My visit to Indianapolis!

[skonopa]

Last week, through the weekend and the first part of this week, I was in the Indianapolis area. The primary purpose was to attend a family reunion in Anderson, IN at the Mounds State Park. However, I decided to spend a couple extra days and got ahold of Michael Colter and stopped at his place for a visit. Yup, we both are definitly bachlors. He was concerned about how is place was looking as he said he did not have much time to clean up. I told him that I am a bachalar also. My own place is not much better. Actually, my own place is pretty much in disarray, especially as I got house exterior parts laying around the living room, awaiting for installation, such as light fixtures, dryer vents, etc.

Anyway, we proceded to play around with his LaScala setup he has in his living room. I've tried a Susypre track off thier When Time Fades album and was quite impressed with how well it sounded. I've also played a track from the Amaseffer Exodus : Slaves for Life album. Also sounded really good on there. Those THX subs he has really added to those LaScalas. Say what you want about adding subs to the system, but I am a firm believer in that a good quality sub will add to your setup. Just listen to Yes "Starship Trooper" on his rig and prepared to be belown away about how awesome that bass sounded when those "moog pedals" kick in on that track! However, I did notice a bit of sibliance at the very top end of that setup. It could just be my ears or something those custom rigged crossovers that he had. Anyway, it was a minor niggle, but hey, he asked for an honost opinion and figured I'd point that out. He didn't have his Jubilees hooked up though, which was kinda bummer, but we did listen to his KHorns. I am still amazed at how a good pair of KHorns sound. Love that mid-range clarity and that tight clean bass that they produce. Still in search mode for a good pair of Cornwalls or KHorns.

After that, we went out in the shop he has and helped out in setting up and balancing a couple of stage monitors for a gig that he is apparantly going to provide the sound for during the upcoming weekend. That was an interesting learning experience. Give me a better appreaciation as to what those guys do at the ProgPowerUSA festival that I am helping to sponser actually do (and that is one MASSIVE rig they got there!).

Also out in the shop, he had this large pile of spare reference drivers that I picked through and picked up a couple of spares - namely to replace one dented woofer in one of my RF-5s (the RF-5s were a floor model that I got from Tweeter when they were getting rid of thier Klipsch a few years ago) as well as a broken woofer in my RS-7 (the stupid shelf that it was sitting in gave away. The speaker fell on the floor and busted out the woofer. I did use wood filler to repair the cabinet and "superglued" the plastic flange that holds the driver in place, but would be nice to replace that with a "good" driver. Remounted the shelf, this time making sure it is bolted right into a wall stud. Thankfully the speaker does still sound and functions correctly.

Later that evening, Mike and I ditched out to go get a pizza to bring back. On the way back, we encoutered Trey Cannon riding up on his Harley. We chatted a bit sitting outside until the misquitos were getting annoying. I did mention that I had one of the "Rock" speakers and would like to get a second one, figuring I'll just order one through my local dealer. Trey said he had a spare that he wanted to get rid of, so I bought it off of him. Mike also have a gorgeous pair of Heresies that he wanted to sell, and I was tempted, but decided I wanted to hold out on a Cornwall or KHorn for my two-channel rig. After that, we watches this "Roxy Music Live at The Apollo" DVD that Mike has. That was an impressive performance! Quite an interesting and eclectic mix of styles of music that Roxy Music puts out. I looked them up and thinking it was "progressive rock", but in reality it is more of an "art rock" or "avant-garde rock" type of thing. Anyway, there is definitly overlap in the progressive and art rock styles with the two styles liberally borrowing from each other (such as using odd time signatures ala prog rock, or using eclectic instrumentation/styling ala art rock, etc). I was impressed and will have to go grab a copy of that DVD for myself.

We eventually turned in around midnight or so. The next morning, we played around a little bit more with the KHorn setup, only to have Trey call me up and invite me over to Klipsch HQ to go listen to the Palladiums. This was around 10:30ish or so, so I drove other there (only about 10 miles from Mike's place to the Klipsch building) spend about an hour and half or so checking out the full P-38F 7.1 rig they had setup. I was listening to my usual collection of music, such as a piece from Epica's Classical Conspiracy album and another Suspyre track. Trey had to ditch off for some appointment so Amy came in and we hung out a little bit more, listening to more stuff. "Professor Thump" eventually came in and he played some demos from a TrueHD demo disc, including a fusion jazz piece from Pat Methany and another fusion jazz piece from "Listen Up". I am not a huge fan of jazz, finding it boring for the most part, but I was quite amazed at this (and also can clearly see/hear where progressive rock also gets its roots). Of the various jazz styles that are out there, I found that I very much enjoy the fusion jazz the most - probably because this where progressive rock/metal is directly decended from. It was cool to get to hang out a little bit and see the Klipsch folks again.

