speakers are designed to do this), they may allow some slightly distorted or harsh sound to get on the recording without ever knowing it is there. Klipschorns will reveal it. So will professional JBL horn speakers. Good horns with good compression drivers (like Klipsch and JBL) tend to have many fewer and more moderate "sidebars," or extraneous frequencies in addition to those in the recording, than cone or dome speakers -- the extra, but false tones can sometimes add an illusory "richness," to the sound, and can sometimes veil, soften, or blur the sound, as well as hide defects in the recording -- sort of the way a very reverberate room can mask distortion (as well as desirable aspects of the music) in the recording. Years ago, I directly compared older Klipschorns (not as good as the new or updated ones) to B & W 801 F monitors, which EMI records often used as monitors for their classical recordings. With almost all recordings, across all types of music (mostly classical and jazz), the Klipschorns sounded more real, more live, more dynamic, and were more enjoyable. This was especially true when great orchestral forces were involved (symphonies of Beethoven & Mahler). Once in a great while the B & Ws would sound a little better. But the most interesting cases were a few Rock (and one Film Soundtrack) recordings that seemed to exhibit what sounded like some problems that I used to encounter occasionally in my recording days. I don't know what these recordists were doing wrong, but sometimes it sounded like mic preamp overload (in the mixer/board) or "diaphragm crashing" in the mics themselves. The B & W minimized this -- reproduced it as a clear fault in the recording, but made it easy to ignore, if desired. The Klipschorns revealed it clearly, and it was difficult to ignore. So, if you are going to play primarily good or excellent recordings, I'd go toward Klipschorns -- if you tend to buy bad recordings (to get the music that is unavailable anywhere else) you may want more "forgiving" speakers. On master tapes (or good copies), good CDs (30 - 50% ??), and good vinyl (about the same percentage??) I'll bet you won't find a truer sounding speaker than the new (or updated) Klipschorn.

Thanks, everyone, for all the information! I still wonder, in light of the below from Duke Spinner, how much we clip without realizing it. most of what I listen to...is live recorded music it is not unusual to see a rim shot / good snare hit as + 20 - +30 - +40 dB Rodney Holmes of the Jim Wieder band ... is usually good for ++30 dB .....minimum My own Rat Shack flopping needle meter sometimes hits 110 dB; that would translate, according to PWK's comments in Dope from Hope to a level 13 dB above, in terms of unread peaks -- brief peaks of 123 dB. So, can anyone refer me to an article or book that offers experimental evidence that a good amp (with, presumably, 3 dB of conventionally measured dynamic headroom) can actually pass very brief peaks that are 10 dB over RMS without clipping -- or was Keele alone in this contention?

I thought it was a very good review indeed, far better that I expected from Stereophile. Evidently Sam just listened ... can't fault that ... but I would have liked to have seen them run some frequency response tests, because I suspect that the La Scala II is as smooth (above about 60 Hz) as many of the Golden Ears' favorite speakers that they do measure and praise. At least he said the "midrange and treble are exceptionally smooth." I love that he pointed out that most other speakers sound reined-in and constrained compared to the La Scala II, and I love that he decided to buy them! I double love that he said they were warm, generous and dynamic --- twice! The first time was in regard to the (presumably) La Scala I system he heard at Signor Motterle's hilltop villa, and then he confirmed that the La Scala IIs he reviewed were also warm, generous and dynamic. I triple love that Dennis Had, of Cary Audio (who heard Sam's La Scala IIs) hit the nail on the head: "These speakers are fun to listen to." There is an article at the beginning of that particular issue of Stereophile (under "As We See It") that talks about the impression of the sound of the component as a whole being more important than any one measurement or set of measurements. That's obvious, but important. It is an old gestalt principle that the whole is sometimes perceived differently that the sum of the individual properties would suggest. I think this is the case with the La Scala (both models) and the Klipschorn. They sound "live" and real in a way few other speakers can. About 18 years ago (???) J. Gordon Holt, then the editor of Stereophile, wrote something to the effect that musicians told him that Klipschorns "trigger their musical gestalt" better than other speakers. How true, for Khorns and La Scalas, too.

Who among you knowledgeable folk can clear up my confusion about "Dynamic Power" Vs the kinds of peaks referred to in the Klipsch chart. In the Dope from Hope article and Chart -- "Amplifier Power to drive Klipsch Speakers" -- that has been reprinted in several threads several times (notably in "SETs Vs old SS Listening experiments"), both Keele (1977), and whoever revised the chart a few years later (PWK?? 1980 -- I think Keele had left by then) refer to the "Amplifier power rating (continuous average at 8 ohms)," and state that this allows "peaks 10 dB above average to pass without clipping." Can someone answer the following questions? 1) Is there agreement on this in the electronics world? 2) Are they referring to Tubes or Solid State? Solid State pretty much had hegemony over the audio world in 1977 & 1980, so they would probably have thought that readers would assume Solid State (?). 3) Is "continuous average" the highest amplitude, long-term, unclipped sine wave in a test, or is it RMS, which I believe is .707 of that? I seem to have heard "continuous" used both ways. 4) How brief would these peaks be? How do they compare with whatever duration IHF, or other groups, use in defining and measuring peaks? 5) Since we are lucky to get specs of 3 dB dynamic power listed in manufacturers' spec sheets, is this really a discrepancy, or are the 10 dB peaks passed without clipping that are mentioned in Dope from Hope just a lot briefer? 6) Does anyone have duration measurements of the leading edges of cymbal crashes, rim shots, and other presumably sharp transients?