Jump to content

garyrc

Regulars
  • Posts

    4186
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by garyrc

  1. Is it only on, or predominately on, the LP version at high volume & boosted bass? Could it be mistracking exacerbated by vibration traveling to the phono cartridge/stylus? When I had that years ago (Ortofon moving coil/SME arm/Thorens table), it sure sounded like it was in the midrange/treble. The cure was increasing tracking force (but still within manufacturer's specs).
  2. If you use subwoofer(s) crossing over at about 60 Hz, you may compensate for the La Scala LA 5's lack of the deepest bass BUT My experience with Klipschorns is that they are so much cleaner than the subwoofer, that, even though they are attenuated in the deep bass (compared to a good subwoofer), sometimes we prefer some music without the sub. This may be true with any fully horn loaded speaker like a La Scala. Over the years, we have played with a crossover at 80 Hz, 60 Hz, and 40 Hz with the Khorns and the sub. Right now we think 40 Hz sounds the best for music (for movies, the additional, separate, LFE channel that gets mixed with the regular bass management channel before it goes out through the "subwoofer out" in the processor, used for special effects only, has its LPF set at 80 Hz (not the conventional 120 Hz), as advised by both Mark Seaton and Roger Dressler. So, we like 40 Hz crossover for music alone and music in movies, and 80 Hz LPF for LFE. Or, if you are into woodworking, you could build your own horn loaded subwoofer -- there are discussions of this on this forum.
  3. Welcome to the forum! Here I'm grasping for straws, shooting in the dark, etc. Are they raspy only, or chiefly, on loud passages? You say, "on some songs." Do those songs have anything in common that other songs don't ... pitch range, loudness, other commonalities? Do you know someone who has the same speakers, so you might do a cheek by jowel comparison? Some singers and instruments are slightly raspy, particularly up close, and when loud. Other speakers might not reveal the rasp. Some speakers are slightly veiling. Were the recordings close mic'd? If you put your ear as far away from a singers mouth as a hand held mic often is, you might hear some rasp or some sibilance. Although rarer today than in the past, sometimes there is microphone diaphragm crashing, mic input circuit overload, over-recording, and clipping.
  4. These suckers could make short work of a capacitor ... and they love music.
  5. garyrc

    Heading to L.A.

    ... and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a therapist.
  6. Maybe they sprayed the tweeter diaphragms with truck bed liner.
  7. God 4.0 by Robert Ornstein Ornstein is a psychologist I first read in the mid 1970s, when his book On the Psychology of Time was transformative for me, so I have high hopes for this one. I'm on page 96, and I honestly don't know yet whether it will be as informative as I hope it will be. God 1.0 is evidently the experiences we infer from the paintings deep within the caves, perhaps part of shamanistic rituals (or not). God 2.0 comes from Neolithic priests up to 11,000 years ago, up through Mesopotamian religion. God 3.0 is the concept of "The One behind it all," monotheism (or quasi-monotheism) and the teachers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I'm guessing Akhenaten will be in there somewhere, but I don't see him in the index. I can hardly wait for God 4.0. Apparently, it has to do with a "second system" of cognition and consciousness. From the hints I have read so far, it is related to intuition, moments of insight, perhaps Maslowian peak experiences, but I don't see him in the index either.
  8. Actually, I have Firefox, and could only get on by checking the "take the risk" box.
  9. garyrc

    Introduction

    Sorry, I jumped to a conclusion re: the loudness control. Since it is a fixed control, it should approximate the set of curves from ISO, unless Kenwood disagrees. At 40 w.p.c. RMS, imagining that your approx. 20 x 20 ft. room has an 8 ft. ceiling, therefore would be about 3,200 cu. ft., a listener at about 13 feet from your KG 4.2s would get about 105 dB continuous (don't try it) and maybe 108 dB instantaneous peaks.
  10. garyrc