Right when I was pulling out of the parking lot at the Klipsch facility, Trey was coming in. I mentioned to him that I wanted to grab lunch and then start heading back home to Virginia. He followed me to lunch, where we just ate at the Steak-n-Shake just up the road there and chatted a bit more. It was nice to just sit and chat a bit. Eventually he had to get back to work and I had to get on the road and start my long 11+ hour journey back. I finally got back home to Fredericksburg at just past midnight.

It was a nice trip out there to Indy, having to get to see my family, some of whom I've not seen in quite a number of years, as well as get to visit some friends here in the Klipsch Community, including within Klipsch itself. Despite all the tales of woe I was hearing, I still have a lot of respect for the Klipsch name and can only hope the company comes out of all this stronger and can still produce an excellent quality product, many of which I have and continue to enjoy using nearly everyday.

[LarryC]

I'm glad you all had a great time. The Palladium P-38 7.1 sounds like what I got to use -- what did you think?

Larry

[skonopa]

I'm glad you all had a great time. The Palladium P-38 7.1 sounds like what I got to use -- what did you think?

Larry

That Palladium rig sounded incredible! It was clean and well balanced all the way through the frequency range. The bass, no doubt helped by those subs was very tight, clean and musical, but dug real deep. The mid-range was crystal clear and you had no trouble picking out and hearing all the instruments in any given piece (assuming what you are listening to is well recorded). And on top of all this? They were running it through a friggan DENON AVR 3808CI RECIEVER! No big fancy high-end tubes or Macintosh gear or any such! A Denon reciever and a Sony Blu-Ray player! That was pretty much the front-end they were using! But then again, that Denon reciever is no slouch of a piece (at $1,700 no less). For all it's worth, I am still using my trusty ol' Denon AVR 3802 as a pre/pro. The only reason I may consider to upgrade is that I'd like to eventually get TrueHD capability.

[Dennie]

Great Story Steven,

It sounds like you were able to get a lot of "Klipsch time" in. [Y]

I would love to hear that 7.1 set up, especially with BluRay disks. It also sounds like you had a good and beneficial time at Michaels! It always nice to pick up some needed parts!

Thanks for sharing it,

Dennie

[LarryC]

That Palladium rig sounded incredible! It was clean and well balanced all the way through the frequency range. The bass, no doubt helped by those subs was very tight, clean and musical, but dug real deep. The mid-range was crystal clear and you had no trouble picking out and hearing all the instruments in any given piece (assuming what you are listening to is well recorded).

I agree with you completely! The clarity was great for classical playback. It had Aragon electronics, but I don't know what DVD player.

And you're right about the sub (or subs?) -- I listened to one of my DVDs on a P-39 pair without subs the next day, and it didn't have the bass foundation that the P-38 w/sub did. The sub was outstanding with classical, too.

Thanks.

[gnatnoop]

Great Story Steven,

It sounds like you were able to get a lot of "Klipsch time" in.

I would love to hear that 7.1 set up, especially with BluRay disks. It also sounds like you had a good and beneficial time at Michaels! It always nice to pick up some needed parts!

Thanks for sharing it,

Dennie

Yeah, great story! Thanks for writing. LaScalas, Khorns and Palladiums..OH MY!

[Professor Thump]

skonopa,

It was great to see you this week. I am glad you got to hear our latest theater creation. Pretty cool huh... I think you also got a chance to appreciate jazz a little more.

[picky]

Steve: Great story; thanks for sharing it. We sure missed you out there in June. Better late than never, right? Sounds like a great time, but I wish I'd been there too. Take care, man. -Glenn

[skonopa]

skonopa,

It was great to see you this week. I am glad you got to hear our latest theater creation. Pretty cool huh... I think you also got a chance to appreciate jazz a little more.

