what does this mean?

[BigStewMan]

i read this quote. what does high-frequencies fatiguing mean?

I, and most people I have talked to, would say the exact opposite. Klipsch struggles with music content because it's high-frequencies are fatiguing, and far too overextended. There are much better options for music listening, IMO.

[BLSamuel]

i read this quote. what does high-frequencies fatiguing mean?

I, and most people I have talked to, would say the exact opposite. Klipsch struggles with music content because it's high-frequencies are fatiguing, and far too overextended. There are much better options for music listening, IMO.

I think they mean to say is that their ears get tired quicker when listening. Like the high frequencies are tiring out their ears.

What I think may be happening with Klipsch is that the sound pulls you into the music. It's harder to ignore and therefore more involving.

And sure tiring, but physically tiring as I can almost picture a sweat drenched Dave Mallette jumping up and screaming bravo at the end of his favorite George Mims recording.

[JJkizak]

Some people have sensitive ears and can't take in your face live music. They have to soften it up like taking a photo out of focus. I assume that PWK would not get along with these people.

JJK

[Marvel]

Or ithey just reveal how poorly recorded the source material is...

Or the front end equipment stinks...

Or...

I certainly don't get fatigued when listening to my Klipsch.

[JL Sargent]

Or maybe they feel the high end sound is fatigued? Or in other words that the speakers are stressed trying to reproduce the top end?

[twistedcrankcammer]

i read this quote. what does high-frequencies fatiguing mean?

I, and most people I have talked to, would say the exact opposite. Klipsch struggles with music content because it's high-frequencies are fatiguing, and far too overextended. There are much better options for music listening, IMO.

At extreme SPLs K-Horns and LaScalas are fatiguing. The Jubilee is not. I listen often at levels most would not enjoy, and at extreme output, yes they are fatiguing for me to listen too.

Roger

[soundbound]

I certainly don't get fatigued when listening to my Klipsch.

Me either. I put some volume to them, but don't blast them. A lot of speakers that produce higher frequencies will fatigue you if you blast them.

[tommyboy]

I certainly don't get fatigued when listening to my Klipsch.

Me either. I put some volume to them, but don't blast them. A lot of speakers that produce higher frequencies will fatigue you if you blast them.

I never really "blast" my speakers. I have once when a co worker wanted to "test drive" the system. Plus, our kids are always there whenever we watch a movie or listen to music, so blasting isnt even an option really...........

[LarryC]

Or ithey just reveal how poorly recorded the source material is...

Or the front end equipment stinks...

Klipsch Heritage products have been very irritating to me with harsh preamp or amplifier electronics, irritating CD players, etc. Or, at least so-so CD players and SS preamp and amp electronics will do it on my system. Bruce, your electronics certainly wouldn't give you those kinds of problems!

Bad or peaky cartridges will definitely do it, although that's more likely a FR issue than it is dry, grainy, unmusical electronics.

So, I think those negative reactions are from bad matches in their systems.

It took me literally years of searching (in pre-forum days) to find a CD player, preamp and amplifier that banished irritation and sounded really good to me. It would have been quicker if I'd had JM products to draw on while looking. Crossover upgrades helped in my case.

[Marvel]

Crossover upgrades helped in my case

The first thing I did with my LS was to build new crossovers. Small parts count, 1st/2nd order slopes. I don't play mine at extreme levels, and it works out great. My CDP is a 20 year old JVC, but it seems to do ok. I know there are players that are way better. The Merlin into the Moondogs made the biggest difference (the Blueberry Xtreme was great while I had it, too).

[Don Richard]

What this means is that the room is probably too live. The flutter echo generated with such a setup is very non-musical and irritating. Near-field monitor type speakers would probably sound less fatiguing because their placement tends to make room effects less audible. So this guy is blaming the speakers for a room problem. Listening to headphones, as an extreme example, would be even better in such a room.

[garyrc]

In a realistic price range for most of us, it sometimes boils down to whether you want all of your recordings to sound O.K. to pretty good, or you want your best recordings to sound live and wonderful, and the below average to terrible ones to sound worse than they would on a more forgiving system. If you want the former, choose a mellow, masking, forgiving, softening, relatively unrevealing speaker -- often with dome, or even paper cone, tweeters; if you want the latter, chose a speaker with very articulate horn loaded tweeters (perhaps with compression drivers), or a good ribbon, etc.

If you look at frequency curves of the Klipschorn, Belle, LaScala I & II, all of which have the same drivers, the high frequencies are neither too extended nor too emphasized as far as measurements are concerned. They have appropriate extension (i.e., to about 16 K, like CDs) and the SPL of the frequencies above about 4.5 k averages to about the same as the average of the midrange and the bass above 40 Hz for the Khorn and 55 / 60 for the Belle and LS I & II. I like compression drivers like the K-77s in the all of the speakers above, because they tend to sound clean and have good transients, and very realistic brass with good recordings. They have a reputation for having fewer and less elevated sidebands than many dome and cone speakers (excluding some very exotic and expensive ones). Stereophile gave the LaScala II an A rating for speakers that don't reach all the way down in the bass (thus benefiting from the addition of just the right subwoofer) in their "Recommended Components."

The fatigue this guy is referring to may be due to the speakers exposing the harshness in too many recordings. See the current Stereophile magazine (April 2009) for long time recording guru Steve Guttenberg's discussion of this very issue in reference to his high quality ribbon high frequency speakers (in his Magnapans) and in regard to the theoretical ideal sound system, where output is identical to input ... which he points out may sound bad with some recordings. He cites a favorite Springsteen recording as "harsh," and "grainy" over the speakers he loves. He points out that over a perfect sound system, "a significant percentage of your music would sound pretty ratty." He enumerates some of the reasons for this sad state of affairs.

As to the volume (SPL) issue, my Klipshorns, with a Belle center, with excellent recordings (about 40 to 60% of CDs ???) sound great (and realistic -- a lot like the orchestras I used to play in) at very high SPLs (105 to 110 dB on very brief peaks, "fast," "C" on a meter with a Vu needle, which means that there might be unread peaks about 13 dB higher, i.e., 118 to 123 dB on extremely brief peaks). Yes, on bad recordings, they sound bad at high volume, but I have yet to find such a recording that did not betray its poor quality when played at moderate levels, as well.

[Coytee]

I'm going to go fatigue my ears for a little while..... [8]