    Introduction

    It sounds like your loudness compensation is continuously variable, which is my favorite kind, because you can adjust to taste. As a starting point, IIRC, it is recommended that you first turn the volume control to as loud as you would ever have your music, and then a bit, then turn the loudness control down to a comfortable volume, and use the loudness control (only) from then on. As you turn down the loudness control, it adds bass and treble as it gets softer, so soft playback won't sound "thin" or "tinny." This is a little more needed in the bass than in the treble. Did you get a manual with your receiver? You can check the technique of setting the loudness control in there, in case I don't remember correctly. If you were to use a fixed loudness control on some other receiver (some just have a switch for loudness on or off) the graph below shows what the ISO (International Organization for Standardization -- yes, I know the initials are in the wrong order, quirky, right?) thinks the amount of compensation should be at different Sound Pressure Levels (in dB). The term "Volume" is a hangover from the old days of radio and PA; for bigger rooms (i.e., of greater volume), you would turn up the "volume" control. The term "Loudness" refers to a perceptual phenomenon that varies with many things. For instance, if some music is played on a high distortion device, like one of those horrible hand held transistor radios of the '50s and '60s, it will sound louder than its SPL (see below) indicates, because the distortion, including many discordant sidebands that were not in the original music, fool the brain into thinking it is of very high SPL, and people will yell, turn it down!!!! "Sound Pressure Level" (SPL) is the hopefully more objective one. With a good SPL meter set for "Z" weighting (no weighting at all) and "fast" readings, meaningful results are produced when measuring music SPL. "C" weighting is close; some people would say, "but no cigar." "A" weighting conforms to human hearing, i.e., the bass, and some of the treble, is rolled off. It is used in industry, partly because few machines have much deep bass. For music, any measurement technique that largely ignores the bass, I find annoying. Just out of curiosity, how many watts power output is your receiver? Do they label that as "continuous" or "RMS" or what?
  11. garyrc

    Introduction

    Good luck. Hope you buy them. If you want them to produce more bass Put them in room corners -- try all the way in and part way in. To prevent mid/high wall reflections, put something sonically absorbent, 2 feet square on each side wall, where a yardstick pressed flat across the front of the mid/high horn section of the cabinet would hit the wall, and 2 feet farther out into the room than that (Thanks to Chris A. for this idea). This works well for me: Make sure there is a bass control on your receiver (or preamp or integrated amp), and pump it up a bit for hip hop, unless Emile is in the neighborhood. Just an opinion: Some of your music deserves to be in the 90 to 95 dB range.
  12. garyrc