It was awesome to get to stop by and visit for a short bit of time to see you, Amy and Trey. Yeah, that was neat to see a jazz performance like that if full high-def with TrueHD sound. Pretty amazing and about as close to actually being there. I went and looked up jazz fusion as a style and finding just how much influence it actually has on the progressive rock and metal that I like to listen to. Just give the Thought Chamber album a listen as well as any of the current Zero Hour albums for very telling examples. A lot of the same kind of riffing that I was hearing in that Pat Metheny piece you were playing, is also heard quite a bit on the Zero Hour Specs of Pictures Burnt Beyond album.

[DrWho]

Very cool [Y] Gotta love the guys at Klipsch and it's always an adventure at Colter's.

I don't like jazz either, but I've been listening to the jazz station on the radio in my car lately....I wonder if they're not playing fusion jazz or something because it's nothing like the jazz I don't like.

If you come across any cool fusion jazz albums, I'd love to hear about them.

[skonopa]

Steve: Great story; thanks for sharing it. We sure missed you out there in June. Better late than never, right? Sounds like a great time, but I wish I'd been there too. Take care, man. -Glenn

Yeah, that would've been cool to have been out there during that June thing. In fact, while waiting to hook up with Mike, I had some time to kill, so I took a ride over to that Broad Ripple Park myself as I was curious as to just what the area looked like where you guys had this. They got a pretty nice public pool there, that I made use of on that hot day. Funny they still had a flyer from that fesitval back on June 13th on the wall in the men's locker room.

If it wasn't for the fact that I was going to be out there this past weekend for this family reunion, I would've came out there for the June thing, but alas, only have so much time for travel and only so much time I can get away from work to do these things.

I don't know what kind of plans will be for next year and if anything can be done in terms of a "Klipsch Fest/Pilgrimage" (things are not looking very rosey from Klipsch's point of view), but if there is anything, I hope I can make it. That being said, I'll most likely be in the Indy area quite a bit more anyway, as you can tell that I do have a bit of family in the area (my oldest brother lives there in Noblesville, for example, plus my parents are considering moving out there when my father retires in a couple of years). Most of the family is in Anderson, which is some 25 miles to the north, but still close enough. I travelled farther than that for over 14 1/2 years just to get to work each way.

Anyway, sounds like you had a nice little road trip yourself in getting your trusty ol' Eico amplifier back from Craig's.

[colterphoto1]

It's been great having a few Klipsch buddies dropping in this week. I really wished we could have coordinated it better but as it was, Steve K and Trey were over Monday night and Steve S dropped in for the last leg of his Harley cross country adventure and visited with Roger on Tuesday night.

I kind of gave SK a tutorial of how to tune a PA system, I'll post more on that in the Commercial section. Basically I had a handheld pink noise generator/real time analyzer and we used that in combination with iPod music playback and open mics to tweak two types of monitors for reduced feedback. When finished, I was able to nearly stick a Shure SM58 into the monitor at pretty full volume with NO FEEDBACK.

I appreciate Steve's excellent hearing and ability to put what he's hearing into words. I've never thought of my LS as sibilant, but they are pretty toppy for K77M's. Better that then lacking in high end, especially with my older ears. I'm not sure if the sibilance was caused by my custom networks, possibly that I have K55M with network tweaked similar to AA (which should go with K55V), but it suits my ears. I really enjoyed the theatrics, incredible voice, and musicianship of Within Temptations' 'Frozen' from the Black Symphony. This is a combo pack CD/DVD and the concert with full orchestra was incredible. We also listened to some Susphyre 'One Time Fades' and 'Lighted End Rhyme' in 2 channel mode with subs. The Yes 'Starship Trooper' was later in the evening when Trey was over. I just love the feeling the THX subs give with 20 hz pedal notes- it's like the floor just falls away from you.

I think Steve enjoyed the Khorns, played dead flat with Yamaha pre and Crown DC300IIA. We listened to some of his CD's on the AH! player and I spun a few misc jazz LP's for comparison of dynamic range. (Weather Report and Thelonius Monk rather unknown pieces)

Steve did not mention but the room he has reserved in his basement for 2 channel listening is almost identical to my gallery room (21x15) so he'll have the same basic geometry as me. I think my room has exquisite soundstage and I know that with his symphonic rock mixes that he'll enjoy the precise instrument placment afforded by this setup. We listened to one piece from Amaseffer/Exodus that had a lot of 'Wall' like sound effects, layered vocals etc. and you could hear every nuance with this system.