    Introduction

    June, Welcome to the forum! With any used speaker, make sure the tweeters are working! If the music is treble-shy take a shortened paper towel center roll (or a TP roll, practically any tube) with you and put your ear to one end and hold the other end to the tweeter. If you know you will have help (the services of 2 people or King Kong) I'd recommend going big, if you can find the money. In order of choice, number 1 being the best: 1) Jubilees, 2) Klipshorns, 3) La Scalas, (possibly with a subwoofer or two, crossing over at about 60 Hz, preserving La Scala clean attack above 60 Hz, with extended bass down to the lower limit of the sub). There are three varieties of La Scala: La Scala, La Scala II, La Scala AL5, the most recent, the best 4)Belle Klipsch (used only) slightly shorter midrange horn, but close to La Scala otherwise. Or, host your own parties, if you have the room. Then, no Kong. A good number of people here will disagree with this, but use the bass control on your preamp. Much of the newer music D.J.s use has had the midrange boosted, and the bass attenuated in fighting the pointless Loudness Wars. The "suits" sometimes require this of the engineers, a morale killer. They can cut the disk louder if they cut the bass. Idiotic. Turn up the bass slowly for each selection, optimizing it by ear. You may want to set any subwoofers 3 dB to 6 dB (or more) hot. See Chris A's many posts on this forum on demastering badly mastered recordings, perhaps starting with The Missing Octave. Klipsch was the right place to come. 1,000 watts into a typical speaker (90 dB at 2.83v ~~ 1 watt into 8 Ohms ~~ at 1 Meter), would produce peaks of 113 dB out in a big room (if the speaker could take it -- as PWK used too say, "Better have a fire extinguisher ready). For those same 113 dB peaks, it would only take about 64 watts into a Jub, a Khorn, a La Scala, or a Belle. Best of luck! I know you will have fun.
  13. Decades and decades ago heard a true AB/X comparison between solid state power amps, 2 amps at a time, including Phase Linear, Marantz, McIntosh, and Crown. Before going into the auditioning room, I had heard, by the grapevine, that Crown was "harsh," Marantz was "sweet," Phase Linear was "O.K.," and McIntosh was, of all things, "stringy." The salesperson and I listened to all combinations. It took several hours. They made me come in early enough on a weekday so that other customers would likely be at work. At first I "heard" some differences, although I couldn't label any of them with the adjectives seen above. Before long the salesclerk and I were mistaken quite often as to which amp was playing. I ended up buying nothing, but a store loaned me two McIntosh 40 watt mono power amps while I made up my mind. They sounded just fine. Eventually, I bought Luxman, which sounded fine, and "tube-like," and went well with my Khorns, and some JBLs. During that time, the best I ever heard (with no amp comparisons) was a powerful Crown, with Khorns, in a huge room, at a distance of about 30 feet, or more.
  14. A solid state Luxman I had seemed to sound better, and more "tube like" than a Yamaha. After a few years, the Luxman conked out and I could not find any one to repair it, even some high end repair shops. It was evidentially literally burned out inside. I couldn't afford another Luxman, so I went with two stereo NADs for 4 of the channels in our new home theater's 5.1. That left me one channel short, so for that one surround channel I'm using a Yamaha we happened to have. It sounds different, perhaps worse, but the two sides of the room are very slightly different, although symmetrical.
  15. The small polished metal sliders that came attached to my Khorn (normally invisible) might be enough. If you can get the help of a friend or neighbor or Kong you might be able to tip back a Khorn to take a look, if you really need to. They have been adequate to allow sliding my Khorns, both on the wall to wall carpet, and on the wood floor at our former house. If not, you might investigate sliders at Amazon. They have several kinds. The part that goes against the bottom of the Khorn is squishy, but pretty firm, and the plastic surface slides easily. Amazon has several kinds. If you get very dark colored ones that won't show, you might get away with leaving them under there -- unless they facilitate the Khorns being propelled out from the corner by the bass, and right out the front door. Since my Khorns cause my pants legs to flap in the breeze at 13 feet, that's a distinct possibility.
  16. Yeah, I had to push really hard to compress the pipe insulation ... or rather my wife and I pushed, really putting our backs into it. The cat was invited, but declined to help. The room was especially built for Khorns, so the corners were especially smooth. I still wonder if a) the old solid neoprene rug pads were a better way to go. Klipsch used to recommend them OR b) closed cell neoprene; I don't think it's available in pipe insulation. Oh, and I usually hear good things about sealed backs BUT I've occasionally heard that they aren't quite as good as good corners. IMO, even with closed backs, they still should be in, or very near, corners, to get more boundary gain in the bass, but toed in more optimally. My hypothesis is that best results in the OP's situation would be with artificial corners -- reaching out even farther than the ones PWK designed, maybe 5 feet into room or more, with absorption positioned as shown in the photo in my post, and toed in so the main listener is looking right down the horns, clearly seeing the bug screen, if any, and the diaphragm, with a treated room, nothing between the speakers, Audyssey XT32 with the App, OR full range Dirac OR using REW with at least 3 mic positions, OR _______________. By spending days weeks juggling room treatment, Audyssey, and a little bass boost post calibration, adjusted by ear, I am satisfied that, with my unaltered Khorns (AK4 upgrade installed), classical, jazz, and Blu-ray movies sound close enough to the myriad ways live music sounds in various venues, providing the recordings are good enough. Wow, what a sentence. Joyce and Faulkner wrote longer, but better, ones.