It was a pleasure having you over for the day Steve. It's always an open invitation to my close Klipsch brothers andI'm glad we finally had a chance to get together at The House of Klipsch/Roadies!

Michael

[colterphoto1]

It's pretty cool when everyone calls your home 'The House of Klipsch' and various Klipsch engineers just happen to drop by every so often. Dig it!

The Roxy DVD is 'Live at the Apollo'. I have been a longtime Roxy/Eno/Manzanera fan and was turned onto this disc by fellow Klispch forum member Grog. It's one of my favorite concert films out of probably 30 that I own. Great musicianship, fantastic lighting, solid soundstage and brilliant mix of a very eclectic band. I think Steve's label of 'avant-garde rock' fits most closely. Glad you enjoyed it!

M

[kaiser SET say]

Nice Steve, great write up[]

[colterphoto1]

Tim and Iain need to get up here sometime!

[kaiser SET say]

Yes we DO!!!

[skonopa]

It was a pleasure having you over for the day Steve. It's always an open invitation to my close Klipsch brothers andI'm glad we finally had a chance to get together at The House of Klipsch/Roadies!

Michael

Yeah, that was a blast. Next time I am in the area, I'll have to try to look you up.

Thanks for having me.

[colterphoto1]

Ben S came over last night to help with PA so that's THREE Klipsch visits in a WEEK. That has to be some sort of record. Prof Thump heading over to help unload a bit later this afternoon! Fun stuff. So yeah, if any of you regular Forum dwellers is ever in the Indy area, drop me a line ahead of time and arrange a visit. I'm happy to have guests!

Michael

[ClaudeJ1]

skonopa,

It was great to see you this week. I am glad you got to hear our latest theater creation. Pretty cool huh... I think you also got a chance to appreciate jazz a little more.

Yo, Professor, care to point me in the direction of where I can purchase your demo DVD? I want to do some thumping of my own in my setup, eh?

[skonopa]

I would love to hear that 7.1 set up, especially with BluRay disks. It also sounds like you had a good and beneficial time at Michaels! It always nice to pick up some needed parts!

Well, this weekend I got to swapping out a couple of the drivers in my system. One of my RF-5s had a really nasty crease in one of the drivers. It actually looks like somebody took a ball-point pen to it. I was able to swap that out with a good, nearly pristine driver. Also, one of my RF-7s had a minor crease in one of it's drivers where my thumb slipped into it while I was putting that beast up on it's shelf. Again, also swapped it out. Also swapped the driver with the broken flange on my aforementioned RS-7, although I noticed the driver I had in there indeed have a bucking magent, but the replacement tha I got did not. Probably not a big deal, as that RS-7 is no where near my TV. I did hang onto the original drivers, even the one with the big crease in it (will have to take a pic of it and post it up), since these were all still perfectly functional drivers. The issues I had were all pretty much cosmetic, but you know, I like to try to keep my equipment as pristine as possible, plus it does give me that nice warm-n-fuzzy to know I got good pristine drivers all the way around again. Nice to also have that spare tweeter in the very unlikely event that I blow one out (other than that one time, I very rarely ever really turn my gear up that loud, but then again, you never know, i.e., an errant lightening strike, or what have ya. That B&K, even though it is solid-state, does deliever some very nice clean wattage to these '7s. I believe it runs in full Class A for like the first couple of watts before going into Class AB mode).

Still awaiting contruction on my new deck before I can put these rock speakers to good use. I did hook them up in the basement on my two-channel rig and they do sound quite nice. I did, just over this weekend, pick up a brand-new Denon DRA-397 two-channel reciever that I am going to use for the forthcoming outdoor system. I also got the iPod dock to go with it, plus I'll be running one of the outputs of my Elan Via!DJ music server to it (it can handle up to four simultaneous outputs, each able to support its own stream, thus I could be listening to one thing on the main system, and have something else entirely playing on the outdoor system at the same time.) I may go and scare up a spare CD player as well to hook up, thus pretty much covering all the bases for most of the music I typically listen to.