  17. Yes, Roy Delgado, chief engineer at Klipsch told someone on the forum (Chris A?) that Khorns sound best with nothing between them. Since Klipsch advises using rubber (pipe insulation, used to be rubber rug runners -- see Dope From Hope) to seal the Khorns to the walls making up the corner, they must think it's important to have the Khorns tucked in tightly. @Chris A also recommends 2 ft of absorbtion on either side of the cornered Khorn starting at the point a yardstick placed flat against the mid/tweet mounting board would touch the side wall, and extending 2 feet along the wall into the room: Thesis: One of harshest critics of any shortcomings says, on his website, the midrange driver is good, and the tweeter is not the first thing to replace. He feels the K400 or K401 mid horn is the Achilles heel. Antithesis: When Klipsch updated the Khorn a little more than a year ago, they replaced the tweeter, and left the K401 alone. Synthesis: Hegel's eyes are crossed, as usual. I have Khorns (obviously) in a big Music room/Home Theater, and have occasionally played things with 110 dB peaks, with no additional distortion, but my music is chiefly classical and jazz.. You say your bass is fine, but you might try running the Khorns with an 80, or 70 or .... 40 Hz cut off, and see what happens. I stubbornly ran mine full range for a few years, then tried crossing it over at all of the above crossovers, and found 40 Hz to be the cleanest, clearest, tightest in my room anyway. The sub then takes it down an octave++ to 16 Hz, with minimal multipath problems.
  18. I forgot about Doc Martin! Every character on that series is brilliant! A few episodes were written by Craig Ferguson, one of the funniest people alive!
  19. Take a long car trip to whatever dealer has both, or to a forum member who has both, or at least one. Listening is really the only way. I'm biased in favor of the big woofer and port of a Cornwall, but it is a bias, particularly because I have only heard earlier Cornwalls. As you know, Conwalls are Heritage, and Heritage are available at only certain selected dealers. This will help you find a dealer: Hear it in a Showroom Find a Certified Heritage Dealer near you Your Location: Search Radius: (number of miles) __________ If this doesn't work, find it on the Cornwall IV Klipsch website. Phone ahead to make sure they have Cornwall IV in the showroom, ready to hear.
  20. As usual, I couldn't narrow it down. Favorite, in that they are well drawn characters, well written and well acted, certainly not necessarily admired by me.. Film: Rick in Casablanca (Bogart)-- or even Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains). Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (Marlon Brando) Phileas Fogg in the 1956 version of Around the World in 80 days (David Niven) Drummond (modeled after Clarence Darrow) in Inherit the Wind (Spencer Tracy) John Adams in 1776 (William Daniels) Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) -- much, but not all, of which was supported by H. R. Haldeman's book. Mrs. Doubtfire in Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams) Seymour Parrish in 1 Hour Photo (Robin Williams) TV: Toby Ziegler in The West Wing (Richard Schiff) Both TV and Film: Spock Radar O'Reilly
  21. We knew him well in Berkeley and Oakland California! Breathless at the Cinema on Shattuck and Haste, and That Man from Rio at the Parkway in Oakland. Robert (Bobby) F. Kennedy thought TMFR was one of the funniest movies he had seen. RIP, John Paul! Please forgive the San Francisco State University film faculty for doing a satire on the New Wave called Your Breath to Breathe
  22. In the '50s and early '60s I had a Karlson enclosure in one corner, and a JBL C 34 rear loaded horn enclosure in the other corner. Each had a JBL 030 system installed, consisting of a 15" D130 "extended range" speaker . and an 075 "orange juice squeezer" tweeter. Here's the deal: The bass in the Karlson sounded "better" to my teen age and early '20s ears. The cannon in 1812 had much more umph. A JBL engineer at the Hi Fi fair said, "Don't put a D130 in a Karlson, the C34 will be much smoother. The Karlson will have a big peak at about 100 Hz." I was not equipped to run and measure a sweep, but I had ears. The Karlson provided a big sexy peak. My Karlson sits empty now, because our Klipschorns sound much better, but the Karlson is in an honored place at the back of our music room, because my dad built it for me in the mono days.
  23. The combined legal costs to the taxpayers of all of the procedures and appeals, etc. associated with a death sentence may be greater than those associated with life imprisonment: McFarland, Torin (2016) "The Death Penalty vs. Life Incarceration: A Financial Analysis," Susquehanna University Political Review: Vol. 7 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarlycommons.susqu.edu/supr/vol7/iss1/4
  24. The odds were that RFK would have been elected President. Likely, but, of course, by no means certain, results of RFK being neither killed nor wounded badly: No riot in Chicago during the Democratic Convention Nixon not being elected A much earlier withdrawal from Vietnam More funds put into social programs No Watergate Conceivably, a different group of Presidents, and others, including members of SCOTUS.
×
×
  • Create New...